Most Vulnerable Building Technical Elements in a Multi-Hazard Scenario

Natural hazards impact urban systems and buildings causing economic losses, safety issues and downtimes. The frequency and intensity of these events may significantly increase risks in the future. Understanding how well buildings can withstand hazardous events is essential for developing efficient preventive interventions to mitigate the impacts of such hazardous events. This paper provides a statistical descriptive analysis of the database of the emergency interventions performed by the Italian fire safety department on buildings within the last ten years. The analysis is aimed at determining the most vulnerable building elements in a multi-hazard scenario. The results show that the most frequently damaged elements are those of the building envelopes, and they pose a constant risk to the urban system. Aggregated data reveal that meteorological hazards combined with the lack of maintenance are the most common causes of intervention. The analysis allowed the authors to detect the most vulnerable building elements against a set of classified hazards, which will support the assessment of the building risk, caused by the vulnerability of buildings’ envelope elements.