WORLD AGENCY OF PLANETARY MONITORING AND EARTHQUAKE RISK REDUCTION

PROJECTS

REAL-TIME LOSS ALERTS are issued to the Swiss Corps for Humanitarian Help and OCHA, approximately half an hour after an earthquake occurs in collaboration with the Swiss Seismological Service. (Duration 2003-2008).

INVENTORY OF BUILDINGS FROM SATELLITE IMAGES: We have collected high resolution satellite images of 700 cities in earthquake prone areas. From these we propose to derive the numbers of buildings, classifying them by their height (one story, 2 - 4 stories, 5 - 10 stories, greater than 10 stories) in cities located in seismically active areas and in countries where evaluation by engineers on foot cannot be expected for decades. The results will provide a more quantitative database on building stock than the current one, derived by calibration. (Duration 2003-2005).

EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION RESEARCH IN ICELAND: WAPMERR's part of the EU-funded project PREPARED is to analyze seismicity patterns before the two large main shocks that occurred in June 2000 in southern Iceland. (Duration 2003-2005).

TSUNAMI TRAVEL TIMES AND RUNUP HEIGHTS: WAPMERR has launched a project to estimate the tsunami risk worldwide, jointly with the Tsunami Laboratory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk. (Duration 2005-2008).

RESEARCH ON RELATIONSHIP OF SEISMICITY PATTERNS WITH EARTH TRANSIENTS: WAPMERR's part of the EU-funded project 3-HAZ in the Gulf of Corinth. (Duration 2004/2005).

SEISMICITY PATTERN STUDIES in collaboration with personnel from the Institute for Geophysics at the ETH Zuerich, the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, the National Observatory Athens, and the NEID in Tsukuba, Japan have lead to publications on (a) identification of asperities in fault zones in California, (b) mapping of magma chambers beneath the volcano Mt. Pinatubo, (c) seismic hazard mapping in Greece, and (d) seismic hazard analysis in parts of Japan. (See publication list). (Period of research 2001-2005)

SEISMIC RISK analyses, using QUAKELOSS, have been carried out to estimate losses that have to be expected in potential future earthquakes in the Himalaya and in the United Arab Emirates . (Work done in 2003/2004).

UPDATING THE QUAKELOSS DATABANK is a constant process. (Duration 2002-2005).

REFINING THE QUAKELOSS COMPUTING ALGORITHMS is also a project that is constantly active and that will last for years to come. (Duration 2003-2005).

SEISMIC HAZARD ANALYSES FOR HYDROCARBON FIELDS were performed for a major oil company.

EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION RESEARCH based on the seismic quiescence hypothesis has yielded two examples of clear precursors on Sakhalin Island. (Work performed in 2003).