Post-earthquake building damage assessment: A multi-period inspection routing approach for Gaussian process regression

In the wake of seismic events, prompt and accurate building damage assessment is crucial to inform post-disaster interventions and recovery efforts. This paper advances a novel multi-period planning strategy for post-earthquake building inspections, conceptualizing the task as a multi-period orienteering problem (MPOP). In this framework, each building selected for inspection hosts a specific reward indicating its informative value for damage assessment. The objective is to design inspection routes that maximize damage information acquisition while adhering to time constraints. After data collection, we utilize a Gaussian process regression (GPR) model to estimate the damage in uninspected buildings. To validate our approach, we conduct an earthquake simulation with realistic building information from San Francisco. The experimental outcomes reveal that our multi-period damage assessment framework maintains robust performance across diverse scenarios and consistently surpasses conventional period-by-period inspection strategies, yielding enhanced damage information acquisition and greater precision in damage estimation. This outcome underscores the effectiveness of our proposed method in strengthening post-earthquake damage assessment and improving recovery planning.