Location: Yangon. Myanmar

Start and Completion Date: 2021- Terminated

Area: 784 km²

Partners:VESTA ECC

Clients: World Bank

Note: The contract has been terminated because of the coup in Myanmar.

Project Description:

Myanmar as one of the largest countries in Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries exposed to multiple hazards, including floods, cyclones, earthquakes, and landslides. Despite the existence of the risks due to potential hazards, the critical infrastructure and buildings in Myanmar are quite vulnerable and lack of public awareness has led to low demand for buildings with proper features.

The main objective of the project was to conduct a seismic vulnerability assessment and supplementary investigations to engage the World Bank (WB) to support the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) in developing a seismic resilience strategy for public buildings in Yangon. In this regard, the project aimed to develop a risk reduction strategy introducing effective intervention strategies and other options with the object of reducing the seismic vulnerability of public buildings and improving their safety and functionality.

Service Provided:

The main tasks of the project were as below:

Task 1. Preparing the inception report (literature review & desktop analysis)

It was focused on the available crucial information related to the objectives of the project. This information included the existing data on the buildings of the city, census data, UN-HABITAT studies, existing datasets and other information on the physical characteristics of the public buildings, hazard datasets, and maps, design documents, reports of recent inspections/building assessments, list of “Candidate” buildings, reference standards, codes and regulations, etc. Gaps in the data were identified in this step, and a needs assessment analysis was conducted.

• Task 1 deliverables:

In addition to the detailed approaches and methodologies for the implementation of the tasks, the outcomes of the comprehensive literature review on the natural hazards, disaster risk reduction policies, and recommendations, urban resiliency strategies, profiles of the building data of Yangon city, list of “candidate buildings”, reference standards and codes, and most common building typologies were provided in this report. Finally, the project management plan in terms of project communication and organization, project schedule, change management, and documentation and meetings were presented.

Task 2. Providing and implementing building selection methodology and framework;

To recommend a list of potentially ‘eligible’ public buildings to be inspected in stage 3 a decision-making framework and methodology was proposed.

• Task 2 Deliverables:

The proposed methodology and framework included a range of different criteria such as the geographic location of the area concerning the active fault zones, potential risk of a major earthquake, population density and other demographic data, flood risks, building vulnerability, economic benefits, public service functionalities, role in the emergency management and response, and other factors as appropriate to select and priorities public facilities for further assessment. The prioritization was developed based on providing a ranking and relative importance of each criterion. This methodology was prepared not only for the prioritization of a set of buildings proposed under the project (i.e. 186 from YCDC and 60 from UN-Habitat) but also is a replicable approach to the prioritization of building assessments by YCDC in the future.

Task 3. Field inspections of a representative sample of 50 public buildings;

It included all activities related to the field inspections of 50 public buildings. In this regard, visual inspection, pre-survey data gathering, training for survey teams and government counterparts or nominated participants, quality assurance, and database development had to be conducted.

Task 4. Analytical work on the representative buildings;

It was focused on developing the method of characterizing the most common typologies of eligible public buildings, the methodology for defining criteria to select and determine an appropriate number of “reference buildings,” performance-based assessment to recommend conceptual upgrades based on types of buildings, and technical approach for developing fragility/vulnerability curves of the selected structural typologies with and without upgrades.

Task 5. Prioritization framework to inform sequencing of improvement of eligible public buildings.

As the final task, options for Seismic Risk Reduction Strategies had to be recommended for implementation by YCDC. Moreover, intervention options had to be recommended for utilization in the sequencing batches of the buildings for improvement.