A Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Seismic Hazard Assessment in Urban Areas

The development and application of a low-cost instrumentation system for seismic hazard assessment in urban areas are described in the present study. The system comprises a number of autonomous triaxial accelerographs, designed and manufactured in house and together with dedicated software for device configuration, data collection and further postprocessing. The main objective is to produce a detailed view of strong motion variability in urban areas, for at least light intensity strong motion events. The overall cost of the developed devices is at least ten times lower than the respective commercial units, hence their deployment as an ultra-dense network over the area of interest can be significantly cost-effective. This approach is considered an efficient complement to traditional microzonation procedures, which are typically based on relatively few actual recordings and the application of theoretical methodologies to assess the strong motion distribution. The manufactured devices adopt micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) digital sensor technology for recording acceleration, whereas the accompanying software suite provides various configuration options, quick browsing, analyzing and exporting of the recorded events, as well as GIS type functionality for seamlessly producing explicit seismic hazard maps of the considered area. The evaluation of system performance was based on shaking table and real field comparisons against high accuracy commercial accelerographs. The study concludes with a real application of the proposed system in the form of an ultra-dense network installed at the city of Lefkada, an earthquake prone urban area in Greece, and the following compilation of explicit shakemaps.

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A low-cost instrumentation approach for seismic hazard assessment in urban areas

Risk Analysis IX ◽

10.2495/risk140091 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

C. Z. Karakostas ◽

V. K. Papanikolaou

Keyword(s):

Seismic Hazard ◽

Hazard Assessment ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Low Cost ◽

Seismic Hazard Assessment

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Seismic Hazard Assessment for Japan: Reconsiderations After the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Journal of Disaster Research ◽

10.20965/jdr.2013.p0848 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 848-860 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Hiroyuki Fujiwara ◽

◽

Nobuyuki Morikawa ◽

Toshihiko Okumura ◽

Keyword(s):

Seismic Hazard ◽

Hazard Assessment ◽

Strong Motion ◽

Seismic Hazard Assessment ◽

Tohoku Earthquake ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

2011 Tohoku Earthquake ◽

Hazard Maps ◽

The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake ◽

Seismic Hazard Maps

Under the guidance of the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion of Japan, we have been carrying out seismic hazard assessment for Japan since the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu Earthquake and have made the National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan to estimate strong motion caused by earthquakes that could occur in Japan in the future, and show estimated results on these maps. The Hazard Maps consist of two kinds of maps. One kind is a probabilistic seismic hazard map that shows the relation between seismic intensity value and its probability of exceedance within a certain period. The other kind is a scenario earthquake shaking map. In order to promote the use of the National Seismic Hazard Maps, we have developed an open Web system to provide information interactively, and have named this system the Japan Seismic Hazard Information Station (J-SHIS). The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (Mw9.0) was the largest such event in the recorded history of Japan. This megathrust earthquake was not considered in the National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan. Based on lessons learned from this earthquake disaster and on experience we have had in the seismic hazardmapping project of Japan, we consider problems and issues to be resolved for seismic hazard assessment and make proposals to improve seismic hazard assessment for Japan.

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Seismic Hazard Assessment and Numerical Modeling for Seismic Microzonation purpose of Dushanbe, Tajikistan

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21712 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Farkhod Hakimov ◽

Hans-Balder Havenith ◽

Anatoly Ischuk ◽

Marco Pilz ◽

Klaus Reicherter

Keyword(s):

Seismic Hazard ◽

Hazard Assessment ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Seismic Hazard Assessment ◽

Seismic Microzonation ◽

Soil Conditions ◽

Seismic Action ◽

City Area ◽

Local Soil ◽

Local Soil Conditions

<p>Seismic hazard assessment of urban areas is an important and extremely challenging task. It is so important because without the knowledge of the influence of local soil conditions and properties, of the changing layer thickness in urban areas, and without considering multiple possible scenario earthquakes for this territory, engineers do not have enough information on how to design and construct seismically safe buildings. The particular challenge of this task is due to the great uncertainty affecting the prediction of the spatially (and sometimes even temporally) changing seismic properties of soils with respect to urban development.<br>Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan, a mountainous country marked by high to very high seismic hazard. The reason for the high seismic hazard specifically near Dushanbe is related to its location between two fault systems: South Gissar fault and Ilek-Vaksh fault. &#160;Estimation of the seismic hazard of the urban areas in Tajikistan is very important because they had developed in a very short time and many high buildings are being constructed now Existing seismic action estimations are based on the old approaches when the main factors of the local soil conditions only consider general engineering-geological features of the territory as well as macro-seismic observations data. An additional problem is the building code in Tajikistan; it uses the estimation of the ground motions in terms of the MSK-64 scale, but does not enough take into account the variety of the soil conditions in the Dushanbe city area. Existing seismic hazard estimation of the area of Tajikistan is based on the so-called &#8220;The map of general seismic zoning of the territory of Tajikistan&#8221;, that was produced in 1978 in terms of MSK-64 scale. The seismic microzonation map of the Dushanbe city area was made in 1975 in terms of MSK-64 scale as well and was based on the engineering-geological approach mostly. This map does not represent the highly variable soil conditions of the Dushanbe city area which are partly due to the anthropogenic influence of the large city. Therefore, earlier seismic zonation maps assigned an intensity of IX to most districts of the city. However, those previous studies did not sufficiently quantify the local effects of soils on the seismic hazard, mainly the macro-seismic conditions (the relative distance of districts to fault lines) were considered for the zonation.&#160;<br>This study describes and implements a number of new approaches to the evaluation of maximum seismic impact and site effect values.&#160;</p>

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Монгол орны нутал дэвсгэрт бүртгэгдсэн газар хөдлөлтийн төвүүдийн нягтаршил

Proceedings of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences ◽

10.5564/pmas.v57i196.796 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 3-13

Author(s):

Баяраа Г ◽

А В Ключевский ◽

Дэмбэрэл С

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Seismic Hazard ◽

Hazard Assessment ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Seismic Activity ◽

Seismic Hazard Assessment ◽

Earthquake Epicenter ◽

Assessment Study ◽

Active Zones ◽

Instrumental Period

Map of earthquake epicenter density of Mongolia for the instrumental period (1964 - 2000) is presented. Seismic active zones are studied using information provided by the location of earthquake epicenters density. The results suggest that Mongolian territory could be divided into five seismic active and homogeneous sub- zones originated by the distribution of seismic active Cenozoic faults and epicenter density. Earthquake epicenter density and its spatial distribution are given a possibility to define and localize seismic active zones, current seismic pattern and its future dynamics of seismic activity in these zones. Most of earthquakes with the larger magnitude in the seismic active zones occurred in proximity to the statistically identified potential faults. Results of this study would be input parameters of seismic hazard assessment study of urban areas.

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