Beirut Built Environment Database
A platform gathering geolocalised social, environmental, and economic information on building activity in the Greater Beirut Area.
The Beirut Built Environment database is an online GIS platform developed by the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut. The initiative brings together a collection of maps, documents, and surveyed indicators about actors (e.g., builder, developer, landowner) as well as spatial (e.g., vacancy, floors, parking) and environmental characteristics (e.g., water, greenery, infrastructure lines) that can inform ongoing research, public policy making, and advocacy about the city.
The platform invites researchers, professionals, and activists who are interested in investigations of the city's built environment to rely on its layers as a basis for more advanced explorations of urban trends. Our aim is to provide data that is easy-to-share and free to download in order to support researchers, generate collaborations and partnerships, and stimulate timely discussions about the rapid transformations of the city and their visualization.
The Basemap
In partnership with the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS), a unified base-map of municipal Beirut was produced. Additional map records from the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre and Beirut municipality, as well as high-resolution aerial images, were used as reference.
The base-map was adjusted on both the macro and micro levels, and different geographic layers were calibrated across different scales of the city.
This and all the following maps have clickable interactive layers. When present, check the legend on the lower left corner for more information.
The first layers are the cadastral zones and municipal districts.
A layer of all property parcels in Municipal Beirut was added, including lot boundaries and numbers. The data was verified through repeated visits to the official land registry.
The primary and secondary road networks were digitized using high-resolution aerial images as a main reference.
Elevation contour lines were also added to the map with 10 meter intervals.
All 18,340 building footprints within the administrative boundaries of Municipal Beirut were traced and added to the base-map.
Green spaces and a selection of landmarks were also added to the map.
Data from 2,692 filed construction permits (15% of the total buildings in Municipal Beirut) was obtained from the Order of Engineers and Architects (OEA) for the period between 1996 and early 2018. Each permit was geo-referenced and surveyed to document the site’s condition. Additional data was collected for the 1,749 completed and under-construction residential buildings (65% of the permits), surveying attributes about building conditions, environmental factors, and social context. Data was gathered using ESRI applications, survey123 and collector.
To provide an easy-to-navigate platform, our first installment of the data-set presents three layers of the map-sets: Building Attributes, Water and Vacancy.
Building Attributes
Almost all 2,962 OEA permits were covered by the Beirut Urban Lab (BUL) survey teams. Of these, 1,749 represented complete or under-construction residential buildings and were the main target of the survey.
During field surveys {Nov.2018 - Feb.2019}, every location was classified as (1) residential buildings, (2) non-residential buildings, (3) empty lots, (4) parking lots, (5) lots where existing fully evicted buildings stand, or (6) lots where partially evicted buildings stand.
This map highlights all construction permits that were granted between 1996 and early 2018.
The buildings highlighted in red refer to locations where no survey questions could be asked due to high security measures. Few buildings were encountered where BUL had no record of the construction permits.
This map plots the 1749 (9.5% of all buildings in Beirut) residential buildings, either completed or under construction, along with the non-residential buildings verified through the fieldwork.
A total of 245 lots where building permits had been filed (9% of permits) were empty lots, either used as parking (102) or left unused (143).
Many construction projects were left on-hold or cancelled. Others are still under construction.
A number of lots where construction permits had been filed were still occupied by old standing un-demolished buildings (4.4% of the total permits). A total of 44 buildings were fully evicted, another 75 were still occupied at the time of the survey (Nov. 2018- Feb. 2019) but were under the threat of eviction.
As part of the surveys conducted, environmental issues were also investigated. The research team gathered data about water access and quality as well as green spaces, roof uses, etc.
Water
Questions were asked about the municipal water supply, presence of underground wells, reliance on private water companies, and more.
The first step was to include the water network as well as the existing pumps and reservoirs.
Surveyed residential buildings with underground water wells were pinned.
Based on the survey responses, the weekly and hourly frequency of public water supply in both winter and summer seasons was mapped.
Move the slider to compare the summer (right) and the winter (left) public water supply by building, based on an average number of hours per week. Check the legend on the lower left corner of the map and click on the icons for more information.
The reliance on private water suppliers was investigated as well. The team mapped the frequency and volume of water purchased from private companies.
Move the slider to compare the average water volume purchased per week in the summer (right) and the winter (left) seasons. Check the legend on the lower left corner of the map and click on the icons for more information.
Water samples were collected from 180 wells in Municipal Beirut and tested for E.coli and Salinity.
This map correlates the need to buy water from private companies with the availability of water wells.
Research on housing is a core component of this work; one of the main inquiries focused on residential buildings’ occupancy.
Vacancy
Vacancy in the buildings constructed in Beirut during the 1996-2018 period was divided into two types: apartments that are sold but unoccupied (usually with no intention of renting or re-selling), and apartments that are on the market for sale.
The analysis was conducted at three different scales across the city. Vacancy rates are first represented on the scale of cadastral districts, the boundaries of which defined by the Lebanese Land Registry.
This map shows the sold-and-empty apartments, the for-sale apartments, and the total number of empty apartments per cadastral district.
The same data is represented here at the level of the Municipal Sector, a smaller division used by a number of public service authorities.
We also gathered data at the most micro scale, and compare the sold-and-empty apartments in contrast with the for-sale empty apartments in every surveyed building.
This ongoing research is expanding by the day. BUL continues to populate the platform with new sets of data, diversify the areas of focus, and introduce inquiries on a national scale.