The v2025.0.0 release for the GEM's global vulnerability model is available! 🥳 🚀
This repository hosts the most up-to-date versions of the vulnerability models for use in GEM's Global Risk Model. A detailed description of the complete workflow and vulnerability results is available here
The following regions and countries/territories are covered in this repository.
| REGION | COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES |
|---|---|
| Africa | Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina_Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape_Verde, Central_African_Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial_Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea_Bissau, Ivory_Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao_Tome_and_Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra_Leone, Somalia, South_Africa, South_Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe |
| Caribbean_Central_America | Anguilla, Antigua_and_Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British_Virgin_Islands, Cayman_Islands, Costa_Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican_Republic, El_Salvador, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto_Rico, Saint_Kitts_and_Nevis, Saint_Lucia, Saint_Vincent_and_the_Grenadines, Trinidad_and_Tobago, Turks_and_Caicos_Islands, US_Virgin_Islands |
| Central_Asia | Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan |
| East_Asia | China, Hong_Kong, Japan, Macao, North_Korea, South_Korea, Taiwan |
| Europe | Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia_and_Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle_of_Man, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North_Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United_Kingdom |
| Middle_East | Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi_Arabia, Syria, United_Arab_Emirates, Yemen |
| North_America | Canada, Mexico, United_States_of_America |
| North_Asia | Mongolia, Russia |
| Oceania | American_Samoa, Australia, Cook_Islands, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall_Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New_Caledonia, New_Zealand, Niue, Northern_Mariana_Islands, Palau, Papua_New_Guinea, Samoa, Solomon_Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu |
| South_America | Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French_Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela |
| South_Asia | Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri_Lanka |
| Southeast_Asia | Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor_Leste, Vietnam |
Inside each country's directory one can find a total of five files listed below
-
taxonomy_mapping_*.csv: Contains the full list of building classes in the exposure model, along with their corresponding classes in the vulnerability model and the weights used by the OpenQuake Engine. *: If a country-specific mapping exists, it is used; otherwise, the regional mapping file is applied. -
vulnerability_structural.xml: Defines vulnerability functions for structural components, used by OpenQuake Engine to estimate economic losses. -
vulnerability_nonstructural.xml: Defines vulnerability functions for non-structural components (sensitive to drift and acceleration), used by OpenQuake Engine to estimate economic losses. -
vulnerability_contents.xml: Defines vulnerability functions for building contents, used by OpenQuake Engine to estimate economic losses. -
vulnerability_fatalities.xml: Defines vulnerability functions for occupants, used by OpenQuake Engine to estimate human casualties.
A complete description of the vulnerability modelling workflow is available in the official documentation (see OpenQuake Vulnerability Documentation). The models were developed using the OpenQuake Vulnerability Modeller's Toolkit (OQ-VMTK) (Nafeh et al., 202x), a suite of open-access tools created by scientists at the Global Earthquake Model Foundation to provide earthquake engineers with a comprehensive platform for developing fragility and vulnerability models. A demonstration of the capabilities and functionalities of the VMTK is also provided in the OQ-VMTK 'demos' folder. A documentation of the OQ-VMTK is available on: https://gemsciencetools.github.io/oq-vmtk/
The building classes defined in this exposure model follow the GEM Building Taxonomy version 3.2 convention. For more details on taxonomy substrings, please consult the GEM Taxonomy Glossary.
The vulnerability functions hosted on this repository are intended for (sub-)national and regional seismic risk assessments, and are designed to quantify loss metrics such as the average annual loss ratio (AALR). These functions should be applied only to building classes that are consistent with the taxonomy attributes adopted in their derivation, including construction material, lateral load-resisting system, height range, code level, and ductility. The functions are derived from representative multi-degree-of-freedom stick models for each building class that capture the key properties governing structural response, such as material characteristics, structural system, and building height. The country-specific models hosted here are consistent with the master branch of the Global Exposure Model (Yepes-Estrada et al., 2023), which is maintained in this repository: https://github.com/gem/global_exposure_model.
When local building stocks deviate from these archetypes (e.g., due to structural irregularities or region-specific construction practices) in ways that may significantly affect loss estimates, the preferred approach is to re-calibrate the vulnerability functions using local information via the OQ-VMTK (Nafeh et al., 202x), for example by updating capacity curves and/or ground-motion sets. Alternatively, well-justified adjustment factors may be applied to the existing vulnerability functions to account for local conditions.
Please cite the work as follows:
- Nafeh, AMB., Aljawhari, K., Silva, V. (2025), The 2025 Global Vulnerability Model of the GEM Foundation, GitHub. https://github.com/gem/global_vulnerability_model
- Aljawhari, K., Nafeh AMB., Silva, V. (202x), An Improved Global Vulnerability Model for Seismic Risk Assessment: Part 1 – Structural Vulnerability (Submitted for Review)
- Nafeh, AMB., Aljawhari, K., Silva, V. (202x), An Improved Global Vulnerability Model for Seismic Risk Assessment: Part 2 – Non-Structural and Contents Vulnerability (Submitted for Review)
The authors are grateful for the input from dozens of local and international experts. A list of contributors can be found at https://www.globalquakemodel.org/risk-model-contributors.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which requires:
- Attribution (you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made)
- Non-commercial (you may not use the material for commercial purposes)
- ShareAlike (derivatives created must be made available under the same license as the original)
Any deviation from these terms incur in license infringement. For commercial use of the data contained within this work, a specific license agreement must be made tailored to your use case, in such instance please contact GEM at product@globalquakemodel.org
By default you will see the files in the repository in the main branch. Each version of the model that is released can be accessed is marked with a tag. By changing the tag version at the top of the repository, you can change see the files for a given version.
Note that the main branch could contain the work-in-progress of the next version of the model.
For each version, a related zip file is available in the release section.
Where can I obtain the fragility functions or obtain vulnerability models for other risk metrics such as business interruption?
Please contact us at product@globalquakemodel.org
If your use case deviates from the requirements of the offered license, but still want to explore the use of the data, please contact us at license@globalquakemodel.org
- Nafeh, AMB., Aljawhari, K., Silva, V. (2025), The 2025 Global Vulnerability Model of the GEM Foundation, GitHub. https://github.com/gem/global_vulnerability_model
- Aljawhari, K., Nafeh AMB., Silva, V. (202x), An Improved Global Vulnerability Model for Seismic Risk Assessment: Part 1 – Structural Vulnerability (Submitted for Review)
- Nafeh, AMB., Aljawhari, K., Silva, V. (202x), An Improved Global Vulnerability Model for Seismic Risk Assessment: Part 2 – Non-Structural and Contents Vulnerability (Submitted for Review)
- Nafeh, AMB., Aljawhari, K., Ettorre, A., Silva, V., Crowley, H. (202x), OQ-VMTK: An Open-Source Toolkit for Earthquake Vulnerability Modelling Applications (Submitted for Review)
- Yepes-Estrada C, Calderon A, Costa C, et al. Global building exposure model for earthquake risk assessment. Earthquake Spectra. 2023;39(4):2212-2235. doi:10.1177/87552930231194048