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Updated seismic hazard curves, maps, and spectra for the northern Dominican Republic using a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis

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Abstract

This article presents updated seismic hazard curves, spectra, and maps of ground motion intensity measures for the northern region of the Dominican Republic (DR) obtained using a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). The analysis performed uses as input data an earthquake recurrence model based on fault slip rates derived from GPS measurements published in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The seismicity rate data are used to calibrate a composite characteristic earthquake model, which is combined with a Poisson process to provide a temporal characterization of earthquake occurrence. The seismic hazard curves and maps presented include parameters such as (horizontal) peak ground acceleration and pseudo-spectral response accelerations at 0.2s and 1.0s periods for 5% damping at firm rock sites. The results show that the ground motion parameters with a 2% probability of exceedance (PE) in 50 years determined in this study are up to 46% larger than the corresponding parameters specified in the current DR building code seismic hazard maps for the northern DR. Moreover, the design response spectra for a site in the city of Santiago specified in the code is significantly lower than the 2% PE in 50 years uniform hazard spectra determined in this study for vibration periods smaller than 0.5s, a range that includes the majority of the structures that define the built environment of the DR.

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All data used in this paper came from published sources listed in the references.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially supported by the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) and the Ministerio de Educación Superior Ciencia y Tecnología (MESCYT) of the Dominican Republic through the FONDOCYT program through project 2022-3A2-107. The support is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Kalil Erazo

  2. Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC), Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

    Kalil Erazo

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Appendix

Appendix

The uniform hazard spectra and hazard maps that resulted from the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis presented in this study differ considerably from those available in the current Dominican Republic seismic design code. This difference is attributed to the earthquake recurrence models and the ground motion prediction equations (GMPE) employed for spatio-temporal characterization of ground motion parameters.

To illustrate this, Figure 15 shows the earthquake recurrence models used in this study (a composite characteristic earthquake CE model) and the current DR building code (an unbounded Gutenberg-Richter GR model with parameters a = 1.98 and b = 0.49) for the Septentrional fault (SODOSISMICA, 2009); the figure also depicts the resulting probability density function (PDF) for earthquake magnitude at the fault. Fig. 15a shows the observed catalog seismicity of the DR, according to the non-profit organization SODOSISMICA (SODOSISMICA, 2009); the data in this catalog is based on earthquakes that occurred mostly within the last 30 years, which is considered insufficient for model calibration purposes as evidenced by the significantly small 0.49 b-value. The GR model (2009) adopted in the DR building code and shown in the figure is based on this seismicity data.

Fig. 15
figure 15

Comparison of the recurrence models adopted in the current DR building code (unbounded Gutenberg-Richter GR model) and this study (composite characteristic earthquake CE model); a cumulative earthquake rates, and b probability density functions (PDF)

Full size image

As can be seen, the earthquake rates estimated by the unbounded GR model are larger than those estimated by the characteristic model adopted in this study, particularly in the range close to the characteristic magnitude MW 7.8. The unbounded GR model used in the DR building code was calibrated using a catalog data that included 166 earthquakes in the range 3 ≤ Mw ≤ 5 and 8 earthquakes with Mw > 6 (SODOSISMICA, 2009); the catalog observation data used in SODOSISMICA (2009) is shown in Fig. 15. Note that although the recurrence rates of the GR model are higher than those estimated by the CE model, the probability of earthquakes of magnitude Mw > 6 (and the ground motion parameters associated with them) receive a small weight due to the PDF P(m) shown in Fig. 15b when integrated into the hazard equation (Equation 1); indeed, the PDF of earthquake magnitude based on the GR model is almost two orders of magnitude smaller than the PDF based on the composite characteristic model for the range 6.5 ≤ Mw ≤ 7.8 due to the wider domain of the former.

In essence, according to the model used in the current DR seismic code, the majority of the seismic moment is released by earthquakes with magnitude in the range 3 < Mw < 6, which in turn are associated with small ground motion parameter values resulting in a lower seismic hazard than the model employed in this study. Similarly, the rate of large ground motion parameters is small since the term P(Y > y) is penalized due to the small weight provided by P(m) for the earthquake magnitude more likely to generate large ground motion response parameters. This chiefly results in lower estimates of the recurrence rate of large ground motion intensity measure values and partially justifies the increase in the seismic hazard of this study with respect to the existing building code.

The second major PSHA input that considerably differs from that adopted in the current DR building code is the set of GMPE employed. Figure 16 depicts the GMPE median and standard deviation for the models used in this study for the Septentrional fault, as well as the model adopted in the current DR code (Campbell, 1997).

Fig. 16
figure 16

Comparison of ground motion prediction equations (GMPE) adopted in the current DR building code (Campbell 97—C97) and this study for crustal faults (NGA-West2 models); a median PGA, and b PGA standard deviation (logarithmic units)

Full size image

As can be seen, although the median ground motion intensity measures are within the same range, the standard deviation estimated by the NGA-West2 models is considerably larger than the corresponding standard deviation estimated by the Campbell 1997 (C97) model for small distances that are associated with strong shaking. The smaller uncertainty associated with the C97 model implies that ground motion parameter values larger than the median (which are associated with strong shaking) receive a small weight when integrated by P(Y > y | m, r) in Equation 1, resulting in a small probability and rate for such parameter values.

The Campbell 1997 (C97) model is outdated and more recent models (such as the NGA-West2 models) have been developed over the last 20 years using strong motion data from a significantly expanded database. Moreover, only the Campbell 1997 model was used to develop the current DR hazard maps, including regions with subduction zones for which the model does not apply (SODOSISMICA, 2009).

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Erazo, K. Updated seismic hazard curves, maps, and spectra for the northern Dominican Republic using a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. J Seismol 27, 409–428 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-023-10150-y

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