Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe
<p>We develop a harmonized earthquake forecasting model for Europe based on the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model to describe the spatiotemporal evolution of seismicity. We propose a method modification that integrates information from the 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM2...
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Copernicus Publications
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/991/2025/nhess-25-991-2025.pdf |
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| author | M. Han L. Mizrahi S. Wiemer |
| author_facet | M. Han L. Mizrahi S. Wiemer |
| author_sort | M. Han |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>We develop a harmonized earthquake forecasting model for Europe based on the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model to describe the spatiotemporal evolution of seismicity. We propose a method modification that integrates information from the 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM20) about the spatial variation in background seismicity during ETAS parameter inversion based on the expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm. Other modifications to the basic ETAS model are explored, namely fixing the productivity term to a higher value to balance the more productive triggering by high-magnitude events with their much rarer occurrence and replacing the <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span>-value estimate with one relying on the <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span>-positive method to observe the possible effect of short-term incompleteness on model parameters. Retrospective and pseudo-prospective tests demonstrate that ETAS-based models outperform the time-independent benchmark model as well as an ETAS model calibrated on global data. The background-informed ETAS variants using the <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span>-positive estimate achieve the best scores overall, passing the consistency tests and having a good score in the pseudo-prospective experiment. Our test results also highlight promising areas for future exploration, such as avoiding the simplification of using a single <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span> value for the entire region, reevaluating the completeness of the used seismic catalogs, and applying more sophisticated aftershock spatial kernels.</p> |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-90411f3439e840ffa779938ff831eded |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1561-8633 1684-9981 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
| publisher | Copernicus Publications |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-90411f3439e840ffa779938ff831eded2025-08-20T03:15:31ZengCopernicus PublicationsNatural Hazards and Earth System Sciences1561-86331684-99812025-03-0125991101210.5194/nhess-25-991-2025Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for EuropeM. Han0L. Mizrahi1S. Wiemer2Swiss Seismological Service (SED), ETH Zurich, Zurich, SwitzerlandSwiss Seismological Service (SED), ETH Zurich, Zurich, SwitzerlandSwiss Seismological Service (SED), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland<p>We develop a harmonized earthquake forecasting model for Europe based on the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model to describe the spatiotemporal evolution of seismicity. We propose a method modification that integrates information from the 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM20) about the spatial variation in background seismicity during ETAS parameter inversion based on the expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm. Other modifications to the basic ETAS model are explored, namely fixing the productivity term to a higher value to balance the more productive triggering by high-magnitude events with their much rarer occurrence and replacing the <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span>-value estimate with one relying on the <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span>-positive method to observe the possible effect of short-term incompleteness on model parameters. Retrospective and pseudo-prospective tests demonstrate that ETAS-based models outperform the time-independent benchmark model as well as an ETAS model calibrated on global data. The background-informed ETAS variants using the <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span>-positive estimate achieve the best scores overall, passing the consistency tests and having a good score in the pseudo-prospective experiment. Our test results also highlight promising areas for future exploration, such as avoiding the simplification of using a single <span class="inline-formula"><i>b</i></span> value for the entire region, reevaluating the completeness of the used seismic catalogs, and applying more sophisticated aftershock spatial kernels.</p>https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/991/2025/nhess-25-991-2025.pdf |
| spellingShingle | M. Han L. Mizrahi S. Wiemer Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| title | Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe |
| title_full | Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe |
| title_fullStr | Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe |
| title_full_unstemmed | Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe |
| title_short | Towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for Europe |
| title_sort | towards a harmonized operational earthquake forecasting model for europe |
| url | https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/991/2025/nhess-25-991-2025.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT mhan towardsaharmonizedoperationalearthquakeforecastingmodelforeurope AT lmizrahi towardsaharmonizedoperationalearthquakeforecastingmodelforeurope AT swiemer towardsaharmonizedoperationalearthquakeforecastingmodelforeurope |