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GEM Building Taxonomy

A classification scheme for the vulnerability attributes of buildings

Description

The GEM Building Taxonomy is a uniform classification scheme - a method to describe and categorise buildings in the same way across the globe as a key step towards assessing their vulnerability and risk. The current version (v4.0.1) has been used in the development of the v2026 Global Exposure Model. A tool has been developed to help users to quickly validate and understand the classification of buildings according to the GEM Building Taxonomy. It ensures that buildings are correctly categorised, providing explanations for each classification and helping users meet global standards in building classification.

How to cite this work

Silva et al. (2022) A Building Classification System for Multi-hazard Risk Assessment. International Journal for Disaster Risk Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-022-00400-x Brzev et al. (2013) GEM Building Taxonomy v2.0. DOI: 10.13117/GEM.EXP-MOD.TR2013.02

Available Versions

Version 4.0.1 of the building taxonomy is available both though python scripts (under an AGPL-3.0 license) and through downloadable resources (under a CC-BY-SA license). If your use case does not meet the open license requirements, or if you are interested in obtaining the underlying dataset as a shapefile, please submit a request in our system by clicking on the "License Request", where a specific license will be provided, depending on the use case.

License information

The downloadable resources are available under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which requires: 

  • Attribution (you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made) 

  • ShareAlike (derivatives created must be made available under the same license as the original) 


There are no restrictions on the use (commercial or otherwise) of the Building Taxonomy python tools. The source code of the software is available under a GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 license, which requires: 

  • Permissions of this strongest copyleft license are conditioned on making available complete source code of licensed works and modifications, which include larger works using a licensed work, under the same license. 

  • Copyright and license notices must be preserved. Contributors provide an express grant of patent rights. When a modified version is used to provide a service over a network, the completed modified version must be made available. 


Any deviation from these terms incur in license infringement and requires a license agreement that must be made tailored to your use case, in such instance please click on "License Request".

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Latest Version

v4.0.1

License

CC BY-SA 4.0 / AGPL-3.0

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