Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program - GSHAP legacy

Abstract

Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program - or simply GSHAP, when launched, almost two decades ago, aimed at establishing a common framework to evaluate the seismic hazard over geographical large-scales, i.e. countries, regions, continents and finally the globe. Its main product, the global seismic hazard map was a milestone, unique at that time and for a decade have served as the main reference worldwide. Today, for most of the Earth’s seismically active regions such Europe, Northern and Southern America, Central and South-East Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the GSHAP seismic hazard map is outdated. The rapid increase of the new data, advance on the earthquake process knowledge, technological progress, both hardware and software, contributed all in updates of the seismic hazard models. We present herein, a short retrospective overview of the achievements as well as the pitfalls of the GSHAP. Further, we describe the next generation of seismic hazard models, as elaborated within the Global Earthquake Model, regional programs: the 2013 European Seismic Hazard Model, the 2014 Earthquake Model for Middle East, and the 2015 Earthquake Model of Central Asia. Later, the main characteristics of these regional models are summarized and the new datasets fully harmonized across national borders are illustrated for the first time after the GSHAP completion.