Proceedings of the International Symposium on Engineering Lessons Learned fromthe 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, March 1-4, 2012, Tokyo, Japan

DEVELOPMENT OF SURVEY MANAGEMENTSYSTEM FOR BUILDING DAMAGE ASSESSMENT
Makoto FUJIU1, Muneyoshi NUMADA2 , Miho OHARA3 and Kimro MEGURO
1

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo,
Tokyo, Japan, fujiu@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
2
Assistant Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo,
Tokyo, Japan, numa@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
3
Associate Professor, Interfaculty of Information Studies, The University of Tokyo,Tokyo, Japan, ohara@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
4Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, The University of Tokyo,Tokyo, Japan, meguro@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

ABSTRACT: This paper proposed the new system for building damage assessment
using photos of damaged house taken by residents or volunteer fire corps in damaged
area. Specialists outside the damaged confirm these photos on the website and assess
their damage levels. All the data used for building damage assessment is managed with
GIS database on the management server located outside the damaged area under cloud
condition. This kind of digital management system can contribute to enhance theaccuracy and efficiency of the procedures for issuing the Victim Certificates for residents.
In this paper, the total system for supporting building damage assessment was designed
and its prototype system was developed. The system for uploading the photos ofdamaged houses was developed as mobile communication service. The remote system
for specialists to assess the damage level was developed as web service.
Key Words: Great East Japan earthquake, earthquake engineering, type instruction,format, Times New- Roman, 11pt, indent if key words exceed one lineINTRODUCTION
In In Japan, several big earthquakes are expected to occur in the near future. A lot of structural
damages due to these earthquakes will cause enormous needs for building damage assessment.
Building damage assessment is necessary for governments to issue the Victim Certificates for residents
who suffered housing damages. However, current number of human recourses who are trained with theprocedure of building damage assessment is not enough. It is necessary to develop the new system
which can correspond to next large-scale earthquake disaster. The guidelines of general procedure forinspecting building damage and evaluating loss due to disasters were published by the Cabinet Officein 1968, 2001 and 2009. However, in past disasters, various problems of building damage assessment
have been pointed out such as inaccurate inspection, difficulty in quick inspection and lack of human1629

recourses with sufficient skill of assessment.In this research, new remote system for building damage
assessment using IT system was proposed and prototype system was developed. These systems havesome features that can solve some problems pointed out by past building damage assessments andexecute building damage assessment quickly after a large scale earthquake disaster. This proposedsystem has two sub-systems. First one is photo uploading system used in damaged area. Second one isassessment system for supporting experts such as registered architects and experienced workers
outside the damaged area. Finally, we report that design and functions of developed system.

PROBLEMS OF PAST BUILDING DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS AND SOLUTIONSThere are 3 inspection stages in building damage assessment such as “Primary Inspection”,“Secondary Inspection” and “Issue of the Victim Certificates”. Through these stages, damage levels ofbuildings are decided by visual inspection. The primary inspection evaluates the damages appeared on
the exterior of a building. The secondary one evaluates not only the exterior damage but also theinterior damage. The purpose of the secondary inspection is to provide the second opinion for theevaluation when the owner or resident of a damaged house does not accept the result of the primaryone. Therefore, the primary inspection is carried out for all the damaged buildings, while thesecondary inspection is usually carried out by request. Finally, Victim Certificates for residents areissued from the local governments. The process of assessment needs accuracy, quickness, objectivity
and fairness because the results of the assessments are used as criteria for providing public monetary
supports for rebuilding their livelihood. However, various problems have been pointed out for thebuilding damage assessments after past earthquakes. We reviewed literatures regarding past several
building damage assessments such as Shigekawa (2005) and classified reported problems as shown inTable 1. As a result, enormous problems in each inspection stage were obtained. Our proposals tosolve the problems at each stage were shown in table 1. For example, “primary inspection” stage has
the problems with low inspection accuracy and insufficient inspectors’ knowledge. In order to solvethese problems, we proposed double check procedures to enhance accuracy of assessments.

CONCEPT OF NEW REMOTE SYSTEM FOR BUILDING DAMAGE ASSESSMENT
As a new system for achieving all the solutions for the problems reported at the past building damage
assessments as shown in table 1, we proposed a new remote system for supporting building damage
assessments during large-scale earthquake disaster. The concept of the system is illustrated in figure 1.
The total system consists of two sub-systems. The first one is photo upload system in damaged area.
Photos of a damaged house are taken by residents or volunteer fire corps in damaged area and thosedata is uploaded to the server. The second one is remote assessment system for specialists. Specialists
located outside the damaged area confirm these photos through the website, and assess their damagelevels and area. All the data used for building damage assessment is managed with GIS database on
the management server located outside the damaged area under cloud condition. This kind of digitalmanagement system can contribute to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of the procedures forissuing the Victim Certificates for residents.

DEVELOPMENT OF PROTOTYPE REMOTE SYSTEM FOR BUILDING DAMAGE
ASSESSMENT
Development of photo upload system in damaged area

Here, prototype of “Photo upload system in damaged area” was developed. Photos of a damaged
house are taken by residents or volunteer fire corps in damaged area and those data is uploaded to theserver. This system was developed by Android as the mobile phone operating system which is installed

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Table 1

Problems and solutions of building damage assessment after earthquakes

Flow of Inspection

1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu
Earthquake①Criteria

There is no standard tocarry out the building
damage assessment.
(Murao,1999)②Summon ofInspection

Insufficient number ofassistant staff(Murao,1999)③Training-Ⅰ-Criteria

Ⅱ-Training of
Inspector

Ⅲ-Screening④Organize

Inspector's knowledge
was insufficient.
(Murao,1999)⑤Screening-⑥PrimaryInspection

Problemconcerninginspection accuracy(Murao,1999)
Difficulty in responding
to residents who havedissatisfaction
ininspection results(Murao,1999)

Ⅳ-Inspection⑦Secondary
Inspection--⑧Victim Certificate①Use of GIS-

Used by ex post analysis②Use of GPS③Mobile phone
Use of electronics
devices④Digital camera⑤Cloud computing

Not used because oftechnologicaldevelopment

2004 Niigata Chuetsu
2007 Niigata ChuetsuEarthquake
oki Earthquake
There is no standard to carry out the building
damage assessment. Neither examination methods
nor the inspection methods are clearly provided.
Only guidelines were issued by the Cabinet Office.
(Shigekawa, 2005)
Insufficient number of Difficulty in assemble ofassistant staffinspectors(Shigekawa,2005)(Tanaka,2008)
Becausemethodof assessment is different ineach local government,
training is difficult.
(Horie,2004)
Difficulty in gathering enoughnumberof
Inspectors and keeping
inspection quality(Shigekawa,2005)

Limit in on-site inspection for lack of inspectors(Shigekawa,2005)

Solution of past
problems in this research-Inspectors who goes in
thedamaged
area
becomes unnecessary.
Priortraining
inspectors
canexecuted.

tobe・The owner of damaged
house and the firefighters can become aninvestigator.
・Inspection quality cankeep by doing priortraining and taking a
picture using instruction.
Because of a lot ofsupport workers exist
outside of damaged area.
So,alotofinvestigations can beexecuted.

Difference
betweenstructural
engineer's
aspect and the Cabinet Office guideline(Tanaka,2008)
The assessment result
Inspector's knowledge
keeps accuracy by a
was insufficient.
double check.
(Shigekawa,2005)
Problemconcerning Problem concerning
The assessment result
inspection accuracy
inspection accuracy
keeps accuracy by a(Shigekawa,2005)(Tanaka,2008) double check.
Difficulty in responding
to residents who havedissatisfactionininspection results(Shigekawa,2005)
Because of a lot ofsupport workers exist
Difficulty in predicting
outside of damaged area.
number of applicationSo,
alotof(Tanaka,2008)
investigations can beexecuted.
The assessment resultNeeds
forassistant keeps accuracy by astaff'sfor
thirdly double check.
inspection
So, number of execution(Tanaka,2008) of third inspection canbe reduced.
The efficiency of work
Because of issue of thewas low, because thevictims certificate wasissue
ofenormous
automated, the amountcertificates was the firstofworkoftimeforlocal
administrative office cangovernments.
be greatly reduced.
(Yoshitomi,2005)
Possible to use GIS byUsed by ex post analysis Used by ex post analysis improving the Webenvironment.
Standard equipment in a
Not usedNot used
smart phone.
Theusability
has
Used a little.
Used a little.
improved greatly with asmart phone.
・ Only used for therecord
Standard equipment in a
Used a little.
・ Limitin
data
smart phone.
processing using PC
for lack of capacity.
Not used because of Not used because of The Cloud computing
technological
technologicalcan be used with a smart
development.
development.
phone.

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Taking a picture of damaged house in damaged area

Remote building damage assessment by specialist

・Demand of necessary
photograph・Correspond to
inspector's demand.

Instruction oftaking picture

Upload ofphoto

System-１

Area-BArea-A

Interactive condition

Area-C

Area-D

Area-E・GIS information
・Photo information

Input
damagedleverfor
each houses

System-２

Photo data・Inspector’s name・GIS information・Monitoring of execution condition etc.

Web・GIS Server

Fig. 1 Concept of remote system for building damage assessment

in almost all the smart phones except iPhone. Photo upload application is installed to each Android
smart phone by inspectors who are residents or volunteer fire corps in damaged area. Flow of photo
upload system is shown in figure 2. Firstly, residents or volunteer fire corps as inspectors input thebasic information such as GPS information, address and owner name. Secondary, they upload somephotos such as overview of damaged house, incline of damaged house and damaged point of roofs,walls and fundamentals. Finally, they confirm the input data and some photos. Method of completingfor photo upload in damaged area using upload application is as follows. Inspectors take somedamaged house photos which are full views of a damaged house (north side, east side, south side andwest side) and closeup views of damaged points. They select some photos for upload in each factors
page, and fill in the comments about damage level and location of a house etc. as shown in figure 3.

