News GEM - Safehub collaboration to monitor earthquake risk of buildings By: ​ ​ Mar 18, 2019 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn John Schneider with Safehub staff (L to R): John Daniello, Alex Mead, Alessio Vallero, Andy Thompson (Safehub CEO) John Schneider, Doug Frazier (Safehub Co-Founder/Chairman) and Clement Barthes. On February 7th in San Francisco, GEM Secretary General John Schneider and Andy Thompson, Safehub CEO and Co-Founder signed an agreement to model the vulnerability of buildings directly from motion sensors installed in buildings. Safehub is developing and implementing low-cost sensors to monitor building vibrations and the response of buildings to earthquake shaking. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate how the inclusion of sensor data at building and portfolio levels can be used to reduce the uncertainty in estimating building vulnerability, and to use this information to improve model predictions of damage from earthquakes. In turn, the information from sensors and improved vulnerability estimates will be useful to building owners and risk managers for risk transfer and planning purposes (e.g., insurance) or post-earthquake response, including evacuation. The project, which will run to the end of 2019, will be led for GEM by Vitor Silva, GEM Risk Team Leader. Andy Thompson, a former member of the GEM Governing Board (representing Arup), and who was a panelist representing future GEM directions at the release of the global maps last December 2018, said “GEM is an ideal partner for Safehub, not just because of the science-based, flexible and open way in which it operates, but also because it has brought together a community of people that think across a broad spectrum of risk.” He added that Safehub’s technology, a physics-based approach to risk analysis is completely compatible with GEM’s OpenQuake Engine. Safehub provides structural health monitoring for all buildings, connecting real-time building-specific data to portfolio risk analysis. For more information on Safehub, visit their website at https://www.safehub.io . No images found. GALLERY Safehub's building shaking sensor Under the hood: building shaking sensor Safehub's building shaking sensor 1/4 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News CRAVE project kicks off in Bogota, Colombia By: ​ ​ Jul 2, 2018 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn ​ The USAID project – Collaborative Risk Assessment for Volcanoes and Earthquakes or CRAVE successfully kicked off with a workshop in Bogota, Colombia on February 22-23, 2018. Participants came from the British Geological Survey, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Colombian Geological Survey and the Rabaul Volcano Observatory of Papua New Guinea. The project also includes the participation of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) and the University of Edinburgh. The kickoff meeting covered several topics, including the identification of relevant hazard and risk information for decision-makers, data needs for volcano and earthquake hazard assessment in the pilot areas (Colombia and Papua New Guinea), challenges in the harmonization of software, models and datasets, and available modeling tools for the assessment of the impact from these geo-hazards. Marta Cavalche of SGC highlighted the importance of expanding the assessment beyond hazard after a discussion that most of the available assessment software is only for hazard. The project anticipates that communicating earthquake and volcanic risk can be a challenging task due to other competing social issues, and the lack of resources. However, Vitor Silva of the GEM Foundation points out that “When resources are limited, and they are always limited, we cannot afford to tackle one problem at a time. A multi-hazard and multi-disciplinary approach to disaster risk reduction better utilizes available resources.” Despite several aspects that need to be addressed such deciding on a uniform assessment framework, data format, and data availability, participants identified points of common work, as well as strategies to achieve the objectives set by the project. CRAVE is funded by USAID and will run for 18 months to develop a common framework for the assessment of the impact from earthquakes and volcanoes, with an application to a few locations in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Colombia.The kickoff meeting also appeared on SGC’s website article: Reunión inicial del proyecto CRAVE. No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

Project Name Products East Asia Exposure Repository with the inventory of residential, commercial and industrial buildings in East Asia Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Description The Global Exposure Model is a mosaic of local and regional models with information regarding the residential, commercial, and industrial building stock at the smallest available administrative division of each country and includes details about the number of buildings, number of occupants, vulnerability characteristics, average built-up area, and average replacement cost. The dataset is developed and maintained by the GEM Foundation, using a bottom-up approach at the global scale, using national statistics, socio-economic data, and local datasets. This model allows the identification of the most common types of construction worldwide, regions with large fractions of informal construction, and areas prone to natural disasters with a high concentration of population and building stock. The East Asia region of the model includes information pertaining to the following countries/territories: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macao, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. How to cite this work Yepes-Estrada, C., Calderon, A., Costa, C., Crowley, H., Dabbeek, J., Hoyos, M., Martins, L., Paul, N., Rao, A., Silva, V. (2023). Global Building Exposure Model for Earthquake Risk Assessment. Earthquake Spectra. doi:10.1177/87552930231194048 Available Versions An open version (v2023.1) of the model, aggregated at Administrative Level 1, is available for direct download under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Users interested in this version can click the "Open Repository" button in the right panel to access the information. The full version for any country/territory, at the highest resolution available, can be requested by clicking on the "License Request", where a specific license will be provided, depending on the use case. License information The open version is available under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which requires: *Attribution (you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made) *Non-commercial (you may not use the material for commercial purposes) *ShareAlike (derivatives created must be made available under the same license as the original) Any deviation from these terms incur in license infringement. For commercial use of the model, a specific license agreement must be made tailored to your use case, in such instance please click on "License Request". Share License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Available resources Open Repository License Request Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn text Map View Search Popup title Close Country/Region Available Resources Country/Region Available Resources Country/Region Resource Url Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Related products Global Exposure Model Global Vulnerability Model Global Seismic Risk Map Country-Territory Seismic Risk Profiles Global Seismic Hazard Map Related publications For downloading or accessing detailed product information like PNG/PDF maps, datasets, license request, shapefiles and more, please switch to a desktop or laptop computer. Thank you for your understanding.

