A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Building damage assessment in natural disasters: A trans- and interdisciplinary approach combining domain knowledge, 3D machine learning, and crowdsourcing




AuthorsKohns, Julia; Zahs, Vivien; Klonner, Carolin; Höfle, Bernhard; Stempniewski, Lothar; Stark, Alexander

PublisherElsevier BV

Publication year2025

JournalProgress in Disaster Science

Journal name in sourceProgress in Disaster Science

Article number100427

Volume26

eISSN2590-0617

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2025.100427

Web address https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2025.100427

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/498925508


Abstract

Recent natural disasters have claimed many lives. Reliable damage predictions and timely assessments are essential for effective rescue operation planning and efficient allocation of limited resources. Currently, experts in the field perform damage assessment manually, which is resource- and time-intensive. To address this issue, we propose a general trans- and interdisciplinary concept that combines the strengths of domain knowledge, automated computational methods, and crowdsourcing. The objective is to provide relevant and timely damage information after a natural disaster. The specific implementation presented for the earthquake damage use case includes (1) the development of a set of novel, innovative methods, (2) their combination to obtain timely and reliable damage information, (3) fully defined interfaces between all components to ensure an automated data flow, (4) implementation as a fully open-source framework, and (5) the participation of end users in the development of the framework from the beginning, contributing their expertise. Compared to other existing individual solutions, our interdisciplinary implementation has shown to provide fast and accurate information in disaster situations, aiding the management of consequences and saving lives. We consider the implementation transferable to various types of natural hazards due to its open-source realisation and the flexibility of its modules and interfaces.


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Funding information in the publication
This work was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany in the frame of the project LOKI [Grant number 03G0890]. The financial support is greatly appreciated by the authors. We acknowledge support by the KIT-Publication Fund of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.


Last updated on 2025-31-07 at 12:38