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Close to 200 online and in-person participants from 70+ countries joined the International Symposium on Hazard, Risk and Recovery Modelling: Seismic Moment – From Rupture to Recovery. The event, held at the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Aveiro, Portugal on July 14th discussed cutting-edge science and ground-breaking technology in earthquake engineering.

Vitor Silva - GEM Seismic Risk Coordinator and Xavier Romao - FEUP/CONSTRUCT moderated the discussions on new advancements in seismic hazard modelling in Europe, latest developments in vulnerability and risk assessment and factors influencing long-term impact and recovery after an earthquake.

Vice Rector of the University of Aveiro Artur Silva, and Director of RISCO Romeu Vicente opened the symposium. It was followed by presentations on the new European seismic hazard model (Laurentiu Danciu, ETHZ); and the new European seismic risk model (Helen Crowley, EUCENTRE). The second part of the morning session focused on earthquake early warning in Europe (Carmine Galasso and Gemma Cremen, UCL); and the NASA Insight Mission - Seismicity of Mars ( John Clinton, ETHZ).

The afternoon sessions explored more on the experiences of the presenters in vulnerability and risk assessments such as addressing the issues and challenges in clustered seismicity risk assessment (Paolo Bazzurro, IUSS Pavia); the impact of and recovery from the Croatian Earthquakes of 2020 (Mario Uros, University of Zagreb); and research and implementation of seismic risk mitigation in schools through low-cost sliding foundations (Anastasios Sextos, University of Bristol).

Speakers shared more on the ground experiences in post-earthquake community recovery processes and modelling (Laurie Johnson, Laurie Johnson Consulting USA); and changes in the upcoming update of the Eurocode 8 (Antonio Correia, National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Portugal).

The event was capped with a discussion on what’s missing in earthquake risk assessment, which featured a presentation on future directions in earthquake risk assessment: high-fidelity optimization, a numerical modelling approach for predicting the seismic wave of complex earthquake scenarios from the fault to the epicentre site. The topic was presented by a surprise speaker - Professor Jack Baker of Stanford University.