Project Name Products Western Africa Hazard OpenQuake engine input model to perform hazard calculations for Western Africa Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Description The Western Africa model (v2018.0.0) was developed internally by GEM. The model encompasses the whole Atlantic side of the Africa continent. An ad-hoc homogenised earthquake catalogue was developed based on globally available information, which was used as the primary base for seismic occurrence analysis and the subsequent development of the source zonation model. The analysis was particularly challenging in the region, due to the severe incompleteness of calibration data, and the virtually nonexistent neotectonic information. Since the original version, an update was made to the model by the GEM hazard team, leading to the latest release (v2018.1.0), which was used in the computation of the 2023 Global Earthquake Hazard and Risk Maps. This model extends the minimum magnitude of events for crustal distributed seismicity and includes an additional GMPE in the logic tree. How to cite this work Poggi, V. (2023). PSHA input model documentation for Western Africa (WAF-2018.1.0). GEM Foundation. Available Versions The latest version (v2018.1.0) is available for direct download under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Users interested in this version can click the "Open Version Download" button in the right panel to access the information. If your use case does not comply with the license terms, a license can be requested by clicking on the "License Request", where a specific agreement will be provided, depending on the use case. License information The open version is available under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which requires: *Attribution (you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made) *Non-commercial (you may not use the material for commercial purposes) *ShareAlike (derivatives created must be made available under the same license as the original) Any deviation from these terms incur in license infringement. For commercial use of the model, a specific license agreement must be made tailored to your use case, in such instance please click on "License Request". Share License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Available resources Open Version Download Documentation License Request Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn text Map View Search Popup title Close Country/Region Available Resources Country/Region Available Resources Country/Region Resource Url Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Related products Global Exposure Model Global Vulnerability Model Global Seismic Risk Map Country-Territory Seismic Risk Profiles Global Seismic Hazard Map Related publications For downloading or accessing detailed product information like PNG/PDF maps, datasets, license request, shapefiles and more, please switch to a desktop or laptop computer. Thank you for your understanding.

Project Name Products Mexico Hazard OpenQuake engine input model to perform hazard calculations for Mexico Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Description The covering of Mexico (MEX) was developed by the GEM hazard team and within a project funded by Suramericana (Sura). The model was originally implemented in the OpenQuake engine. How to cite this work N.A. Available Versions The latest version (v2018.1.0) created by GEM can be requested by clicking on the "License Request", where a specific license will be provided, depending on the use case. Other versions can be consulted in the model documentation. License information Currently, the model is only available under a restricted license that has to be tailored for each specific use case. Share License Custom license Available resources Documentation License Request Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn text Map View Search Popup title Close Country/Region Available Resources Country/Region Available Resources Country/Region Resource Url Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Search Found Country/Region Resource Url Preview Preview is not available. Related products Global Exposure Model Global Vulnerability Model Global Seismic Risk Map Country-Territory Seismic Risk Profiles Global Seismic Hazard Map Related publications For downloading or accessing detailed product information like PNG/PDF maps, datasets, license request, shapefiles and more, please switch to a desktop or laptop computer. Thank you for your understanding.

