News Urban hazard assessment of selected cities in Latin America By: Jun 6, 2022 Share Facebook LinkedIn Latin America is no stranger to earthquakes and records reveal seismic activity in Quito (Ecuador) dating back to the 1587 Guayllabamba earthquake. The urban centres built on deep alluvial basins have the potential to amplify the seismic waves thereby increasing the intensity of ground shaking. The rapid urbanisation in these cities only adds to the seismic risk of the built environment and human casualties. One of the objectives of this project was to build seismic hazard and risk models incorporating the local site effects that can be useful for engineers and policymakers in making an informed decision. GEM scientists developed site response models for three urban centres, namely, Cali, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and Santiago, Dominican Republic, based on geotechnical data provided by local experts. GEM used the available methods to combine in a probabilistic framework, the seismic sources (such as faults), ground motion models and the local site response models to compute the intensity of ground shaking at the surface. The end product includes 1) hazard maps - showing the level of ground motion at a certain probability of exceedance in the given time frame, 2) hazard curves and 3) uniform hazard spectra. The results of site response analyses show in some cases (e.g. in Cali) the de-amplification of motion, whereas in others - like in Quito and Santiago - increased levels of shaking. In some zones in each of these cities, soil softening and hardening, as well as resonance was captured in the site response models. At some locations, the use of site-specific information in hazard calculation produces estimates that are nearly twice that of ground motion values at bedrock. Further, the study highlights the prominent non-linear behaviour in soft soils at high levels of ground shaking which can be captured only through site specific amplification models and their impact on seismic hazard and risk. No images found. GALLERY Hazard map for the Hispaniola island considering local site effects. The map shows peak ground acceleration values corresponding to 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. 1/2 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News PartnerRe joins GEM as Private Sponsor By: Jul 2, 2018 Share Facebook LinkedIn GEM welcomes PartnerRe as a new Private sponsor and its support to promote a better understanding of earthquake risk and an improved capability to assess and manage risk through open, transparent and collaborative seismic risk assessment at global, regional and national scales. “Our organizations are bound by common values and a shared vision for a safe and earthquake-resilient world. Together, we are confident of developing better information on seismic risk, and delivering innovative tools and products for improved seismic risk assessment,” John Schneider – GEM Secretary General. GEM’s OpenQuake engine and its associated toolkits will enable PartnerRe to better evaluate the earthquake risk for their insurance clients worldwide. Like GEM, PartnerRe values open, transparent tools and models, which lead to a better understanding of the assumptions and sources of uncertainty that are essential in the evaluation and quantification of risks. Paul Della-Marta, Head of Catastrophe Research at PartnerRe said, “As a world leader in reinsurance, PartnerRe helps insurers create risk transfer solutions that provide financial protection from the devastating effects of earthquakes. By combining rich seismic data with our own deep understanding of earthquake risk, we can help our clients create more relevant and impactful reinsurance solutions that enable earthquake-hit areas to recover more quickly.” “This new partnership with GEM further strengthens our ability to fulfil that role. We are particularly impressed by GEM’s collaborative, interactive approach in working with its stakeholders, and are proud to support GEM in their goal of worldwide earthquake resilience”. GEM is set to formally welcome PartnerRe at its next Governing Board meeting in June this year. No images found. GALLERY 1/0 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News METEOR Project: successful completion produced useful, scientifically sound, accessible and cost-efficient data and protocols By: Jun 3, 2021 Share Facebook LinkedIn Photo credit: METEOR Project After three years, the METEOR project, a consortium led by the British Geological Survey, has come to a successful conclusion, delivering all the expected outputs for pilot countries Nepal and Tanzania. The project aimed to formulate an innovative methodology of creating quality data and models that can be used to improve decision-making in disaster risk management (DRM) through the use of earth observation or EO-based imagery to identify development patterns throughout a country. The results include EO-based exposure data for 47 ODA countries ; protocols and standards for developing locally calibrated exposure data (tested and validated in Nepal and Tanzania); and capacity development of core stakeholders. These results are expected to promote welfare and economic development in the pilot and 47 ODA countries, and demonstrate the applicability of the techniques elsewhere. For planning, the data and protocols developed can help municipalities to identify areas with high landslide susceptibility, and the corresponding risk to buildings located in those areas. In emergency response, such as after an earthquake, municipalities can identify the following: low hazard areas where people can be moved to safety, where the biggest impacts are likely to be and where to focus land-use planning and building retrofitting efforts. GEM contributions GEM, a member of the consortium, contributed to two work packages: structural vulnerability assessment and propagation of uncertainty to disaster risk estimates for multiple perils including earthquakes, landslides, floods, and volcanoes; and knowledge sharing and dissemination of project outputs and protocols through the use of web portals and training workshops with local partners. In Tanzania, GEM, HOT, and DMD co-led an earthquake scenario demonstration and walkthrough workshops. A hypothetical M7.0 earthquake offshore Dar es Salaam was modelled, investigating the potential impacts of the 2020 M6.0 earthquake near Dar es Salaam had it been stronger. Using these impact estimates, stakeholders organized into 3 separate groups to determine their ministry's role in response, discuss how certain challenges to response might be overcome, and identify data that could be helpful to respond. In Nepal, GEM led workshop sessions on seismic hazards and risk, which included an overview of the theory and methodology pertaining to seismic hazard assessment (both scenario-based and probabilistic), exposure considerations specific to earthquake hazards, vulnerability modelling, and risk analysis and metrics. GEM also assisted project partners that are leading other work packages, including the construction of improved building vulnerability models for buildings with some retrofit or other seismic intervention. This work informed a cost-benefit analysis that can be used to indicate the return-on-investment of seismic mitigation strategies. METEOR Partners Other members of the consortium included Fathom (flood hazard model), Oxford Policy Management (OPM) (project monitoring and management), ImageCat (EO-based data for exposure development, methods and protocols, and training), The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) (exposure data in Kathmandu and Dar es Salaam for validation and calibration of building patterns from EO-based imagery), National Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET) in Nepal,and the Disaster Management Department (DMD) of the Prime Minister’s Office of Tanzania - key to the co-development of the country datasets. Important links: The training portal on the METEOR website (for Nepal and Tanzania) The maps portal on the METEOR website (exposure and hazard data) Nepal BIPAD portal containing METEOR data/maps (the official DRR data portal of Nepal) Related links: HOT Tanzania Workshop article HOT Field data in Kathmandu NASA Applied Sciences No images found. GALLERY 1/0 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

OpenQuake Engine certified user page This is to certify that Houda Delleci has successfully completed the requirements to become a Certified OpenQuake Engine User for Scenario Assessment demonstrating the required knowledge and skills as assessed by the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation. GEM Foundation Secretary General Helen Crowley (signed) Date of Completion: Valid until: September 12, 2025 September 11, 2028

You have chosen to request a demo on: OpenQuake QGIS Plugin First Name Last Name Email Company or Institution Name Country Sector Provide Details I accept the license terms and the conditions of products use. Email us at product@globalquakemodel.org if you're experiencing problems submitting this form or if you have any inquiries. Thank you. Request Thanks for submitting! You will be contacted as soon as possible Add answer here

News Launch of the Global Model for Earthquake Social Vulnerability and Resilience (SVR) By: Nov 25, 2020 Share Facebook LinkedIn The ability to model characteristics within socio-economic systems that affect how populations prepare for, respond to, and recover from adverse impacts from earthquakes is an integral part of earthquake risk reduction. This is because the impact potential from earthquakes extends beyond direct physical impacts and loss of life, to account for the interconnectedness between earthquake hazard, the built environment, and the socio-economic characteristics of populations. As such, socioeconomic conditions can increase or decrease the potential for harm or loss during an earthquake event and after the event in terms of the differential recovery potential of populations. During this side event, the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) will officially launch its methods, metrics, and tools for the global assessment of social vulnerability and integrated risk from earthquakes. The launch will include the showcasing of GEM’s global integrated risk products coupled with the discussion of the methods used to develop a set of three internally and externally validated maps that will be used to demonstrate social vulnerability, economic vulnerability, and recovery potential from earthquakes worldwide. As such, GEM’s side event aims to present the current state of social vulnerability modelling at the global scale, and to discuss in-depth the future work needed to downscale the global social vulnerability modelling effort at the sub-country and city level. It will also be an important opportunity to discuss how this methodology for assessing social vulnerability and resilience to earthquakes can be applied to other hazard impacts, including disease or other natural hazards. Register at Bookmark our event page: . This page will contain the link to join our session, so make sure to check it again next week. See you soon! No images found. GALLERY 1/2 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News Public-private insurance project underway to protect Peruvian public schools from natural hazards By: Sep 21, 2020 Share Facebook LinkedIn GEM is set to provide risk modelling services to a landmark insurance project coordinated by the Insurance Development Forum and funded by a grant agreement from Germany’s InsuResilience Solutions Fund (ISF). The project aims to protect more than 50,000 public schools in Peru against the impact of natural disasters, and to improve continuity for children’s education by accelerating reconstruction and strengthening the country’s resilience through an innovative insurance program. The project will kick off with the IDF project consortium led by AXA XL and Munich Re, including the Peruvian Association of Insurance Companies (APESEG) as initiator of the project, as well as JBA Risk Management and InsurTech Picsure. GEM will specifically contribute to the development of earthquake risk models for the project. The start of the Peruvian Public Schools project marks the first country execution under the Tripartite Agreement between the IDF, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), officially signed in September 2019, during the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit. This ground-breaking tripartite partnership will provide funding, technical assistance and risk solutions to 20 climate vulnerable countries by 2025, through leveraging the risk management expertise and capacities that the private sector and insurance markets can offer, in close collaboration with the public sector, to address the increasing impacts from climate change. “GEM is proud to be part of this first project under the tripartite agreement, which is a great opportunity to demonstrate how a public-private collaboration approach can assess and mitigate multi-hazard risks. We are happy to contribute our expertise in the earthquake hazard and risk modelling toward achieving disaster resilience in the public schools of Peru.” GEM Secretary General, John Schneider. For the full press release, click . No images found. GALLERY 1/0 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

