Improving Multiclass Post-Earthquake Building Assessment by Integrating Satellite Imagery and Metadata with Transformers

Timely and accurate assessments of building damage are crucial for effective response and recovery in the aftermath of earthquakes. Conventional preliminary damage assessments (PDA) often rely on manual door-to-door inspections, which are not only time-consuming but also pose significant safety risks. To safely expedite the PDA process, researchers have studied the applicability of satellite imagery processed with heuristic and machine learning approaches. These approaches output binary or, more recently, multiclass damage states at the scale of a block or a single building. However, the current performance of such approaches limits practical applicability. To address this limitation, we introduce a metadata-enriched, transformer-based framework that combines high-resolution post-earthquake satellite imagery with building-specific metadata relevant to the seismic performance of the structure. Our model achieves state-of-the-art performance in multiclass post-earthquake damage identification for buildings from the Mw 7.8 Turkey–Syria earthquake on February 6, 2023. Specifically, we demonstrate that incorporating metadata, such as seismic intensity indicators, soil properties, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) damage proxy maps, enhances the model’s accuracy and ability to distinguish between damage classes. Furthermore, we conducted a detailed, class-wise analysis of feature importance to understand the model’s decision-making across different levels of building damage. By leveraging both satellite imagery and metadata, our proposed framework enables faster and more accurate damage assessments for precise, multiclass, building-level evaluations that can improve disaster response and accelerate recovery efforts for affected communities.