Comparative analysis of a new assessment of the seismic risk of residential buildings of two districts of Barcelona

There are personal and institutional decisions that can increase the seismic resilience of the buildings in a city. However, some of these decisions are possible if we have basic knowledge of buildings’ seismic risk. The present document describes the main results of a detailed study of seismic vulnerability and seismic risk of residential buildings of Ciutat Vella (the ancient district of Barcelona) and Nou Barris (one of the newest districts of Barcelona). In this study, we assessed seismic risk according to the Vulnerability Index Method-Probabilistic named as VIM_P. Moreover, we analyzed the influence of basic buildings’ features in the final vulnerability and seismic risk values. For instance, we assessed the seismic vulnerability and the seismic risk of groups of buildings defined according to the number of stories of the buildings. Findings of this research reveal that the annual frequency of exceedance of the collapse damage state in Ciutat Vella buildings is, on average, 4.7 times higher than for the buildings in Nou Barris. Moreover, according to the Best vulnerability curve, 70.31% and 2.81% of Ciutat Vella and Nou Barris buildings, respectively, have an annual frequency of exceedance of the collapse damage state greater than 1 × 10–5.