Seismic Policy, Operations, and Research Uses for a Building Inventory in an Earthquake-Prone City

After the 2016 New Zealand Kaikoura Earthquake, the absence of information about the state of buildings in Wellington proved to be a source of significant policy uncertainty. Authorities did not know what damages to expect and therefore how to react, and policies needed to be formulated without a clear quantification of the risks. Moreover, without detailed knowledge of the existing buildings, it was difficult to assess what the available legal and regulatory tools can achieve and choose among them. We describe the creation of a building inventory database for Wellington initiated by the authors. This database aims to assist the generation of research on the risks, impacts, and viable solutions for reducing future seismic risk in Wellington’s central business district (CBD). The database includes structural, economic, and market information on virtually every significant building in the CBD. Its primary purposes are: to collate and provide the best available information about the expected seismic performance of the existing building stock; to assess the impact of possible multiple building failures due to a seismic event; to describe a viable cost-effective path for seismic retrofitting; and to inform the design of a regulatory structure that can facilitate this resilience-building agenda.