Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr Seismic vulnerability assessment at urban scale: Case of Algerian buildings Mehdi Boukri a, ⁎ , Mohammed Naboussi Farsi a , Ahmed Mebarki b , Mohamed Belazougui a , Mounir Ait-Belkacem a , Nacim Yousfi a , Nabila Guessoum a , Dalila Ait Benamar a , Mounir Naili a , Nourredine Mezouar a , Omar Amellal c a Centre National de Recherche Appliquée en Génie Parasismique, CGS, Rue Kaddour Rahim, BP 252, Hussein-Dey, Algiers, Algeria b Laboratoire Modélisation et Simulation Multi Echelle, University Paris-Est, Marne-La-Vallée, France c University of Blida1, Algeria ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Seismic risk Urban vulnerability Algeria Earthquake scenario Mitigation RADIUS Great-Blida ABSTRACT The main purpose of risk reduction methodological and operational approaches is to protect lives and properties against the impact of natural or industrial disaster. Although it is unrealistic to expect to live in a risk free environment, it is possible to reduce this risk through appropriate prediction and management strategies. This work presents an integrated framework for seismic damage assessment at urban scale in Algeria. Its main objective is the proposal of simplified methodological and operational approaches to assess urban vulnerability and socio-economic losses. It relies on the performance of probable seismic scenarios in urban areas exposed to earthquakes. This will enable decision makers to take adequate preventive measures and develop appropriate mitigation strategies, i.e. crisis prevention and management plans to reduce the losses. It deals with the assessment of building seismic risk of urban areas in Algeria by using the RADIUS Model (Risk Assessment Tools for Diagnosis of Urban Areas against Seismic Disaster) after a prior adaptation to the Algerian context. It estimates also the expected number of victims and their spatial distributions. This concept is adopted to estimate the urban seismic risk of the Great-Blida region (consisting of 4 cities, namely Blida, Ouled-Yaïch, Bouarfa and Beni-Mered), west of Algiers region, by performing an earthquake scenario. The region of Blida has experienced strong earthquakes during the last centuries generating seismic intensities ranging between X and XI, of which that most significant, occurred on Mars 2, 1825. It represents an important administrative, military, economic and scientific pole, and features a high concentration of population (1390 inhabitants/km 2 ). In order to draw reliable results, an extensive survey was carried out concerning the buildings (approximately 46,000 units). The data were mapped and stored in databases using GIS tools. The results of this earthquake scenario show that serious damages would be observed in the studied area. The results reported in this study will drive the decision-making, by the local authorities, adapted to the specific socio-environmental vulnerability context at the Great-Blida urban scale. For this purpose, the paper proposes a list of operational measures contributing to the seismic risk reduction, relying on the resilience- building demand. A complementary study, i.e. a separate paper (second part), deals about assessment of seismic risk related to road infrastructures and lifelines devoted to the Algerian urban context. 1. Introduction The seismic risk to which the urban agglomerations are exposed has become a world concern because of the potential losses in human lives and assets [1–3], because people continues to invest in hazard-prone regions at an accelerated rate [4] the poor urbanization strategies [5] and also the society's unawareness and lack of education towards this risk [6]. In Algeria, the earthquakes that have occurred in the last few years show that seismic activity is significant [7,8]. This activity mainly af- fects the northern part of the country [9,10] where the most important cities are located. The economic development of the country and the growth of the population may increase the seismic risk [11]. This risk is high when it concerns cities where there is either a great concentration of population or an industrial merger [12]. Therefore, it appears worth to develop seismic risk mitigation strategies [13], to employ tools of analysis and lead actions for effective prevention at human and economic levels [3,14–16]. However, the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.06.014 Received 2 March 2018; Received in revised form 26 June 2018; Accepted 26 June 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: mehdi.boukri@gmail.com (M. Boukri). International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 31 (2018) 555–575 Available online 28 June 2018 2212-4209/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T