Findings from University of Greenwich Update Knowledge of People-Environment Relations (A building classification scheme of housing stock in Malawi for earthquake risk assessment)

2020 MAY 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Daily Real Estate News -- New research on People-Environment Relations is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Chatham, United Kingdom, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “This study presents a building classification scheme for residential houses in Malawi by focusing upon informal construction, which accounts for more than 90% of housing in the country with the highest urbanisation rate in the world. The proposed classification is compatible with the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) method and can be used for seismic vulnerability assessments of building stock in Malawi.”

Financial support for this research came from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Greenwich, “To obtain realistic proportions of the building classes that are prevalent in Malawi, a building survey was conducted in Central and Southern Malawi between 10th and 20th July 2017. The results from the survey are used to modify the PAGER-based proportions of main housing typologies by reflecting actual housing construction in the surveyed areas.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The results clearly highlight the importance of using realistic building stock data for seismic risk assessment in Malawi; relying on global building stock information can result in significant bias of earthquake impact assessment.”

For more information on this research see: A building classification scheme of housing stock in Malawi for earthquake risk assessment. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 2020;35(2):507-537. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment can be contacted at: Springer, Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 Gz Dordrecht, Netherlands. (Springer - www.springer.com; Journal of Housing and the Built Environment - http://www.springerlink.com/content/1566-4910/)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from P. Kloukinas, University of Greenwich, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Medway Campus, P351 Pembroke Bldg, Chatham ME4 4TB, United Kingdom. Additional authors for this research include V. Novelli, J. Macdonald, I. Kafodya, I. Ngoma and K. Goda.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-019-09697-5. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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