Alerting the Globe of Consequential Earthquakes

Abstract

The primary ingredients on the hazard side of the equation include the rapid characterization of the earthquake source and quantifying the spatial distribution of the shaking, plus any secondary hazards an earthquake may have triggered. On the earthquake impact side, loss calculations require the aforementioned hazard assessments—and their uncertainties—as input, plus the quantification of the exposure and vulnerability of structures, infrastructure, and the affected inhabitants. Lastly, effectively communicating uncertain estimates of the resulting impacts on society requires careful consideration of its function and form. All these aspects of rapid earthquake information delivery entailed wide‐ranging collaborative research and development among seismologists, earthquake engineers, geographers, social scientists, Information Technology professionals, and communication experts, leveraging diverse components and ingredients not achievable without extensive collaboration. I was very fortunate to be able to work on interesting and useful projects with many colleagues who got involved with them. Advances in content, its rapid delivery, and our ability to better communicate uncertain loss estimates greatly expanded the range of users and critical decision‐makers who could directly benefit from rapid post‐earthquake information. Moreover, in the critical user–developer feedback loop, we have intently followed requests from users to develop new ways of delivering the most‐requested post‐earthquake information within the limitations of the science and technology. Such new avenues and tools then motivated and prioritized additional research directions and developments.This memoir covers on a 25‐year effort to improve rapid earthquake shaking hazard and impact assessments worldwide. Rapidly characterizing the hazards requires making ShakeMaps—the distribution of the shaking intensity—plus estimating any secondary hazards an earthquake may have triggered (such as landslides). For estimating earthquake impacts, loss calculations require the hazard assessments as inputs, plus a knowledge of the exposure and vulnerability of structures, infrastructure, and the affected inhabitants. Lastly, effectively communicating uncertain estimates of the resulting impacts on society requires careful consideration of the presentation of information. All these aspects of rapid earthquake information delivery benefited from wide‐ranging collaborations among seismologists, earthquake engineers, geographers, social scientists, Information Technology professionals, and communication experts. Successful, actionable earthquake alerting around the globe also entailed substantial, iterative feedback between users and product developers. I was very fortunate to be able to work on exciting and useful projects with many colleagues who got involved with them. Such new avenues and tools then motivated and prioritized additional research directions and developments. This memoir covers a 25‐year history of the scientific and development effort needed to improve rapid earthquake shaking hazard and impact assessments worldwide Developing the tools to alert the globe about destructive earthquakes rapidly entailed wide‐ranging collaborative research and development among seismologists, earthquake engineers, geographers, social scientists, IT professionals, and communication experts Earthquake impact calculations require rapid hazard assessments and knowledge of the affected inhabitants' exposure and vulnerability of structures