Earthquake reconnaissance data sources: A literature review

This paper aims to identify state-of-the-art data sources for building damage assessment and provide guidance for more efficient data collection. Earthquakes are one of the most catastrophic natural phenomena. After an earthquake, earthquake reconnaissance enables effective recovery by collecting data on building damage and other impacts. This work reviewed 39 articles that indicate the sources used by different authors to collect data related to damage and post-disaster recovery progress after earthquakes between 2014 and 2021.

This paper concludes that the criteria to select a data source for earthquake reconnaissance include the time after the event (usually the post-disaster phase to carry out inspection), the size and topography of the area to survey, the time window to collect data, the estimated degree of damage, the type of assets damaged (e.g., structural vs non-structural elements) and the specific character of the inspection area. It is necessary to collect data at different scales for different levels of detail according to the assets damaged and each post-disaster phase’s needs, and to consider several data sources, to have comprehensive information of the event. Currently, no reconnaissance mission can rely on a single source of data. It is necessary to combine different sources to complement and validate the data collected, especially in large survey areas, to quantify the damage comprehensively.