A design tool for risk reduction in learning facilities: Earthquake and tropical storm prone areas

This research thesis seeks to provide a tool that could be affectively used when building educational structures in vulnerable areas affected by multiple hazards around the globe. The first chapter introduces the reader to the topic of natural hazards, their impact and the key terminology with a deeper outlook on the deadliest global hazards in the past 20 years – earthquakes and storms. The following chapter was done in a collaboration with our colleagues, Juan Benavides and Erika Cerra, in which a tool was developed in order to assist NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) or CBOs (Community-based organizations) in choosing the most adequate building components with respect to the specific site characteristics, climate and hazard/s affecting the area where a school is needed, maximizing the participation and use of the community’s capacity. The hazards developed by the authors in the matrix tool are earthquakes, floods, cyclones and diseases. Finally, in the third chapter, the tool is applied in one of the most multi hazard prone and vulnerable countries – Haiti. This thesis was done as a collaboration between Andrea Matevska and Jana Tosheva.