During the 20th century, earthquakes in Europe accounted for more than 200,000 deaths and over 250 billion Euros in losses. Comprehensive earthquake hazard and risk assessments are crucial to reducing the effects of catastrophic earthquakes because earthquakes cannot be prevented nor precisely predicted.
An international team of European seismologists, geologists, and engineers, with leading support of members from the Swiss Seismological Service and the Group of Seismology and Geodynamics at ETH Zurich has; therefore, revised the earthquake hazard model that has existed since 2013 and created a first earthquake risk model for the whole of Europe.
The 2020 European Seismic Hazard and Risk Models offer comparable information on the spatial distribution of expected levels of ground shaking due to earthquakes, their frequency as well as their potential impact on the built environment and on people’s sense of wellbeing.
The newly released update of the earthquake hazard model and the first earthquake risk model for Europe are the basis for establishing mitigation measures and making communities more resilient. They significantly improve the understanding of where strong shaking is most likely to occur and the potential effects of future earthquakes in Europe.
To this aim, all underlying datasets have been updated and harmonised – a complex undertaking given the vast amount of data and highly diverse tectonic settings in Europe. Such an approach is crucial to establish effective transnational disaster mitigation strategies that support the definition of insurance policies or up-to-date building codes at a European level and at national levels.
Open access is provided to both, the European Seismic Hazard and Risk Models, including various initial components such as input datasets.
