The City of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia is expanding rapidly, in terms of new buildings and increasing population. The rapid urbanization leads to higher risk from seismic events; even in areas of moderate seismicity such as this city. The present study addresses the rapid evaluation of a large number of buildings in Jeddah involving steps to determine hazard, assessing building stock, and computing vulnerability with a scoring method from FEMA 155. Two districts were selected for investigation based on a cluster analysis applied to population and building data from the local municipality. One selected district was a contemporary developed urbanized area, and the other was a more traditional area. Such selection offered the possibility to compare vulnerability of buildings built according to different seismic codes and to make assumptions about the rest of the city based on typical structures of districts. The basic structural score was determined considering the building structure and moderate seismicity of the region using score modifiers, e.g. vertical irregularity score modifier; soil score modifier assuming sabkahs. The results of the investigation reveal a different level of vulnerability and areas where intervention is needed. The method can be applied for further analysis of the city.

Increased urbanization of a city may create a higher seismic risk. This study investigates Jeddah city, rapidly expanding in the number of buildings and population, to address the rapid evaluation of residential buildings using the rapid evaluation method (REM) to assess building stock to determine hazard and evaluate vulnerability through the scoring method from FEMA 155. Two districts were selected based on a cluster analysis of population and building data. One is a developing urbanized area, and the other is a traditional area. This offers a possibility to compare the vulnerability of buildings constructed according to different seismic codes and to make assumptions about the rest of the city based on typical structures. The basic structural score was determined considering the building structure and moderate seismicity of the region using score modifiers, e.g. vertical irregularity and soil score modifier, assuming sabkhas. The result of the investigation shows different levels of vulnerability and areas where intervention is needed.