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The 2014 seismic hazard model of the Middle East: overview and results

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Abstract

The Earthquake Model of Middle East (EMME) Project aimed to develop regional scale seismic hazard and risk models uniformly throughout a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean in the west to the Himalayas in the east and from the Gulf of Oman in the south to the Greater Caucasus in the North; a region which has been continuously devastated by large earthquakes throughout the history. The 2014 Seismic Hazard Model of Middle East (EMME-SHM14) was developed with the contribution of several institutions from ten countries. The present paper summarizes the efforts towards building a homogeneous seismic hazard model of the region and highlights some of the main results of this model. An important aim of the project was to transparently communicate the data and methods used and to obtain reproducible results. By doing so, the use of the model and results will be accessible by a wide community, further support the mitigation of seismic risks in the region and facilitate future improvements to the seismic hazard model. To this end all data, results and methods used are made available through the web-portal of the European Facilities for Earthquake Hazard and Risk (www.efehr.org).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the collaborative efforts of various local and regional researchers throughout the project. Several members of the EMME consortium have contributed to EMME-SHM14 by providing feedback to the hazard model and results. Among these Arif Axhundov, Mohsen Ghafory-Ashtiany, Rasheed Jaradat and Mohammad Reza Zolfaghari are particularly acknowledged. We thank Orhan Özalp and Ümit Çolpan for their assistance in several IT related issues and Marco Pagani, Damiano Monelli, and Graeme Weatherill at Global Earthquake Model for their help and guidance throughout the project. We also thank Jochen Woessner (SHARE-Project), Stefano Parolai, Dino Bindi and Shahid Ullah (EMCA-Project) for their efforts on cross-border harmonization. Several members of the SHARE Consortium, more specifically Gianluca Valensise, Roberto Basili, Massimiliano Stucchi, Andrea Rovida and Paola Albini have significantly contributed to the compilation of the databases. Further, we would like to express our gratitude to the OpenQuake IT development team, which provided constant and steady support during the EMME project. More specifically, the support was granted by: Michele Simionato, Daniele Vigano, Lars Butler and Paul Henshaw. We also thank the EFEHR team (P. Kastli, C. Bonjour) for providing the tools to make the results of the EMME Project public. M. Sayab acknowledges his former organization, NCE in Geology, Peshawar University, for EMME-related research facilities. We thank Ben Edwards, John Douglas and one anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments and valuable suggestions, which have greatly improved the manuscript, especially the discussions on obtained results. Sadly, at the final preparation phase of this manuscript, our distinguished colleague and co-author Arkady Karakhanyan passed away on November 13, 2017. Arkady Karakhanyan played a very important role in the study of the active tectonics of the Caucasus region and particularly in the development of the EMME hazard model. His contribution to our project and his kind friendship will always be most gratefully remembered. Sadly again, another distinguished colleague and co-author Hussein Hamzehloo who had actively contributed to the EMME project passed away on March 13, 2017. His contribution and support will always be remembered.

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Author notes

  1. Mine B. Demircioğlu Tümsa

    Present address: Department of Civil Engineering, Gebze Technical University, Kocaeli, Turkey

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Karin Şeşetyan, Mine B. Demircioğlu Tümsa, Mustafa Erdik, Sinan Akkar & Doğan Kalafat

  2. Department of Earth Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Laurentiu Danciu & Domenico Giardini

  3. Department of Geophysical Engineering, Sakarya University, Serdivan, Sakarya, Turkey

    Levent Gülen, Murat Utkucu & Hilal Yalçın

  4. International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology, Tehran, Iran

    Mehdi Zare, Anooshiravan Ansari, Hossein Hamzehloo & Khaled Hessami

  5. I. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, M. Nodia Institute of Geophysics, Tbilisi, Georgia

    Shota Adamia, Tamaz Chelidze, Nino Tsereteli & Otar Varazanashvili

  6. Armenian Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth (AASPE), Yerevan, Armenia

    Avetis Arakelyan

  7. Department of Civil Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Ayşegül Askan

  8. Institute of Geological Sciences, Armenian Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, Armenia

    Mher Avanesyan, Raffi Durgaryan & Arkady Karakhanyan

  9. Georisk Scientific Research Company, Yerevan, Armenia

    Hektor Babayan

  10. Faculty of Engineering 1, Lebanese University, Tripoli, Lebanon

    Ata Elias

  11. Department of Civil Engineering, TED University, Ankara, Turkey

    Özkan Kale

  12. Karakoram International University, Gilgit, Pakistan

    Muhammad Asif Khan

  13. Republican Seismic Survey Center of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Baku, Azerbaijan

    Tahir Mammadli

  14. Jordan Seismological Observatory, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Amman, Jordan

    Mahmood Al-Qaryouti

  15. Geological Survey of Finland, 02151, Espoo, Finland

    Mohammad Sayab

  16. National Centre of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan

    Muhammad Waseem

  17. Department of Engineering Science, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Mustafa Tolga Yılmaz

Authors
  1. Karin Şeşetyan
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  2. Laurentiu Danciu
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  30. Muhammad Waseem
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  31. Hilal Yalçın
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  32. Mustafa Tolga Yılmaz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karin Şeşetyan.

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Şeşetyan, K., Danciu, L., Demircioğlu Tümsa, M.B. et al. The 2014 seismic hazard model of the Middle East: overview and results. Bull Earthquake Eng 16, 3535–3566 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-018-0346-4

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