Multi-scale analysis of settlement-induced building damage using damage surveys and DInSAR data: A case study in The Netherlands

Abstract Highly compressible clayey and peaty (soft) soils may expose structures (e.g. buildings) and infrastructures (e.g. roads and embankments) resting on them to absolute/differential settlements. These latter, with passing of time, can induce damages whose level of severity depends on several factors such as: the spatial distribution of the thickness pertaining to soft soil layers; the groundwater regime; the characteristics of the exposed structures and infrastructures along with their state of maintenance. The analysis of damages and the resulting management of the built-up environment usually require high costs due to the amount of data necessary for setting up reliable forecasting models as well as for defining the most suitable restoration works. This paper presents a multi-scale procedure tailored to analyze the settlement-induced building damage. The selected case study deals with an urban area in The Netherlands where, at medium scale, the role of soft soils in predisposing the occurrence of ground surface settlements is first investigated. Then, at large scale the relationship between cause (i.e. settlements) and effects (i.e. damage) is analyzed for building aggregates via the combination of high-resolution advanced differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) and in-situ damage survey data. Finally, as main novelty of the proposed multi-scale procedure, both the above datasets are used to generate, at detailed scale, empirical fragility curves for single buildings that, once further validated, could be valuably adopted for damage forecasting purposes in similar urban areas.