News OpenQuake stakeholder survey: second round By: ​ ​ Sep 21, 2020 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn ​ We are happy to announce the second round of GEM’s OpenQuake stakeholder survey. We have revised and adjusted the questions based on the initial results and responses. We are hoping that the improved survey questionnaire will make the process better for the second batch of respondents. The survey invitation will be released on and will run for three weeks. Watch this space for future updates. No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News GEM presents the results of the USAID-funded CCARA Project in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic By: ​ ​ Apr 26, 2018 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn ​ Engineering professionals, stakeholders and risk managers from North, Central, and South America, Europe, Japan and the Caribbean gathered in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to discuss seismic hazard, vulnerability and risk in Central America and the Caribbean from 19th - 22nd March 2018. A delegation from the GEM Foundation joined representatives from Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARN), CEPREDENAC, Office of Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Management (ODPEM), OYO Corporation, 100 Resilient Cities, UNDP, the World Bank, SURAMERICANA, USAID and other stakeholders from about 10 countries for the final project meeting to present the results of the CCARA project and for the “Trabajando juntos para evaluar el riesgo sísmico en Centro América y el Caribe” international symposium. Both events were sponsored by USAID and hosted by ONESVIE. The first three days focused on the presentation of the results from the CCARA project with the following topics: methodology, models, and results for the Dominican Republic with the objective of transferring the knowledge gained during the project and to receive feedback from local experts (Day 1); a full day workshop to present the OpenQuake engine (OQ) using the models developed in the CCARA project as well as discussing future possibilities of collaboration (Day 2); anda public presentation of an overview of the regional model developed within the project and how it can be used for risk management planning participated by more than 120 people (Day 3). After running some calculation exercises in OQ for earthquake scenarios and probabilistic losses, most of the engineers - introduced for the first time to seismic vulnerability and risk - expressed interest in demonstrating the value of assessing risk in their respective countries (e.g. Jamaica, Costa Rica, Panama). The fourth and final day was devoted to the international symposium on Earthquake Risk Assessment and Reduction in Central America and the Caribbean with the objective of better understanding how to tackle present and future challenges in seismic risk management. "The international symposium provided a venue for us [the participants] to identify and analyze together several aspects that could contribute to the improvement of how we should tackle present and future challenges on seismic hazard and risk," Catalina Yepes, seismic risk expert, GEM Foundation. No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News OQ rolls out new Building Classification Tool By: ​ ​ Jul 2, 2018 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn ​ The OpenQuake development team rolls out the latest version of the Building Classification Tool. The tool is part of GEM's Building Typology survey initiative which hopes to classify and map the built environment all over the world with your help. The bottom up information can then be further used to analyze vulnerability and exposure of cities and communties to seismic events. To use the tool, please proceed to the OpenQuake platform to register. To get a glimpse of the tool, watch this tutorial. No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News GEM and Willis renew partnership By: ​ ​ Aug 30, 2021 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn ​ GEM is pleased to announce that Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has renewed its partnership agreement with GEM. The agreement is a commitment to work together to develop and promote better understanding of earthquake risk through research and application of science. Willis Towers Watson was a founding member and sponsor in GEM’s first working program from 2009 to 2013 and then rejoined from July 2018 for a period of three years. The new agreement will run until mid-2024. Both organizations are also working together on a Disaster Risk Transfer Facility project by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Region (CAREC). Hélène Galy, Head of Willis Research Network (WRN), says, “We look forward to continuing the successful collaboration with GEM that started over a decade ago, as GEM’s work on earthquake hazard, vulnerability and exposure has been key to enhance earthquake loss assessment across the world, and to credibly develop alternative views of risk to vendor models. GEM also provides an excellent example of strong leadership, governance and management for the long-term development and curation of global models”. Over the last 15 years, the Willis Research Network has created partnerships with public science globally to develop practical, applied research that delivers innovative insights on risk and resilience and supports decision-making. “We are very pleased to have Willis Towers Watson renew its GEM sponsorship. Our relationship has really strengthened over the past three years, with WTW highlighting GEM research and applications through the WRN, making good use of our software and models, and providing valuable feedback to our scientists and engineers. We look forward to another three years of close collaboration,” John Schneider, GEM Secretary General. For more information about Willis Research Network, visit . No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News Social Vulnerability Index Construction: Accessing Open Data from National Censuses By: ​ ​ Jul 2, 2018 ​ Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn ​ Miguel Toquica - GEM Social Vulnerability and Resilience Specialist shares his insights on GEM's experience in accessing socio-economic data from national censuses and public online databases. When it comes to accessing the demographic characteristics of the population of a country, researchers usually consider national population and household censuses as reliable sources of information. Ideally, most countries should update their national census data and procedures every 10 years. The need to keep track of socio-economic factors and statistical measures of societies is recognized globally to better understand the living conditions and characteristics of the population in a specific country. In this regard, national censuses are considered as the most reliable source of such type of information at specific level of