Losses resulting from winter storms contribute a significant part to the overall losses among all natural hazards in most mid-latitude European countries. A realistic assessment of storm risk is therefore essential for prevention and coping measures. The paper presents a framework for...

Iran is one of the most seismically active countries of the world located on the Alpine-Himalayan earthquake belt. More than 180,000 people were killed due to earthquakes in Iran during the last five decades. Considering the fact that most Iranians live in masonry and non-engineered houses,...

This article analyzes the direct damage to residential buildings caused by the flooding of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina in the year 2005. A public dataset has been analyzed that contains information on the economic damage levels for approximately 95,000 residential buildings in the...

Vast amounts of the European residential stock were built with limited consideration for energy efficiency, yet its refurbishment can help reach national energy reduction goals, decreasing environmental impact. Short-term retrofits with reduced interference to inhabitants can be achieved by...

Energy consumption rose about 28% over the 2001 to 2011 period in the Spanish residential sector. In this environment, domestic hot water (DHW) represents the second highest energy demand. There are several methodologies to estimate DHW consumption, but each methodology uses different inputs and...

In this paper, we identify key drivers and barriers for the adoption of building energy retrofits in Germany, which is promoted by public policy as an important measure to address the future challenges of climate change and energy security. We analyze data from a 2009 survey of more than 400...

Ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems exhibit high thermal performance. Consequently, they are increasingly used to heat and cool buildings. The thermal performance of GSHP systems strongly depends on the operation ground temperature and thermal quality of the building envelope (TQBE). The...

The considerable amount of energy consumption associated to the residential sector justifies and supports energy consumption modeling efforts. Among the three approaches to develop energy models, statistical approaches are a good option to avoid the burden associated to engineering approaches...

In this paper, we identify key drivers and barriers for the adoption of building energy retro fits in Germany, which is promoted by public policy as an important measure to address the future challenges of climate change and energy security. We analyze data from a 2009 survey of more than 400...