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Seismic risk management of a large public facilities portfolio: a New Zealand case study

Kevin Quinn Walsh (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand and Department of Property, Auckland Council, Auckland, New Zealand)
Reza Jafarzadeh (Abbaspour School of Engineering, Civil Engineering Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran)
Nicola M. Short (Silverbeet Design and Consultancy Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand)
Jason M. Ingham (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand)

Facilities

ISSN: 0263-2772

Article publication date: 3 October 2016

341

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to assist facilities asset managers who are dealing with regulatory environments pertaining to earthquakes and buildings. These professionals can learn a great deal from the successes and short-comings of a case study programme from the Auckland Council Property Department (ACPD), which manages the public facilities portfolio for the largest local administrative region in New Zealand in both population and landmass.

Design/methodology/approach

ACPD has initiated its response to New Zealand’s earthquake mitigation mandates by identifying buildings most at risk to an earthquake in its large and varied portfolio through the use of a rapid building evaluation programme strategically targeted to vulnerable building types with consequential attributes, including service type, number of occupants, floor area and geographic location.

Findings

ACPD was able to rapidly cull down its portfolio of approximately 3,500 buildings to just over 100 “high-exposure” buildings in urgent need of evaluation, set priorities for future evaluations, estimate needed operational and capital expenditures for long-term planning and provide useful information to more general facilities management decision-making processes.

Originality/value

A number of major cities around the world in areas of high seismicity have enacted ordinances mandating seismic retrofitting. However, much of the existing guiding literature regarding earthquake-related portfolio evaluations and costs pertains to specific scenarios involving real or hypothetical earthquakes. This case study, in contrast, details the approach taken by a public portfolio owner responding to legal mandates and attempting to quantify and reduce its life-safety risk exposure across a large portfolio as efficiently as possible using readily available information, a rapid building evaluation programme and best-practice predictive models for consulting and construction work.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Auckland Council Property Department (ACPD) and the information provided by the Auckland Council departments of Building Control, Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM) and Health & Safety. Information from building evaluations carried out by local engineering firms and by former and current students at the University of Auckland – including Jade Littleton, Esther Smith, Rohit Pantham, Carishma Yeleswaram, Chris Luttrell, Kirby McClean, Rui Wang, Cale Wood and Yuchen Song – was referenced herein.

Citation

Walsh, K.Q., Jafarzadeh, R., Short, N.M. and Ingham, J.M. (2016), "Seismic risk management of a large public facilities portfolio: a New Zealand case study", Facilities, Vol. 34 No. 13/14, pp. 809-827. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-04-2015-0017

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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