Prospective CSEP Evaluation of 1‐Day, 3‐Month, and 5‐Yr Earthquake Forecasts for Italy

Matteo Taroni, Warner Marzocchi, Danijel Schorlemmer, Maximilian J. Werner, Stefan Wiemer, Jeremy D. Zechar, Lukas Heiniger, & Fabian Euchner

Published June 13, 2018, SCEC Contribution #8022

In 2009, the global Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) launched three experiments to forecast the distribution of earthquakes in Italy in the subsequent five years. CSEP solicited forecasts for seismicity tomorrow, in the next three months, and for the entire five years. In those 5 years, INGV recorded 83 target earthquakes with local magnitude 3.95≤M<4.95, and 14 larger shocks. The results show that: 1-day forecasts are consistent with the number and magnitudes of the target earthquakes, and one flavor version of the ETAS model is also consistent with the spatial distribution; ensemble forecasts, which we created are made only for the 1-day experiment, are consistent with the number, locations, and magnitudes of the target earthquakes, and they perform as well as the best model; all none of the 3-month time-independent models do not produce consistent forecasts; the best 5-year models account for the fault distribution and the historical seismicity; and 5-year models based on instrumental seismicity and b-value spatial variation show poor forecasting performance.

Key Words
earthquake forecasting, seismicity, Italy

Citation
Taroni, M., Marzocchi, W., Schorlemmer, D., Werner, M. J., Wiemer, S., Zechar, J. D., Heiniger, L., & Euchner, F. (2018). Prospective CSEP Evaluation of 1‐Day, 3‐Month, and 5‐Yr Earthquake Forecasts for Italy. Seismological Research Letters, 89(4), 1251-1261. doi: 10.1785/0220180031.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability, Earthquake Forecasting and Predictability