HR: 1340h
AN: S33C-1467 [Abstracts]
TI: The Euro-Med Testing Center: Testing in a Highly Heterogeneous Environment
AU: Nanjo, K
EM: kazuyoshi.nanjo@sed.ethz.ch
AF: ETH Zurich, Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Hoenggerberg HPP-P, Schafmattstr. 30,
Zurich, 8093, Switzerland
AU: * Woessner, J
EM: j.woessner@sed.ethz.ch
AF: ETH Zurich, Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Hoenggerberg HPP-P, Schafmattstr. 30,
Zurich, 8093, Switzerland
AU: Wiemer, S
EM: s.wiemer@sed.ethz.ch
AF: ETH Zurich, Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Hoenggerberg HPP-P, Schafmattstr. 30,
Zurich, 8093, Switzerland
AU: Euchner, F
EM: fabian@sed.ethz.ch
AF: ETH Zurich, Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Hoenggerberg HPP-P, Schafmattstr. 30,
Zurich, 8093, Switzerland
AU: Marzocchi, W
EM: warner.marzocchi@ingv.it
AF: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Via di Vigna Murata 605, Rome,
00142, Italy
AB:
Earthquakes represent a major risk across the European-Mediterranean area, with an average of over 1000
earthquake-related casualties per year over the last 4 centuries. Responding to societal needs, European
researchers are striving to move from simplistic time-independent earthquake source models towards time-
dependent models and models that are increasingly physics-based for the next generation of seismic hazard
assessment. This transition, however, requires innovative forecast models but also broad acceptance of these
models, which can only be build through rigorous validation and testing of such models in retrospective and
prospective experiments.
Funded by national agencies and the EU FP6 projects NERIES (Network of Research Infrastructures for
European Seismology, neries.knmi.nl) and SAFER (Seismic eArly warning For EuRope, www.saferproject.net),
European seismologists are currently discussing how to build a sustainable European framework for testing
earthquake forecast models, a Euro-Med node to the global CSEP infrastructure. Specific challenges in Europe
are the availability and consistency of forecast models and authoritative data sets. Earthquakes are recorded
today in the larger Euro-Med region by over 1,700 short-period (SP) and 380 broadband (BB) permanent seismic
stations, operated by nearly 100 networks and observatories in 46 countries, designing a complex mosaic of
instrumental strategies, data distribution approaches, interfaces to the public and national emergency response
agencies. By 2009, over 1,000 new digital accelerometers, 2000 analog accelerometers, 1700 SP and up to 800
permanent BB seismic stations will be deployed. While efforts are ongoing to increasingly merge procedures,
data streams and catalogs, we need to find ways to perform meaningful earthquake forecast experiments in such
a heterogeneous environment. One option would be to implement testing largely according to national
boundaries; however, this would potentially produce a multitude of ongoing tests and also require significant
resources. An alternative approach is to set up several reference models for the entire region, such as a long-
term hazard model, basic clustering models (e.g., STEP, ETAS), against which region specific models can be
tested at the national level testing centers and/or in a Euro-Med wide testing center. We will present the current
status and remaining challenges of the discussions on earthquake likelihood model testing for the Euro-Med
region.
DE: 7200 SEISMOLOGY
DE: 7223 Earthquake interaction, forecasting, and prediction (1217, 1242)
DE: 7230 Seismicity and tectonics (1207, 1217, 1240, 1242)
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting