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Overview
This project, supported by USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), aims to enhance earthquake hazard modeling capabilities in small communities, as well as to provide better risk models to account for changes in the number of occupants, structures and economic value exposed to earthquakes and the adverse effects of climate change. The project will evaluate future earthquake risk losses, thus supporting decision makers with risk metrics that account for the expected evolution of the built environment, which are fundamental for the design and implementation of long-term risk reduction measures.
Objectives
The project aims to strengthen the capacities and understanding to manage and respond to future earthquake risk by:
introducing future growth or change into national and global exposure models to enable the quantification of future disaster losses, including those associated with climate change;
developing communication and dissemination tools to maximize the uptake of disaster risk information in policy making bodies; and
improving the reliability of earthquake hazard and risk assessment, in particular in regions that lack information.
To achieve the above, the project will implement five components below:
Predicting the evolution of the built environment and population
Forecasting future disaster risk due to earthquakes
Incorporating infrastructure in exposure modeling for risk assessment
Modeling earthquake hazard and risk for small communities
Advancing communication and dissemination of risk information
Collaborators
Funding partner:
USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA)
El Salvador:
Science partner: University of San Salvador (contact Manual Menjivar, associate Professor).
Government partner: Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, MARN (contacts Douglas Antonio Hernández, Geology Area Coordinator, and Luis Mixco, seismologist).
Nepal:
Science partner: National Society for Earthquake Technology, NSET (contact Surya Narayan Shrestha, Executive Director).
Government partner: National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA).
Bhutan:
Science partner: College of Science and Technology-Royal University of Bhutan (contact Chimi Wangmo, Head of Department, Civil Engineering DepartmentCheki Dorji).
Pacific partners:
Secretariat of Pacific Community (SPC), Geoscience, Energy and Maritime Division (contact Litea Biukoto, Geohazards Risk Management Leader)
Indian Ocean partner:
The Indian Ocean Commission IOC, (contact Gina Bonne, Director)
Government partners:
Member states and territories of the SPC and IOC through their representatives.
Additionally, collaboration is expected from GEM partners Geoscience Australia (GA) and Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS), New Zealand, considering their active role in the region.
Location
The 2.5 year-project, will be implemented in collaboration with local scientists and stakeholders in El Salvador, Nepal and Bhutan (components 1, 2, and 3), as well as small communities in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans (component 4).
Click the map to view.
Project Deliverables
Component 1: Modeling earthquake hazard and risk for small communities
D1.1 New seismic hazard models, suitable for risk assessment and hazard mapping.
D1.2 Quantification of earthquake risk and losses, with country profiles.
Component 2: Predicting the evolution of the built environment and population
D2.1 Technical report with a brief description of the methodology for predicting the building
environment evolution.
D2.2 Database of exposure models including projections for different epochs (2020, 2030,
2040, 2050) for the countries indicated in Component 1.
Component 3: Forecasting future disaster risk due to earthquakes
D3.1 Report on time-dependent hazard model for El Salvador
D3.2 Database with future seismic risk results for the countries considered in Component 1.
D3.3 Country profiles for future risk considering the Sendai Indicators.
Component 4: Expanding GEMs Global Exposure Model to cover infrastructure
D4.1 Technical report with a brief description of the methodology for leveraging on open data
to build exposure models for risk assessment and reduction.
D4.2 Database of healthcare facilities and transportation network for El Salvador, Nepal and
Bhutan.
Component 5: Advancing communication and dissemination of risk information
D5.1 Five online training workshops on earthquake hazard and risk assessment
D5.2 Three online workshops for earthquake risk awareness
D5.3 List of beneficiaries from onsite and online training
D5.4 Country profiles for risk management for the countries in the Global Seismic Risk Model
Online and Onsite Training Workshops
This part of the program is designed to improve the understanding and awareness of earthquake hazards and risks and to help bridge the gap between the information produced in the project sites and its communication to a wide variety of stakeholders through online and onsite training workshops.
Under the FORCE project, Spring and Autumn OpenQuake training courses will be offered. Please check back regularly for the latest training activities.
OpenQuake Training: an online course for beginners
Session dates:
March 20
March 27
April 17
April 24
Modules 2-4 will discuss how to explore and prepare the required input files for earthquake scenarios, PSHA (such as hazard maps for different return periods, hazard curves, and uniform hazard spectra), and event-based risk analysis in the OpenQuake-engine, how to run an example and visualise the results. Module 1 OQ Introduction is a self-learning module available at training.openquake.org.
Advancing communication and dissemination of risk information
The activities in this component is focused on raising awareness of the public on earthquake hazard and risk by training a diverse group of disaster risk reduction (DRR) professionals together with personnel in charge of communicating risk to the public, and by conducting community-based workshops in the pilot countries.
New GEM-USAID Project Forecasting and Communicating Earthquake Hazard and Risk (FORCE) launched
On the heels of a successful completion of the TREQ project partnership this year, GEM and USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) are embarking on a new project called Forecasting and Communicating Earthquake Hazard and Risk or FORCE. The project aims to strengthen the capacities and understanding to manage and respond to future earthquake risk. Read more
SATIC Event, OpenQuake Conference, Cali Risk Assessment and Community Awareness Workshops
An event was held at the Banco de la República Auditorium in Cali, Colombia from November 21-25 to present seismic scenarios for Cali using Cali risk models; introduction of OpenQuake Tools; and training workshop for the use of the information repository and risk models, including awareness workshops for the community (local trainers, firefighters, civil defense). Read more
BUSINESS NEWS
SATIC event in Cali, Colombia Nov 21-25, 2022
BUSINESS NEWS
Kick-off meetings in Nepal
The launch meetings of the FORCE project – Forecasting and Communicating Earthquake Hazard and Risk were held in the city of Kathmandu, Nepal, from 20th to 24th February 2023.
Similar to the TREQ project, reports and publications relevant to each of the FORCE project component will be produced and published in due course. This page is dedicated for this purpose.