Abstract submission open for EFEHR’s ESC session

Abstract submission open for EFEHR’s ESC session

In September, about 700 early-career and senior researchers from more than 60 countries from Europe and all around the world will meet at ESC2024 in Corfu to discuss different modern fields of seismology and related applications. EFEHR will also take part in this conference and will host a session, highlighting innovative developments in seismic hazard and risk modelling across Europe: "Innovating and integrating: Bringing new science into Earthquake Hazard and Risk Assessment for Europe”. The past decade has witnessed a leap forward in the development of earthquake hazard and risk models. Looking to the future, we can see the emergence of new technologies and scientific innovations that have the potential to address the challenges in the characterization of earthquakes and their impacts on society. 

The focus of EFEHR's session is therefore on how we can integrate emerging science and technologies into future generations of models to serve a wide range of applications. Submissions on a diverse range of topics are welcome:

  • State-of-the-art earthquake hazard, vulnerability, exposure, and risk models in Europe;
  • Capitalising on new datasets and advanced technologies including remote sensing, geodesy, crowd-sourced data, machine learning, and distributed acoustic sensing;
  • Physics-based simulations of the earthquake rupture and strong ground shaking;
  • Time-dependent hazard and risk analysis;
  • Multi-hazard modelling integrating earthquake-induced events such as subaerial and submarine landslides, tsunamis, liquefaction, and co-seismic displacements;
  • Novel methods for quantification, propagation, and reduction of uncertainties, and for validation and verification of models against data;
  • Societal impact and applications in industry, including seismic design, catastrophe modelling, impact forecasting, and risk assessment

Deadline abstract submission: 12 April 2024

More information

Apply now for transnational access to European research infrastructures

Apply now for transnational access to European research infrastructures

For the first time, the Geo-INQUIRE project will provide transnational access to more than 30 state-of-the-art research infrastructures between January 2024 and March 2026. These infrastructures include laboratories, observatories, high-performance computing facilities, and other installations supporting the development of excellent, high-level, and ground-breaking science across various fields of geosciences. Together with other facilities, EFEHR is actively participating in this initiative to provide access to computational services in high-performance computing facilities for simulating geophysical phenomena and conducting probabilistic hazard analysis.

What does EFEHR offer?

At ETH Zurich, EFEHR offers both remote and physical access for training and subsequent development of research projects, related to regional or national seismic hazard models under the installation “EF-PSHA - Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (TA2-542-1)”. 

Applications can be submitted by 15 March 2024 through the Geo-INQUIRE TA website.

Access to unique high-level installations and experiments provided through Geo-INQUIRE is free of charge for the selected users and includes all costs necessary to perform the proposed research, such as equipment, support staff at the installation, consumables, training for external users and others.

Geo-INQUIRE (Geosphere INfrastructures for QUestions into Integrated REsearch) fosters excellent, interdisciplinary and curiosity-driven research of the solid Earth, including land-sea-atmosphere interfaces.


More information: www.geo-inquire.eu

Tags: hazard, News

Changes in the EFEHR Consortium Governance

Changes in the EFEHR Consortium Governance

After four years, a new Chair and Executive Committee were elected at EFEHR General Assembly on 11 October. Fatemeh Jalayer was appointed as EFEHR Chair, succeeding Fabrice Cotton. Fatemeh Jalayer is a Professor of Geophysical Hazard Risks at the University College London (UK) and coordinates the European Tsunami Risk Service (ETRiS) which is part of the candidate Thematic Core Service Tsunami of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS), the Multi-Risk Services Portfolio of Horizon Europe project Geo-INQUIRE, and is integrated into the EPOS ICS-C portal.

Along with Graeme Weatherill, Roberto Basili, and Radmila Salic Makreska, they constitute the new Consortium Governance together with the existing members Olga-Joan Ktenidou, António A. Correia, and Laurentiu Danciu, who serves as Consortium Secretary. With their expertise, they will further thrive on EFEHR's mission to advance earthquake hazard and risk assessment in the European-Mediterranean area.

At the same time, we express our gratitude to our former Chair, Fabrice Cotton, and the three outgoing Executive Committee members: Helen Crowley, Päivi Mäntyniemi, and Céline Beauval. Their dedicated in-kind contributions and collective efforts over the last four years have laid a solid foundation upon which EFEHR can continue to build.

New EFEHR members

Over the past four years, EFEHR significantly grew in membership from 12 to 37. Recently, seven new members became part of the General Assembly:

  • Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London (UK)
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde (UK)
  • Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Pristina "Hasan Prishtina" (Kosovo)
  • Institute of Hydrometeorology and Seismology, Sector of Seismology (Montenegro)
  • Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture of University of Naples Federico II, Naples (Italy)
  • Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Instituto Dom Luiz IDL (Portugal)
  • Department of Civil Engineering, TED University Ankara TED, (Türkiye)

More information:

EFEHR Newsletter #6

Invitation to the scientific session: October 11, 2023

Invitation to the scientific session: October 11, 2023

We invite you to join us at the scientific session of the upcoming EFEHR General Assembly. The focus lies on the earthquake sequence that impacted Türkiye and Syria earlier this year, and how insights from these events are helping us improve our European hazard and risk models.

When?
October 11, 2023
Start: 8.30 CET

Where?
Online, please register here

Programme:

The earthquake sequence in Türkiye and Syria: Lessons learned from datasets to earthquake risk assessment

 

→ Conveners: H. Crowley and L. Danciu


R. Basili, INGV (Italy): "Recent earthquakes within and around the Euro-Mediterranean region"


K. Sesetyan, KOERI (Türkiye): "Large historical earthquakes (1000-1900) around the East Anatolian fault zone"


P. Cito, UNINA (Italy): "The 6 February 2023 Türkiye earthquakes: insights from the earthquake engineering perspective"


U. Hancilar, KOERI (Türkiye): "Rapid estimation of strong ground motion, building damage distributions and the recovery efforts in the aftermath of the Kahramanmaraş-Türkiye M7.7 earthquake, 6 February 2023"


E. Riga, AUTH (Greece): "Rapid damage assessment for the February 6th, 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake sequence applying components of ESRM20"


G. Weatherill, GFZ (Germany): "The 6 February 2023 Türkiye earthquakes: insights from the European Seismic Hazard and Risk Models"

Tags: Events

Call for abstracts for AGU2023

EFEHR is pleased to announce  a session dedicated to the role and importance of macroseismic data in seismic hazard and risk applications at the forthcoming AGU Fall Meeting 2023 in San Francisco, and online everywhere, from 11 to 15 December 2023. The session is "S032 - The Value of Macroseismic Intensity Data: from Earthquake Source Characterization to Ground Motion and Seismic Hazard Estimation and Testing" ( More information)

  • Convenors: S.E. Hough, A. Rovida, V. D'Amico, D. Albarello
  • Deadline abstract submission: Wednesday, 2 August (23:59 EDT/03:59 +1 GMT)

We look forward to receiving many valuable contributions from the EFEHR community.

S032 - The Value of Macroseismic Intensity Data: from Earthquake Source Characterization to Ground Motion and Seismic Hazard Estimation and Testing

The value of macroseismic data, defined as the effects of earthquake shaking on people and the natural and built environment, commonly used to estimate numerical intensity values, is increasingly recognized by our community. Macroseismic data provide unique and invaluable information for many types of investigation, and several methods have been developed in recent years to fully exploit them, including an appreciation of both their limitations and value. This session welcomes contributions on both methodologies to analyze this kind of data and case histories, aiming to cover the widest possible range of their applications in the seismological and engineering practice.

A non-exclusive list of topics includes: investigating past earthquakes, characterizing their sources, compiling long-term catalogs, characterizing long-term seismicity for probabilistic seismic hazard assessment, estimating expected shaking levels through intensity attenuation models and relationships between ground motion parameters and macroseismic intensity, testing and retrospective evaluation of seismic hazard estimates and shaking scenarios.

  • Primary Convener: Susan Elizabeth Hough (USGS Pasadena Field Office)
  • Conveners: Andrea Rovida (INGV Milano), Vera D'Amico (INGV Pisa), Dario Albarello (University of Siena)

Tags: Events

Joint EFEHR - GEM Webinar: Vulnerability Modellers' Toolkit (VMTK)

VMTK is a suite of open-source tools intended to provide earthquake engineers with a comprehensive platform to develop fragility and vulnerability models while allowing wide flexibility in terms of seismic demand, structural capacity, damage criteria and damage-to-loss conversion. On 20 April, Helen Crowley (EUCENTRE), Martina Caruso, Luis Martin and Vitor Silva from GEM introduced the VMTK toolkit to interested users.

Did you miss the joint EFEHR/GEM webinar on the Vulnerability Modellers' Toolkit (VMTK)? Don't worry, you can access all the material and recordings here. If you did attend, we would love to hear your feedback. Fill in the post-webinar survey here.

 

 

Tags: Events

EPOS launches the European Portal for Open and Integrated Access to Multidisciplinary Scientific Data for Solid Earth Sciences

EPOS launches the European Portal for Open and Integrated Access to Multidisciplinary Scientific Data for Solid Earth Sciences

The platform “EPOS Data Portal” will be presented at the EGU General Assembly 2023 and will allow scientists, students and stakeholders to access multidisciplinary scientific data and products for understanding Earth dynamics.

After more than 20 years of research and innovation, on 25 April EPOS (European Plate Observing System), the European research infrastructure for solid Earth science, will officially present its Data Portal to the scientific community which will gather in Vienna and online for the annual General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union 2023 (EGU23).

Born in 2007 with the aim of developing a long-term integration plan for sharing scientific data and products, EPOS has integrated around 150 national research organizations from 25 European countries into a single distributed infrastructure. In 2018, EPOS obtained the legal status of ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) from the European Commission. “The EPOS vision is to promote open science by sharing multidisciplinary solid Earth science data and products to foster research and innovation; this has guided us in the creation of the Data Portal that we will present on 25 April in Vienna”, explains Lilli Freda, Executive Director of EPOS ERIC.

The unprecedented amount of data, products and services made available by the EPOS Data Portal for a large spectrum of users (scientific community, institutions, political decision- makers) promotes the progress of research for a better understanding of the physical and chemical processes governing natural phenomena of the Earth system such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. “EPOS is the first and only European research infrastructure for solid Earth science”, continues Freda, “and it will help not only researchers, but also national governments in identifying tools for the mitigation of natural hazards, as well as promoting investments in research and innovation”.

EPOS Data Portal is the result of collective work. Over the last twenty years, an international team of about 600 experts has worked in synergy on the integration and harmonization of over 60 types of metadata from the various disciplines that make up the solid Earth sciences enabling interoperability.

Participants of the EGU General Assembly will be able to see the results of this commitment by visiting the EPOS stand, using the Data Portal and attending the presentation of case studies developed by young researchers.

About EPOS

The EPOS architecture is based on four main elements.

  • National Research Infrastructures: these are the foundations of the EPOS architecture, where the scientific data integrated in EPOS are generated.
  • Thematic Core Services (TCS): these represent the governance level of the various scientific communities (Seismology, Near-Fault Observatories, Volcano Observations, Satellite Data, Geomagnetic Observations, Anthropogenic Hazards, Geological Information and Modeling, Multi-Scale Laboratories, Tsunami, GNSS Data & Products), where data produced by national infrastructures are standardized to ensure integrated access.
  • Integrated Core Services (ICS): this is the new e-infrastructure developed by EPOS for accessing integrated data, products and services through the Data Portal.
  • European Consortium of Research Infrastructure EPOS ERIC: this is the legal entity established in 2018 to coordinate the entire European research infrastructure. It is based in Rome, at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), and it currently involves seventeen countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and The United Kingdom; Germany and Switzerland participate as observers.

EPOS ERIC Data Portal launch event

The event will be part of the initiatives organised on the occasion of the EGU23 Annual General Meeting.

  • Tuesday 25 April, 19:00, Room E2 @Austria Center Vienna - EPOS Townhall “Introducing EPOS Data Portal
  • From 24 to 28 April, the EPOS community will meet scientists from all geoscience disciplines at the EPOS booth (Exhibition Gallery Green Level 1 - 111/112/113).

 

→ Text adopted from the EPOS press release

Tags: Events, News

Register now for the EFEHR scientific webinar!

Register now for the EFEHR scientific webinar!

Join the EFEHR scientific webinar on statistical testing of the European seismic hazard and risk models, inputs, components and results! The event takes place on the 24th of November, at 9:30 a.m (CET). Audience limited to 250, following registration, a link to the online event will be provided.

Online registration here!

Tags: EFEHR, News

New earthquake assessments available to strengthen preparedness in Europe

 New earthquake assessments available to strengthen preparedness in Europe

During the 20th century, earthquakes in Europe accounted for more than 200,000 deaths and over 250 billion Euros in losses (EM-DAT). Comprehensive earthquake hazard and risk assessments are crucial to reducing the effects of catastrophic earthquakes. The newly released update of the earthquake hazard model and the first earthquake risk model for Europe are the basis for establishing mitigation measures and making communities more resilient. They significantly improve the understanding of where strong shaking is most likely to occur and what effects future earthquakes in Europe will have. The development of these models was a joint effort of seismologists, geologists, and engineers across Europe. EFEHR will maintain and further develop these models in future. The research has been funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Earthquakes cannot be prevented nor precisely predicted, but efficient mitigation measures informed by earthquake hazard and risk models can significantly reduce their impacts. The 2020 European Seismic Hazard and Risk Models offer comparable information on the spatial distribution of expected levels of ground shaking due to earthquakes, their frequency as well as their potential impact on the built environment and on people’s wellbeing. To this aim, all underlying datasets have been updated and harmonised – a complex undertaking given the vast amount of data and highly diverse tectonic settings in Europe. Such an approach is crucial to establish effective transnational disaster mitigation strategies that support the definition of in-surance policies or up-to-date building codes at a European level (e.g. Eurocode 8 ) and at national levels. In Europe, Eurocode 8 defines the standards recommended for earthquake-resistant construction and retrofitting buildings and structures to limit the impact due to earth-quakes. Open access is provided to both, the European Seismic Hazard and Risk Models, including various initial components such as input datasets. 

The updated earthquake hazard model benefits from advanced datasets

Earthquake hazard describes potential ground shaking due to future earthquakes and is based on knowledge about past earthquakes, geology, tectonics, and local site conditions at any given location across Europe. The 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM20) replaces the previous model of 2013. 

The advanced datasets incorporated into the new version of the model have led to a more comprehensive assessment. In consequence, ground shaking estimates have been adjusted, resulting in lower estimates in most parts of Europe. With the exception of some regions in western Turkey, Greece, Albania, Romania, southern Spain, and southern Portugal where higher ground shaking estimates are observed. The updated model also confirms that Turkey, Greece, Albania, Italy, and Romania are the countries with the highest earthquake hazard in Europe, followed by the other Balkan countries. But even in regions with low or moderate ground shaking estimates, damaging earthquakes can occur at any time.

Furthermore, specific hazard maps from Europe’s updated earthquake hazard model will serve for the first time as an informative annex for the second generation of the Eurocode 8. Eurocode 8 standards are an important reference to which national models may refer. Such models, when available, provide authoritative information to inform national, regional, and local decisions related to developing seismic design codes and risk mitigation strategies. Integrating earthquake hazard models in specific seismic design codes helps ensure that buildings respond appropriately to earthquakes. These efforts thus contribute to better protect European citizens from earthquakes. 

Main drivers of the earthquake risk are older buildings, high earthquake hazard, and urban areas

Earthquake risk describes the estimated economic and humanitarian consequences of potential earthquakes. In order to determine the earthquake risk, information on local soil conditions, the density of buildings and people (exposure), the vulnerability of the built environment, and robust earthquake hazard assessments are needed. According to the 2020 European Seismic Risk Model (ESRM20), buildings constructed before the 1980s, urban areas, and high earthquake hazard estimates mainly drive the earthquake risk. 

Although most European countries have recent design codes and standards that ensure adequate protection from earthquakes, many older unreinforced or insufficiently reinforced buildings still exist, posing a high risk for their inhabitants. The highest earthquake risk accumulates in urban areas, such as the cities of Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey, Catania and Naples in Italy, Bu-charest in Romania, and Athens in Greece, many of which have a history of damaging earthquakes. In fact, these four countries alone experience almost 80% of the modelled average annual economic loss of 7 billion Euros due to earthquakes in Europe. However, also cities like Zagreb (Croatia), Tirana (Albania), Sofia (Bulgaria), Lisbon (Portugal), Brussels (Belgium), and Basel (Switzerland) have an above-average level of earthquake risk compared to less exposed cities, such as Berlin (Germany), London (UK), or Paris (France).

Developing the models is a joint effort

A core team of researchers from different institutions across Europe worked collaboratively to develop the first openly available Seismic Risk Model for Europe and to update Europe’s Seismic Hazard Model. They have been part of an effort that started more than 30 years ago and involved thousands of people from all over Europe. These efforts have been funded by several European projects and supported by national groups over all these years. 

More information

Press release

Downloads & information material

 

Tags: hazard, News, risk

Presentations of the EFEHR services webinar available

Presentations of the EFEHR services webinar available

On 16 December 2021, the EFEHR services webinar took place. More than 150 participants from science and industry received first-hand information from Andrea Rovida (INGV Milan), Roberto Basili (INGV Rome), Graeme Weatherill (GFZ Potsdam), Laurentiu Danciu (Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Zurich) and Helen Crowley (EUCENTRE, Pavia). They guided the participants through the different seismic hazard and risk datasets and tools, including those related to earthquake catalogues, active fault databases and ground motion modelling, and showed how to obtain access to the revised European seismic hazard model and the first openly available European seismic risk model.

The presentations and the recording from the webinar are now available to download:

Tags: EFEHR, Events, News

EFEHR Newsletter

The EFEHR newsletter offers updates and news on activities related to seismic hazard and risk in Europe and adjacent areas. It is distributed up to four times a year, so no spamming; all the important information will be summarized in one compact e-mail. Subscribe now!

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