Advancements in casualty modelling facilitated by the USGS Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) system

Abstract

The advent of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) system, in conjunction with several recent advances and trends in related data sources and research efforts, bring to light new opportunities within the overlapping realms of earthquake hazard, earthquake engineering, and earthquake epidemiological studies. While casualty modelling has admittedly often suffered from the lack of epidemiological rigour on the part of earth scientists and engineers, comparable laxity is also evident in some analyses of related hazard complexities on the part of social scientists. These limitations have often been due to insufficient oversight or interaction, or more commonly, insufficient data availability. Thanks to improved data sets, modelling approaches, and collaborations, there are now fewer obstacles to performing comprehensive casualty estimation, though formidable challenges remain. Under the auspices of the PAGER system, a global set of ShakeMaps has been produced for all significant earthquakes in the past 34 years (1973–2007). These event-specific ShakeMaps, constrained by any available data, are then combined with new global population data sets to develop systematic hazard and loss analyses. These and other important advancements, as well as their limitations, and their potential for contributing to casualty modelling are discussed. Example studies and applications are presented.