You have chosen to request a demo on: Pacific Islands Hazard First Name Last Name Email Company or Institution Name Country Sector Provide Details I accept the license terms and the conditions of products use. Email us at product@globalquakemodel.org if you're experiencing problems submitting this form or if you have any inquiries. Thank you. Request Thanks for submitting! You will be contacted as soon as possible Add answer here

News The 2019 Japan-New Zealand-Taiwan Seismic Hazard Workshop By: Dec 18, 2019 Share Facebook LinkedIn PSHA workshop participants, Toyako, Japan 2019 The 2019 Japan-New Zealand-Taiwan Seismic Hazard Workshop was held from November 4th - 6th in Toyako, Japan. The workshop was hosted by GEM public sponsor, NIED. GEM has been actively participating in this event since 2012. This year, Marco Pagani, GEM Hazard Team Coordinator presented a summary of the characteristics of the global hazard maps and the mosaic and illustrated the various comparisons between the hazard models included in the mosaic to more than 80 scientists from Taiwan, Japan, Greece, USA, Singapore, Korea and New Zealand. Marco also chaired a session on Earthquake Ground Motion. He also discussed the GEM hazard team’s work on developing a suite of tools to appraise the main characteristics of the Seismic Source and Ground-Motion characterizations (SSC and GMC, respectively). The tools, once completed, may be used to appraise the earthquake occurrence characteristics of different earthquake source typologies used in an SSC or compare the ground motion produced by alternative ground motion models in the SSC for well-specified conditions. Group discussions focused on five topics: PSHA and model validation (Chung-Han Chan and Matt Gerstenberger; Ground motion prediction and site amplification (Hongjun Si and Nobuyuki Morikawa); Scenarios and subduction zone modeling (Bill Fry and Yin-Tung Yen); Hazard and risk products (Toshihiro Yamada and Elizabeth Abbott); and Fault structure and deformation model (Takashi Azuma and Andy Nicol). A summary of the meeting is available here . About the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment workshop The PSHA workshop is an annual event organized for the purpose of sharing research results, data, knowledge and information to mitigate risk in the Asia-Pacific region. The first workshop was held in 2012 organized by NIED Japan, and TEM Taiwan. This year the workshop is supported by GNS Science New Zealand, NIED Japan, University of Otago and University of Canterbury. No images found. GALLERY 1/6 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

News 1st Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering: Earthquakes in the Global COVID19 Pandemic By: Mar 26, 2021 Share Facebook LinkedIn Hundreds of online participants joined the first Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering held from March 22-24, 2021. Organized by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Civil Engineering, the objective of the conference was to commemorate the Zagreb earthquake events in 2020 and to forge a path to a resilient future. The event gathered national and international researchers, practitioners and public policy makers from Croatia and Europe. GEM’s Vitor Silva gave a presentation on the Potential Impact of Earthquakes in the Global COVID19 Pandemic as keynote for the special session on Urban Renovation Wave Triggered by Earthquake, organized by the City of Zagreb Bureau for Physical Planning. The presentation focused on the results of a study that Vitor and GEM colleague, Nicole Paul, conducted last year. The research culminated in the development of a pilot COVID-19 and Global Seismic Risk Map. The map presents COVID-19 statistics released by Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center over the GEM Global Risk Layer depicting earthquake risk from the GEM Global Earthquake Model (2018). The COVID-19 data shows a cumulative number of new cases reported. The combined map indicates areas where a damaging earthquake could cause increases in COVID-19 cases due to displacement of people from damaged buildings or where health care systems may be further stressed due to human injuries. Background The March 22, 2020 magnitude ML5.5 Zagreb earthquake painfully brought to light insufficient earthquake preparedness and hazard resilience of Croatia’s capital. One of the main goals of the virtual conference is to explore the implications of the Zagreb earthquake on Croatia’s future development as well as on other regions of low to moderate seismicity including earthquake resilience of Europe as a whole. For more details about the conference, contact crocee@grad.hr . No images found. GALLERY 1/0 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS