Publications A relocated earthquake catalog and ground motion database for the southern East African rift system Share Facebook LinkedIn Download 2023 | Peer-reviewed The southern East African rift system (EARS) is geologically rare considering its early-stage continental rift setting combined with a deep seismogenic zone. Several seismically vulnerable communities are located within this tectonically active region, resulting in a significant seismic risk. However, the ground motion and seismic hazard analyzes necessary to increase the earthquake preparedness in the region have been limited due to the relatively short instrumentation history and scarce ground motion data available. Here, we present a newly compiled ground motion database for the southern EARS which is critically lacking and preventing local ground motion studies. This database includes a regional catalog of 882 earthquakes spanning 1994–2022 (magnitudes 3–6.5) with available waveform records within epicentral distances of 300 km. Three different velocity models were used to relocate 256, 255, and 252 events, respectively, to quantify depth sensitivity, relocating events down to depths of 35–40 km. The final database contains 10,725 time-series records from 353 stations along with P- and S-wave phase arrivals for each record. The ground motion database contains peak ground acceleration and velocity and 5% damped pseudo-spectral acceleration for 291 frequencies from 1.0 to 30 Hz for the horizontal components. In addition, a Fourier amplitude spectrum table for 212 frequencies from 0.1 to 30 Hz is included. The database is accessible through the ISC repository (https://doi.org/10.31905/4GGVBFBE).

News Resilience Dividend: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Societies By: May 23, 2019 Share Facebook LinkedIn Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction. Photo credit: UNDRR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2019 Geneva GEM and two thousand others from around the world participated in the sixth session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2019) in Geneva, Switzerland from 13 to 17 May 2019. The event, convened and organized by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and hosted by the Government of Switzerland, featured Working Sessions, Side Events, Innovative Platform and IGNITE Stage where participants presented and discussed a wide range of topics in disaster risk reduction. Day 1 featured a high-level dialogue on global and regional progress, including outcomes from the regional platforms and a presentation and discussion on the state of global risk and future trends. The first day also featured a side event to announce the release of the Global Assessment Report 2019 (GAR2019) where Dr. Juan Pablo Sarmiento, Florida International University - Disaster Risk Reduction Program acknowledged GEM’s pioneering work on global risk assessment in his presentation. GEM’s global earthquake hazard and risk assessment work is featured in Chapter 3: Risk, especially in sections 3.1.1 Seismic and 3.2.1 Structural Exposure. Day 2 focused on risk-informed public and private investments, including investments in infrastructure and innovative investment modalities. A working session was also devoted to the launch of the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) where GEM is an active member and contributor. The last day focused on action on climate and disaster risk, including integrated national policies, strategies and planning, innovative financial and social instruments for climate and disaster risk reduction, including gender considerations. (source: https://www.preventionweb.net/files/58809_gpconceptnote.pdf ) “The Global Platform is an opportunity for us to come together to renew and accelerate our efforts to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk reduction. Achieving its targets for reducing disaster losses is a challenge and an opportunity to make the world a safer and more resilient place for future generations.” - Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction. (source: https://www.unisdr.org/conference/2019/globalplatform/home ) The GEM Foundation released the Africa Earthquake Hazard and Risk model on 15th May in recognition of UNISDR’s Global Platform 2019 Conference in Geneva. The technical data and information for this model is now available on the Africa Model webpage . The Africa Earthquake model underpins the African portion of GEM’s global maps released in December 2018. No images found. GALLERY GPDRR2019 Theme Ms. Mami Mizutori, UNDRR Head GPDRR2019 Theme 1/2 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

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News GEM paper on Potential Impact of Earthquakes during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic By: Jul 26, 2020 Share Facebook LinkedIn Global Earthquake Hazard-COVID19 map The threat of an earthquake occurring during a pandemic is very real, and can pose a problematic management of COVID-19 cases and health emergencies. The occurrence of earthquakes coincident with the pandemic may prevent the effective practice of mitigating measures such as social distancing, that can consequently cause an increase in the virus spread. To better understand the link between COVID-19 and earthquakes, Vitor Silva and Nicole Paul conducted a study on the "Potential Impact of Earthquakes during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic". The paper discusses the potential for earthquakes to trigger or exacerbate infectious diseases, and models the additional mortality to COVID-19 that would be expected from earthquake scenarios in Portugal for various levels of infection. The methodology can easily be generalized to any earthquake/covid scenario and to a fully probabilistic analysis. To identify regions of high seismic and covid-19 combined risk, the study used recent data on the number of confirmed cases at the national or subnational level combined with a global seismic hazard and risk map to produce a combined index. This index highlights regions where preparedness and contingency plans should be developed to account for the possibility of COVID-19 outbreaks due to the earthquake impact. View the maps: and . Using Portugal as an example, the authors simulated the potential impacts of two scenario earthquakes near Lisbon that are typically used by government officials for contingency planning: A) a magnitude 5.7 earthquake located onshore beneath Lisbon; and B) a magnitude 8.7 earthquake located offshore, representing a repeat of the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. For these two events, they estimated the population displaced from severely damaged and collapsed buildings. The increase in infection rate was then calculated from the inability to maintain social distance and other safeguards for displaced people who are placed in alternative shelters. Case A represents a relatively optimistic scenario in which the transmissibility slightly increases after the seismic event, and then decreases accordingly as counter measures are put in place in line with existing response capacity; and Case B represents a pessimistic scenario where the transmissibility would increase sharply after the seismic event as existing response capacity is exceeded. Accordingly, the results demonstrate a wide range in the potential for increased infection and mortality depending on the physical earthquake impact and the resulting displacement of population. According to the study, this indicates that stricter and more effective measures would have to be rapidly implemented in order to counter the spread of the infection. The study should be useful to national and local governments to prepare contingency plans for dealing with future risks that combine the impact of earthquakes, pandemics and other disasters that endanger human lives and displace people from their homes. This study is in press in and will be released in the coming weeks. No images found. GALLERY 1/2 Gallery VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

Publications GEM1 Executive Summary Share Facebook LinkedIn Download 2010 | Report The Global Earthquake Model (GEM) is a public/private partnership initiated and approved by the Global Science Forum of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD-GSF). GEM aims to provide uniform, independent standards to calculate and communicate earthquake risk worldwide. With committed backing from academia, governments, and industry, GEM will contribute to improved modelling of earthquake risk worldwide. More information is available on the GEM website: www.globalquakemodel.org. As a first step in developing a global earthquake model, a focused pilot project named GEM1 was launched to generate GEM’s first products and develop GEM’s initial IT infrastructure. GEM1 formally started in January 2009 and ended on March 31st 2010, whilst ETH Zurich was appointed as the coordinator, with EUCENTRE (Italy), GFZ (Germany), NORSAR (Norway) and the USGS (USA) as contributing partners (and a number of other institutions and individuals, named in the companion reports, also provided models, data and feedback). The main objective of GEM1 was that it would provide a basis upon which the future development of the full GEM computing environment and product set could be built. The aim as spelled out in the GEM1 implementation plan was to largely use existing tools and datasets in hazard and risk, connected through a unified IT infrastructure. The GEM1 deliverables are therefore to be considered ‘proof-of-concept’ rather than final products, hence any resulting outputs should be conceived as conceptual only and are thus not suitable for application. This report briefly summarizes the achievements of GEM1.

Publications Defining a consistent strategy to model ground-motion parameters for the GEM-PEER Global GMPEs Project Share Facebook LinkedIn Download 2012 | Peer-reviewed The project entitled Global Ground Motion Prediction Equations is funded by the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation and has the objective of recommending a harmonized suite of ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) that can be used at the global and regional scales for seismic hazard analysis and loss estimation studies. As part of this project, Task 1a experts were commissioned to make recommendations on the critical aspects of seismological predictor parameters that are used by predictive model developers to estimate ground motions for different earthquake scenarios. It is hoped that these recommendations would lead to the optimum description of ground-motion models that can be used efficiently for reliable seismic hazard assessment studies.

Publications Evolution of the OpenQuake Engine: Enhanced capabilities, collaborative development, and global adoption Share Facebook LinkedIn Download 2025 | Peer-reviewed The OpenQuake Engine started being developed in 2010 and was publicly introduced in 2014 as an open-source software for seismic hazard and risk modeling, aiming to provide a transparent, flexible, and globally accessible platform to the earthquake engineering and hazard science communities. Over the subsequent decade, extensive advancements have significantly expanded its capabilities and enhanced its adoption worldwide. This article comprehensively reviews these developments, detailing the new computational workflows and features implemented in the OpenQuake Engine with an emphasis on the risk component, improvements in its computational efficiency and scalability, and its growing global application across diverse geographical and thematic contexts. Major improvements to the OpenQuake Engine include the earthquake-triggered landslide and liquefaction modules, the infrastructure risk and network connectivity analysis module, the post-event loss amplification module, the financial loss module for insured and reinsured loss calculations, the classical and event-based probabilistic damage calculators, and the site-amplification module. Additional features include the option to condition ground motion fields on station data in scenario calculations, ability to connect ShakeMap outputs to the OpenQuake Engine’s damage and loss calculators, the conditional spectra calculator, vector-valued PSHA, and extension of the risk calculators to volcanic hazards. Performance improvements and enhancements in documentation have been pivotal in strengthening the software’s usability across a variety of computational platforms and user groups. A core contribution of this article lies in compiling and synthesizing over a hundred studies conducted using the OpenQuake Engine, thereby illustrating its versatile application at national, regional, urban, and site-specific scales. Moreover, examples of its use in earthquake insurance pricing and parametric catastrophe bond design are highlighted, demonstrating its practical relevance to risk management and financial resilience. Reflections on lessons learned regarding the importance of open-source practices, robust documentation, sustained user engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration are discussed to inform future development and maintenance of scientific software with global applications.

