BUILDING VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT FOR NIBONG TEBAL, PENANG, VIA GIS BASED AHP PROCEDURE

Malaysia has low seismic activity, but it is situated close to regions of earthquake tremors and is affected by the surrounding seismic events. For example, in the state of Penang, tremors have been reported several times. The town of Nibong Tebal is used in this study as a representative region of the state of Penang, Malaysia. This research is aimed at assessing building vulnerability in Nibong Tebal using geographical information system (GIS) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The weights and standardised scores assigned to the vulnerability criteria and sub-criteria were used to determine the influence of each criteria. The resultant weighted linear combination (WLC) values were used categorise the study area into three vulnerability classes; low, medium and high. For each class, the Thiesson polygon tool was used to show each building?s hazard affected zone, which shows the areas affected by building collapse/damage. The sensitivity tests conducted indicate that the results are sensitive to changes of input parameters and hence, reliable.