Newsletter - October 2011 Issue

With four new participants from the public and private sectors on board, plus a new associate participant, we add more essential building blocks to the GEM effort. We welcome three public entities and one private organisation as participants in the GEM Foundation: Ecuador is represented by the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, the United States by the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID], and the recently founded Taiwan Earthquake Model is the third participant representing the public sector in GEM's Governing Board; Nephila Capital Ltd is GEM's newest private participant, supporting GEM through a silver sponsorship. Also, IStructE, the Institution of Structural Engineers, has joined as Associate Participant. More funding, expertise, networks and tools will thus feed into GEM’s build-up phase, which has passed its mid-term point.

Those of you that have followed the activities of GEM for the past 2.5 years will know that we have presented a scientific framework with the following main modules: Hazard, Risk and Socio-Economic Impact. However, as many have rightly pointed out to us, "Risk" already includes hazard and the estimation of socio-economic consequences. Furthermore, the many activities that were being proposed within the “socio-economic impact module” spanned across a number of existing components such as exposure and vulnerability. Hence, we have decided to produce a new framework for GEM: the main components of this framework are: hazard, exposure, vulnerability, risk and impact analysis and decision making tools. We welcome your comments on this new framework, and your suggestions on initiatives and ongoing activities that we might collaborate with in order to cover the wide range of activities that will be needed to allow GEM to extend beyond its current focus of physical risk. Share your views here.

Are you curious about OpenQuake? Even though GEM's state-of-the-art open-source hazard and risk calculation software is still under development, through the recently introduced OATS service, users can readily access the most recent alpha release of OpenQuake. Hence, if you are familiar with using a command-line interface and have some experience with running calculations, you can request a trial account. OATS allows users to understand OpenQuake better, to run demos and light calculations and produce output. That understanding is further supported by the OpenQuake Book which aims to provide an explanation of the scientific basis and the methodologies adopted in the implementation of OpenQuake, plus an overview of features that are currently included and those that are planned. Version 0.1 of such book has just been released and will continue to be updated over the coming weeks and months, also with your help and input.

In order to support collaborative development of uniform and open databases, standards, (regional) models and tools, we have developed a platform for GEM collaborators, experts and practitioners in earthquake risk assessment to collaborate, share, discuss and suggest. GEM Nexus [' a means of connection'] is home to the various groups working on GEM, who have access to a set of collaboration instruments. But Nexus is at the same time open to the wider community who can follow the groups, provide feedback on the work being carried out and connect with others that are making a difference in earthquake risk assessment. Now that OpenQuake can be readily used, the regions are buzzing with activity and the Global Component projects are producing their first deliverables, Nexus will serve as the linking pin and its contents will continue to expand.

Join the 150+ users and provide feedback on the GEM Glossary, list of selected events for the Consequences Database and much more. 

Second IDCT Face2Face Meeting
More than half a year after the project's kick-off meeting, the second meeting of the consortium working on Inventory Data Capture Tools, took place on 16-17 August in London (Willis). It included discussions about parameters, crowdsourcing, case-studies and testing, outreach and integration and interaction with other Global Components. The advisory committee provided critical input for the collaborators in working on the next steps of the project.

Third Faulted Earth Workshop: subduction zones
The purpose of the workshop hosted by USGS at Menlo Park from 18-22 September, was to start compiling global subduction interface sources for the GEM Faulted Earth database. By looking at the entire globe the participants were able to work on new strategies for characterizing these faults for seismic hazard analysis and with that input, the Model Facility will now look into how OpenQuake could be best modified or augmented to reflect the diversity and uncertainty of this knowledge.

Second All Hands Meeting GED4GEM
The second All Hands Meeting for the GED4GEM project will take place on 10-11 November in Ispra, Italy, hosted by project partner JRC.

Global Component Review Meeting
The progress made in the Global Components (GC) projects will be reviewed in a 2-day workshop taking place December 3-4 by GEM's Scientific Board. The project coordinators / principal investigators will discuss accomplishments and the challenges they encountered, and will look for synergies and paths forward as GEM proceeds. A report of that meeting will be input to the December Governing Board meeting

Below just a few of many highlights from the regions:

SEA Asia/Pacific: Hosted by the NTU, a regional workshop on active faults and seismic sources in South-East Asia / Pacific took place from 1-3 August 2011. Twenty hazard experts from the region and representatives from the GEM Hazard team gathered in Singapore for three days to discuss a hazard model for the region.

South-America: Two workshops took place to kick-start activities in the region. FUNVISIS in Venezuela hosted the first workshop from 17-18 October in Caracas, and the University from Chile hosts one for experts in the southern part of the region, on 20-21 October in Santiago.

Europe: On 28-30 November a SHARE-Workshop is held in Zurich for a preliminary review of it's hazard model.

Africa: On September 29th 2011, representatives of GEM Africa had a meeting to discuss next steps and activities, whilst participating in the joint OAGS and IGCP 601 meeting on “Seismotectonic and seismic risk of Africa”.

Caribbean: Two visiting researchers from the Caribbean Regional Programme are engaged in a two-months stay at the Model Facility, within the framework of necessary technology transfer activities. Alia and Jillian are one of the 30+ collaborators that are currently actively involved in seven working groups in the region.

'GEM' continues to feature in a growing number of events held around the globe, in scientific, private and even educational contexts: Australia, France, Spain, US, China, Italy, UK, Colombia, Macedonia to name but a few. For more information on upcoming and past events, do check out GEM's Calendar. And, if you have ideas on how you would like to present or promote GEM.. write to us.