Inspectors should take pictures of damaged house concerning three factors: externals, inclination
and building element (roof, exterior wall and foundation). Furthermore, they have to relate
closeup views of damaged points to full views using touch screen functions as shown in figure
4.Figures 3 and 4 are the prototype images of the system for the primary inspection. The prototype
images of photo upload system were developed based on the data of totally damaged houses due tothe 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. After taking some pictures, inspectors need toupload them to an exclusive server in cloud condition using upload application. Using thisapplication makes it easier to select and upload photos which are taken by inspector in damaged
area. The reason is that smart phone has touch screen functions which are tap, drag, flick andpinch out/in operations.
Development of remote assessment system for specialists
Here, prototype of “remote assessment system of photos of damaged houses was developed.
Specialists outside the damaged area confirm these photos on the website and assess their damagelevels. All the data used for building damage assessment is managed with GIS database on themanagement server located outside the damaged area under cloud condition. Flow of remoteassessment system is shown in figure 5. Firstly, specialists who are registered architects andexperienced workers outside the damaged area confirm the basic information such as shape ofdamaged house, location and seismic level on the web system and overview all the photos of adamaged house. Secondary, they assess the damage level and area using some photos such as
overview of damaged house, incline of damaged house and damaged point of roofs, walls andfundamentals. Finally, specialists confirm the input data and some photos. Then result of first1632

assessment is passed to the next specialist to carry out double check.Figures 6 and 7 show theprototype images of the system for primary inspection. These images were developed based on thedata of totally damaged houses due to the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. Total
damage level of a house is decided based on damage levels of three factors: externals, inclination
and building element. Assessment for one damaged house should be conducted by two or three
specialists to double-check the result and keep accuracy, damage level and area from pull down
choice set in each factor page. In addition, they can request additional photos for accurate
assessment to inspectors in damaged area through the each assessment page. In final page, fill inthe special or caution comments of assessed damaged house and pass to the next specialist. Whenthe assessment ends here, Victim Certificates for resident is issued from local government.
Transition of input screen

Input and contents of confirmations

basic information screen

Input the GPS information, zip code,address, owner name,, phone number, etc.

photo upload main screen

Confirm the inspection site, house and GIS
dataoverview photo screen

Upload the photos of damaged house as
north side, east side, west side and south
side

Inclines screen

Upload the photos of incline

area of roofs screen

Input the area of roofs

photos of roofs screen

Upload the photos of roofs and damaged
point

area of walls screen

Input the length and width of walls in eachsidephotos of walls screen

Input the photos of walls in each side anddamaged point

fundamental length screen

Input the length of fundamentals in eachside

photos of fundamentals
screenInput the photos of fundamentals in eachside and damaged point

end screen

Fig. 2 Flow of upload system in damaged area

Fig. 4 Photo upload system in damaged area
(upload page)Fig. 3 Flow of remote assessment system

Fig. 5 Photo upload system in damaged area(relationship page)1633

Fig. 6 Remote assessment system(overview assessment page)Fig. 7 Remote assessment system(wall assessment page)

CONCLUSIONSIn Japan, several big earthquakes are expected to occur in the near future. It is necessary to develop thenew system which can be corresponds to next large-scale earthquake disaster. In this research, newremote assessment system for building damage assessment was proposed.
Some problems of past building damage assessments were analyzed and applicability of newtechnologies including new electronics devices which are GPS, GIS, digital camera and mobile phone(smart phone) was discussed. Among these problems, this paper focused on “Inspection stage” and“Assessment stage”, and proposed new remote system for building damage assessment using both
mobile communication service and web service.
The prototype images of remote building damage assessment system were developed based on the dataof totally damaged houses due to the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. In the future,
we plan to improve the functions of the system and examine its effectiveness through experiments forspecialists.

REFERENCES
Murao, O., Yamazaki, F., 1999, Comparison of Building Damage Evaluation by Local Governments
after the 1995 hyogoken-nanbu earthquake, Journal of Architecture Planning and Environmental
Engineering, No.515, pp.187-194
Shigekawa, K., Tanaka, S., Horie, K., Hayashi, H., 2005, Some Regulational Issues on Building
Damage Assessment –A Case Study of Niigata-ken Chuetsu Earthquake- , Journal of social Safety
Science No.7, pp.133-140
Horie, K., Shigekawa, K., Maki, N., Tanaka, S., Hayashi, H., 2005, Application of Damage
Assessment Training (DATS) to Ojiya City following 2004 Niigata-ken Chuetsu Earthquake–Through a Disaster Response Support Activity for Issuing Victim Certificate- , Journal of social
Safety Science No.7, pp.123-132
Yoshitomi, N., Hayashi, H., Urakawa, G., Shigekawa, K., Tanaka, S., Horie, K., Matsuoka, K., 2005,
The Development of a Damage Certificate Issuing Support System –A new disaster response
database schema created for the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake- , Journal of social Safety Science
No.7, pp.141-150
Tanaka, S., 2008, A Study on the Building Damage Assessment Processes for the 2007 Niigata
Chuetsu Oki Earthquake Disaster : Kashiwazaki Case Study , Proceedings of social Safety ScienceNo.22, pp.35-38

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