News GEM announces new partnerships and projects in the second half of 2019 By: Jul 31, 2019 Share Facebook LinkedIn GEM is proud to announce it’s new partnerships with the private sector in the second half of 2019: Swiss Re, Guy Carpenter and EdF/CEA. Swiss Re has joined the GEM family as an Advisor. Swiss Re first supported GEM through Swiss Re Foundation by funding the South America Risk Assessment (SARA) Project, which focused on assessing earthquake hazard and risks to the Andean Mountains Region of the South American continent. The SARA Project was implemented from 2013 - 2015, resulting in improved understanding of earthquake risk and a wide range of collaborations with academic institutions, governments and the private sector in the region, particularly in Colombia, Ecuador and Chile. Swiss Re has also collaborated with GEM in the past year to evaluate the use of GEM hazard and risk models for reinsurance applications. The new sponsorship signals a longer term commitment to the use of GEM software tools, data and models as part of their in-house modelling capability. Guy Carpenter, a world leader in reinsurance broking, strategic advisory services, and analytics, has also joined GEM as an Advisor for the next three years. Guy Carpenter will use GEM’s OpenQuake software, tools and data as part of their in-house earthquake modelling and evaluation capability. They will also work with GEM to promote and disseminate the use of GEM products to their clients globally. A project with Électricité de France (EDF), a nuclear electric power generation company and France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) will start in the second half of 2019. GEM will collaborate with the two agencies and provide OpenQuake tools and advice on earthquake hazard assessment to the nuclear energy development sector in France. EdF and CEA are using OpenQuake for research into earthquake hazard assessment for nuclear power plant design and safety assessment. No images found. GALLERY 1/3 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS

Publications Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis for the Dominican Republic Share Facebook LinkedIn Download 2024 | Peer-reviewed The Dominican Republic experiences moderate to high seismic hazard mostly caused by oblique convergence at the Caribbean/North American plate boundary that manifests as subduction zones, less-pronounced subduction-like trenches with thrust faulting, long strike-slip faults parallel to the plate boundary, and onshore deformation. Historical earthquakes have damaged the Dominican Republic’s large cities and those in neighboring Haiti, once requiring relocation. Given this, the Dominican Republic joined the “Training and Communication for Earthquake Risk Assessment” (TREQ) project funded by the United States Agency for International Development, which aimed to increase earthquake risk assessment capacity in Latin American cities. The TREQ project was the basis for developing an openly available probabilistic seismic hazard model for the Dominican Republic. The input model was developed from two main datasets: a homogenized earthquake catalog and an active faults database that combines results of recent local projects with a global database. The seismic source characterization used these to constrain source geometries and occurrence rates for active shallow crustal earthquakes, subduction interfaces and subduction-like thrusts, and intraslab earthquakes. Shallow crustal earthquakes, including those on subduction-like thrusts, are modeled by smoothed seismicity and fault sources, the latter using pre-defined geometries that permit multi-fault ruptures. Seismicity on the Puerto Rico Trench subduction interface is modeled as a fault source, while intraslab sources use pre-defined gridded ruptures inside the intraslab volume. The source characterization applies epistemic uncertainties to modeling assumptions affecting occurrence rates and maximum magnitudes. The ground motion characterization used residual analyses from past regional projects as a basis, updating some components with more recent ground motion models. Computed hazard results reinforce those from recent studies in terms of geographical hazard patterns and levels. For 475-year return periods, peak ground acceleration (PGA) in Santiago de los Caballeros reaches 0.50 g, controlled by the Septentrional Fault, while all tectonic region types contribute to the PGA 0.31 g computed for Santo Domingo.

News GEM conducts OpenQuake Workshop of 2019 at IIT Gandhinagar, India By: Mar 25, 2019 Share Facebook LinkedIn OpenQuake workshop participants, IIT Gandhinagar, India About 20 individuals participated in GEM’s first OpenQuake Workshop of 2019. The event, organized and coordinated by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) professors Svetlana Brzev and Manish Kumar was held in Gandhinagar from 18-19 March 2019. Vitor Silva and Anirudh Rao of the GEM Risk Team presented the Global Earthquake Model and discussed the seismic hazard and risk assessment for India, which was developed jointly with the GEM team and members from IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, and IIT Gandhinagar. The model allows the estimation of losses due to earthquakes in India, considering the local construction practices. “Seismic risk associated with the Indian building stock is an important topic and we are pleased to support this important research initiative by hosting the workshop” said Prof. Sudhir K. Jain, earthquake engineer and IITGN Director. The workshop was covered by local online news media in Gujarati (gandhinagarsamachar.com) and English ( indiatimes.com ) . No images found. GALLERY 1/4 VIDEO RELATED CONTENTS