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Operational earthquake forecasting in Europe: progress, despite challenges

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Abstract

Is Europe-wide operational earthquake forecasting (OEF) possible? We discuss the myriad problems that prevent it today, many of which relate to heterogeneities in earthquake recording, processing, and reporting. We contemplate the difficulty of building models that cross political boundaries, and we consider the prospect of European OEF in light of recent efforts to harmonize long-term seismic hazard assessment among several nations. Emphasizing the Strategies and Tools for Real-time Earthquake Risk Reduction (REAKT) project, we report achievements related to short-term seismicity forecasting in Iceland and Italy that could apply elsewhere in Europe. In Iceland, collaboration fostered by REAKT resulted in a revised earthquake catalog and a prototype OEF system. We report results from an experiment conducted with this prototype; these results suggest ensemble models provide an information gain, updating models more frequently improves their forecast skill, and that OEF is computationally feasible. In Italy, REAKT supported the creation of an ensemble model that now issues weekly hazard forecasts. We present examples of these forecasts, highlighting the problem that OEF often yields low probabilities, which are difficult to interpret and convert into actionable decisions. Motivated by such low hazard probabilities, we highlight Europe’s pioneering efforts in operational earthquake loss forecasting and mention solutions to problems that currently prevent OEF at the European scale.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially carried out in the framework of the REAKT project funded by FP7 of the European Commission, contract number 282862. This research was partially carried out in the framework of the ENVRIplus project funded by Horizon 2020, contract number 654182. We thank Guest Editor Carlo Cauzzi, Andy Michael and an anonymous reviewer for their assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Zurich, Sonneggstrasse 5, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    J. Douglas Zechar & Stefan Wiemer

  2. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Via di Vigna Murata, 605, 00143, Rome, Italy

    Warner Marzocchi

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  1. J. Douglas Zechar
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Correspondence to J. Douglas Zechar.

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Zechar, J.D., Marzocchi, W. & Wiemer, S. Operational earthquake forecasting in Europe: progress, despite challenges. Bull Earthquake Eng 14, 2459–2469 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-016-9930-7

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