In September 2017, two strong earthquakes hit the central region of Mexico, producing substantial damage to the historical buildings. A retroactive analysis for assessing the pre-event seismic vulnerability of these constructions allowed for testing the suitability of an existing parameter-based approach based on material and geometrical features. More than 160 adobe buildings in four municipalities of the State of Morelos were surveyed and included in a vulnerability-oriented GIS database. Data were collected on-site and managed by resorting to open-source GIS software combined with a Python-based database management tool and a cloud-based platform for onsite data collection using mobile devices. The parameter-based approach was used for assessing the analytical seismic vulnerability of the buildings and implementing a secondary, more conservative assessment that considers uncertainties associated with the data acquisition process. The capabilities of the database were further used to train a Machine Learning algorithm aimed at overcoming some representativeness limitations of the parameter-based analytical method. This third approach was found to be suitable for assessing the vulnerability of the building typologies addressed in this investigation. Although the implementation discussed in this paper is limited to a specific vernacular typology, it can be used to conduct customized local calibrations.

Properties of adobe are highly dependent on the local soil composition and can vary significantly depending on fabrication techniques, configurations and state of conservation. The effect of the earthquakes that occurred in 2017 in Mexico relaunched discussion regarding the adequacy and safety of adobe-based constructions – a debate that involves many economic, cultural and social facets related to vernacular expressions and ways of life, long-term sustainability and risk management. In an effort to contribute to this, this paper includes and discusses a series of experiments carried out in typologically representative adobe constructions in the municipality of Tepoztlán (state of Morelos, Mexico). A campaign of ultrasonic pulse velocity tests was conducted on 13 historical buildings with the objective of assessing the variability of the adobe material present in those buildings. Some adobe units were then collected and tested in a laboratory to assess their compressive strength and stress/strain behaviour. From these two sets of experiments, it was possible to obtain valuable insights into the mechanical properties of the adobe that constitutes the characteristic housing typology in the region.