Seismic hazard models, developed at different time scales and by different methods, are intended to provide the scientific basis for societal seismic risk reduction. This session aims to tackle theoretical and implementation issues, which are essential for the development of effective mitigation strategies and include:
- methods for comparison and performance evaluation of seismic hazard models;
- hazard and risk assessment for extreme events and
- intensity-based earthquake hazard assessment.
Some recent large earthquakes caused extensive damage in areas where models indicated low seismic hazard, leading to an increased demand for criteria to objectively assess how well seismic hazard models are performing. This session will address issues related to concepts, problems, and approaches in seismic hazard assessments in terms of the earthquakes that “may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage (according to UNISDR terminology). The session will include discussions of the pros and cons of deterministic, neo-deterministic, probabilistic, and intensity-based seismic hazard assessments. The latter is of special importance for Europe because of the relatively large historical information available in terms of macroseismic intensities. We invite contributions related to: assessment methods and their applications to quantify hazard and risk model performance; verification methods that are suitable to seismic hazard estimates and that can be applied to limited and/or heterogeneous observations (ranging from recent accelerometric records to past intensity data); seismic hazard and risk monitoring and modeling; and risk communication and mitigation.
The session will provide an opportunity to discuss best practices and share experience gained with different testing methods, including their application in different fields. We hope to highlight gaps and future research directions that could strengthen the current procedures for testing and comparing seismic hazard models.