Abstract
Post-earthquake damage and usability surveys are fundamental in managing the emergency phase in the
aftermath of a strong seismic event. In Italy, in addition to the damage and usability evaluation, this survey
enables the collection of building geometrical and structural attributes related to seismic vulnerability. With the
development of the Observed Damage Database (Da.D.O.) platform, most of the data collected during the postearthquake
inspections have been harmonized and made freely available to the scientific community. These data
constitute an important heritage for scientific purposes but, until now, the potential for seismic risk assessment
has not been fully exploited, partly because the format specifications are particular to the Italian environmental
conditions, and the attributes are not directly related to existing risk-oriented classifications. In order to reliably
extract the exposure and vulnerability information and harmonize it according to recognized international
standards, an innovative methodology has been developed to convert the information collected through the
AeDES form, used in Italy since 1997 for post-earthquake usability surveys, to formats more suitable for a largescale
risk evaluation. In the proposed approach, the information on the typological characteristics has been firstly
described according to the taxonomy proposed by the Global Earthquake Model (GEM). Subsequently, using a
score-based methodology, the most likely EMS-98 building classes have been assigned based on the observed
GEM attributes. This methodology has been exemplified with the data of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, and the
results highlight the great potential for post-event surveys to provide relevant information for Disaster Risk
Reduction (DRR) activities.