Podcast 2, Can earthquake microzonation be done for my land?

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In the second podcast of NepaliEngineer we discuss the possibility of seismic microzonation. The question was to prepare a map so that a person can know the seismicity of the place while purchasing or building a structure. We discuss the possibility of having such a map by the government. In the course of the preparation for the podcast, I had collected various hazard maps and concluded:

  • although the hazard maps are good for research purpose, they don’t serve as a guideline when making land purchases for residential purpose.
  • there is no consistency between different hazard maps prepared by different authorities (see the papers below).
  • these maps can not be reliable during earthquake.

In the podcast, I discuss about the difficulty in producing a reliable earthquake hazard map useful for land use management.

Some other documentations I found in a quick search include:

  • Preliminary Study For Evaluation Of Earthquake Risk To The Historical Structures In Kathmandu Valley (Nepal); by Sudhir R. Shrestha, Madan B. Karkee, Carlos H. Cuadra, Juan C. Tokeshi, and S. N. Miller; at World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, August 1-6, 2004 (download link, pdf)

  • Earthquake Risk of Kathmandu Valley, a presentation of National Society for Earthquake Engineering (undated) (download link, pdf)

liqufaction succeptibility map

  • Soil Liquefaction Potential in Kathmandu Valley; by M. Subedi, K. Sharma, B. Upadhayay, R.K. Poudel and P. Khadka; in International Journal of Landslide and Environment (2013), 1(1), 91-92.

liqufaction zoning map

  • Liquefaction Hazard Mapping; by Manish H. Sharma and C.H. Solanki; in International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET),January- February (2013)
  • Liquefaction Potential Analysis of Kathmandu Valley; by Ramesh Neupane and Kiichi Suzuki (download here, pdf)
  • A Quick Report on the 2015 Gorkha (Nepal) Earthquake and its Geo-Engineering Aspects; by Omer Aydan and Resat Ulusay, 2015 (Download here, pdf)

liqufaction

  • Risk-Sensitive Land Use Plan Final Report, by Kathmandu Valley Metropolitan City, Nepal; in 2010 (Draft copy, only for reference – download, pdf)

    • Structural Engineer RR Parajuli suggested the following liquefaction hazard map prepared by OCHA in 2008 based on the data of 1993.

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