Security requirements for earth construction: Comparative study of international codes

Earth construction offers outstanding architectural solutions to socio-economic contexts,climate and energy,it uses natural resources and respects the cultural dimension of territories. it preserves the bio diversity and the environment in practical dimensions of sustainability. thus,earth construction needs to be technically designed and implemented,especially when facing natural hazards and other disasters such earthquake. in this paper,six international codes and regulations related to the security of earthen constructions in different countries are presented and discussed. a comparative study is conducted to assess the effectiveness of each of the security parameters provided as technical solution or security regulation of the earth-building. the major finding is that none of the codes or regulations covered all earth construction techniques. the second finding is that each code or regulation is influenced by the specific country's context,and finally there is still no harmony between different technical security requirements all over the world. furthermore,the compressed earth blocks which is a recent and a modern technique is not covered by all the six codes.