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Seismic hazard and seismic risk assessment based on the unified scaling law for earthquakes: Himalayas and adjacent regions

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Abstract

For the Himalayas and neighboring regions, the maps of seismic hazard and seismic risk are constructed with the use of the estimates for the parameters of the unified scaling law for earthquakes (USLE), in which the Gutenberg-Richter law for magnitude distribution of seismic events within a given area is applied in the modified version with allowance for linear dimensions of the area, namely, logN(M, L) = A + B (5 − M) + C logL, where N(M, L) is the expected annual number of the earthquakes with magnitude M in the area with linear dimension L. The spatial variations in the parameters A, B, and C for the Himalayas and adjacent regions are studied on two time intervals from 1965 to 2011 and from 1980 to 2011. The difference in A, B, and C between these two time intervals indicates that seismic activity experiences significant variations on a scale of a few decades. With a global consideration of the seismic belts of the Earth overall, the estimates of coefficient A, which determines the logarithm of the annual average frequency of the earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 and higher in the zone with a linear dimension of 1 degree of the Earth’s meridian, differ by a factor of 30 and more and mainly fall in the interval from −1.1 to 0.5. The values of coefficient B, which describes the balance between the number of earthquakes with different magnitudes, gravitate to 0.9 and range from less than 0.6 to 1.1 and higher. The values of coefficient C, which estimates the fractal dimension of the local distribution of epicenters, vary from 0.5 to 1.4 and higher. In the Himalayas and neighboring regions, the USLE coefficients mainly fall in the intervals of −1.1 to 0.3 for A, 0.8 to 1.3 for B, and 1.0 to 1.4 for C. The calculations of the local value of the expected peak ground acceleration (PGA) from the maximal expected magnitude provided the necessary basis for mapping the seismic hazards in the studied region. When doing this, we used the local estimates of the magnitudes which, according to USLE, corresponded to the probability of exceedance 1% and 10% during 50 years or, if the reliable estimate is absent, the maximal magnitudes reported during the instrumental period. As a result, the seismic hazard maps for the Himalayas and the adjacent regions in terms of standard seismic zoning were constructed. Based on these calculations, in order to exemplify the method, we present a series of seismic risk maps taking into account the population density prone to seismic hazard and the dependence of the risk on the vulnerability as a function of population density.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Profsoyuznaya 84/32, Moscow, 117997, Russia

    A. K. Nekrasova & V. G. Kossobokov

  2. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France

    V. G. Kossobokov

  3. Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Bangalore, India

    I. A. Parvez

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  1. A. K. Nekrasova
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  2. V. G. Kossobokov
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  3. I. A. Parvez
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Correspondence to A. K. Nekrasova.

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Original Russian Text © A.K. Nekrasova, V.G. Kossobokov, I.A. Parvez, 2015, published in Fizika Zemli, 2015, No. 2, pp. 116–125.

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Nekrasova, A.K., Kossobokov, V.G. & Parvez, I.A. Seismic hazard and seismic risk assessment based on the unified scaling law for earthquakes: Himalayas and adjacent regions. Izv., Phys. Solid Earth 51, 268–277 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1069351315010103

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