Seismic hazard assessment of northern Pakistan

Muhammad Waseem (), Carlo Giovanni Lai and Enrico Spacone
Additional contact information
Muhammad Waseem: University of Peshawar
Carlo Giovanni Lai: University of Pavia
Enrico Spacone: University ‘G. D’Annunzio’ of Chieti-Pescara

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2018, vol. 90, issue 2, No 3, 563-600

Abstract: Abstract This article presents probabilistic seismic hazard analyses of northern Pakistan region carried out to produce macro-seismic hazard maps for the region that define new regional ground motion design parameters for 95-, 475-, 975- and 2475-year return period earthquakes as regional contour maps and horizontal uniform hazard at important cities. The Cornell–McGuire approach (Cornell in Bull Seismol Soc Am 58(05):1583–1606, 1968; McGuire in FORTRAN computer program for seismic risk analysis. US Geological Survey, Open file Report, 76-6768, 1976) is used to carry out the analyses at 0.1° rectangular grid. The seismotectonic model of the region used in analysis consists of shallow and deep area zones differentiated based on the focal depths of the earthquakes. Earthquake catalogue compiled and used in the analysis is a composite catalogue composed of 19,373 events. Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) used are calibrated using goodness-of-fitness measures and visual inspection with local strong motion data. Epistemic uncertainty in the GMPEs is taken into account through the logic tree approach. Comparison of ground motions due to deep earthquakes is made for the first time for the region. The comparison between ground motion due to shallow and deep earthquakes indicates that the seismic hazard would be underestimated if the deep earthquakes are excluded. Ground motion values obtained in this study considering all the earthquakes suggest ground motions are dominant towards the north east of the region. The proposed study indicates that the ground motion hazard values suggested by the current Building Code of Pakistan underestimate the seismic hazard. Final results of this study are in close agreement with the recent studies on the region.

Keywords: Pakistan; Earthquake catalogue; GMPEs; Seismotectonic model; Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis; Uniform hazard spectra (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-017-3058-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:90:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-017-3058-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-017-3058-1

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().