Liquefaction Assessment of Rajshahi City Corporation, Bangladesh

Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) has been marked as a geologically vulnerable in terms of earthquake. However, no scientific method has been determined to figure out the influencing factors. This is the first approach to detect the vulnerability of RCC area. In this point of view, the liquefaction hazard map has the innate power to evaluate the potentiality of earthquake-prone areas. The liquefaction map was prepared using sixty borehole profiles data among 30 wards of RCC. The most widely popular Seed’s method (1971) is employed to calculate liquefaction potential index (LPI) using an earthquake scenario of magnitude M7.0 with peak ground acceleration of 0.12 g (BNBC 2010 draft version). Based on LPI value, Rajshahi city area has been divided into four different liquefaction severity categories (i.e., very low, low, high, and very high) and finally mapped through ArcGIS for the complete visualization. This initial study might be helpful for engineers and planners to plan and execute different structural scheme in this region. This paper also summarizes the calculation procedure of determining LPI from available literature to build up a single framework.