A GIS-based multi-criteria analysis model for earthquake vulnerability assessment using Choquet integral and game theory

A GIS-based multi-criteria analysis model using the integration of the Choquet integral and game theory is proposed in this paper for seismic vulnerability assessment (SVA). The proposed SVA model is able to take into account the effects of complementary, redundant, and independent criteria. Moreover, the proposed model provides an insight into experts’ preferences using game theory parameters. The application of the proposed model is demonstrated by assessing the seismic vulnerability of Tehran city. Due to the limited accessibility to data, only nine contributing criteria are specified which are associated with physical, social, and systemic vulnerability. Five experts are asked to determine the seismic vulnerability degree of 100 randomly selected urban statistical units. Particle swarm optimization method is then applied to extract fuzzy measures from information provided by the experts. Game theory is also employed to compute the interactions among the criteria and to evaluate the role of each criterion in the decision-making process. Finally, a vulnerability map is produced based on the knowledge of the consensus of the five experts and the results are validated by comparing with the previous models using Spearman’s correlation coefficient method.