territorial organization, i.e. regions, states, parishes, and local level. A national population and housing census has several uses for a country. It provides not just the total number of population and households but also the demographic information for population estimates and specific information for national agencies in the fields of education, health and economy. A national census also gives quantified information of socio-economic conditions of a specific subdivision and groups of people in a country.At GEM we are collecting and processing national census data for our research on what socio-economic conditions could contribute to the population’s vulnerability to natural hazards, i.e. earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, flooding, hurricanes, and droughts. In most cases, our research using census data have led us to information on the pre-existing characteristics i.e. average household size, unemployment rates, etc. that relate directly to why differential impacts from natural hazards occur across space. Social vulnerability helps to explain why some areas, such as a country’s sub-national parishes or city neighbourhoods, will experience the consequences of a natural hazard in different ways. Understanding the varying impacts of a natural hazard through social vulnerability assessments is a critical element for risk reduction, elaboration of mitigation plans, and the development of public policies to reduce the risk. To measure social vulnerability, the starting point is to capture the contextual conditions within the social structure of the study area. This social structure includes characteristics of the population and factors that increase or decrease the impact of natural hazards in the community. These factors include access to basic needs (potable water, electricity, and sanitary services), access to education and health, and characteristics of specific groups within the society that makes them vulnerable, e.g. the elderly population, children, population with disabilities, ethnic groups and so forth. As an example, indigenous people, like the women working in the crafts industry belonging to the Wayuu ethnic community in Colombia (Figure 2), typically live in isolated regions where access to financial means and basic public services like potable water, electricity, as well as public infrastructure is difficult or non-existent. These conditions may compromise their capacity for disaster preparedness and make it harder for government agencies to respond and conduct recovery efforts, thereby increasing their vulnerability in case of an emergency. In this context, information obtained from national censuses in Latin America has allowed the Social Vulnerability and Resilience (SVR) team at GEM (i) to develop databases for indicators of social vulnerability, and (ii) to construct social vulnerability indices for over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This task has been possible thanks to the online access to national census databases made available by several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean such as the CELADE-Redatam. To start the development and construction of social vulnerability indices, GEM’s SVR team obtained the most recent socioeconomic data from available national population and housing censuses from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The collected raw values within the population, economy, infrastructure, health, and education dimensions were then processed to obtain standardised values using percentage, per capita, and density functions that can be used for country comparisons. In addition, a statistical multivariable analysis has been conducted to select a consistent set of indicators for all countries. The socio-economic variables obtained are then standardised and rescaled to create a set of indicators with the same measurement. The analysis also includes a correlation analysis, which is used to quantify the association between two continuous variables, hence narrowing the data to be selected for the regional set of variables that are acceptable to represent the social vulnerability, economic resilience and recovery capacity of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean. Figure 3 provides an example of the Social Vulnerability Index for Central America and the Caribbean region. Challenges Even though the process of collecting, processing and building SV databases and indices seem quite straight forward, accessing the data from censuses and other sources can prove to be challenging and sometimes frustrating. In some cases, the censuses are not fully available, or they are not provided in the desired working format. Some of the most common challenges we have encountered and possible solutions are outlined below:- There is lack of common data processing techniques that are compatible across all countries. Trying to keep the standards of data and indicators selected for all countries may not always work as most censuses are conducted on different basis and using different techniques. This may result in slightly different social vulnerability datasets per country, and therefore the final indicator selection and index composition may differ from country to country. This challenge has been minimized by performing multivariate and correlation analyses on the full set of socio-economic indicators. This technique allows the SVR team to carefully select a set of indicators that better represent the themes of social vulnerability, maintaining the robustness and composition of the index in all cases.- Not all statistical services in each country make the entire census available using a simple database or accessible format. This fact makes accessing and post-processing of data difficult. Some countries do not even make censuses open and available online. Nonetheless, new techniques of data extraction have been implemented so indexes are built with the most reliable and recent sets of data.- Accessing the most recent data from national censuses can be difficult. Some census data can be as old as early 2000’s and late 1990’s. The use of old data must be considered with caution as final results may be skewed. Keeping information of up-to-date country statistics may provide proxies of specific indicators, for example the total population and employment rate can be updated on a yearly basis for some countries. However, processing quantities using data from different time periods can drastically change the unit of measure of comparable values so special care is fundamental when doing so. The GEM social vulnerability team has been overcoming the challenges presented, and we keep improving data collection for index construction. We are also proud to produce and make available to the public the subnational social vulnerability databases and indices. The work is fundamental and a pivotal component for other risk information products developed at GEM. No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS