Some Applications of Probability and Statistics for Seismic Hazard Mitigation

Abstract

Seismic hazard is one of the major threats from nature to human lives and properties. Mitigation of the hazard is in general implemented by setting up appropriate design criteria for earthquake-resistant buildings and man-made structures, such as dams, highway bridges, towers, etc. Probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) has been demonstrated as an effective method to build up the design criteria for most facilities that are predominantly threatened by earthquakes. There are two major components in PSHA: (1) the modeling of earthquakes in time and space and (2) the modeling of ground motions given an earthquake occurring in a source zone. Poisson process has been widely used to describe the occurrence of earthquakes in time in a tectonic region. Zoning of earthquake sources is usually based on statistics of regional seismicity and seismogenic features. Regression analysis implemented upon the observed strong- motion data plays an important role in ground motion prediction. Narrowing down the uncertainty of hazard assessment is a major issue in the seismological and earthquake-engineering communities.