The Sierra Earthquake Risk Reduction Technical Action Group (SiERRa-TAG)

Rich D. Koehler, Christie D. Rowe, & Ben Mason

Submitted August 30, 2026, SCEC Contribution #15568, 2026 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #174

Seismic hazard is poorly defined in the northern Walker Lane along the Nevada-California border zone. Risk is elevated around major dams and growing population centers, with changing water supply/demand and considerable fire risk, there is high potential impact from new research to support multi-hazard planning. The Sierra Earthquake Risk Reduction Technical Action Group (SiERRa-TAG) will establish a new collaborative community including utilities, federal and state agencies, local/municipal water stakeholders, earthquake scientists, and engineers, including professionals and graduate students. SiERRA-TAG will launch with a pre-workshop webinar to develop community priority targets and culminate with 3-day workshop at University of Nevada, Reno’s Tahoe Campus in fall 2026. The purpose of the workshop will be to develop interdisciplinary baseline knowledge and cement new research relationships. The products of the workshop will be: A plan for a multi-disciplinary pilot study focusing on an area of critical earthquake risk (faults and co-located dams), a coordination strategy for cross-state border earthquake response in the northern Walker Lane, and an overall “scope of work” whitepaper for addressing regional earthquake hazard data gaps. Gathering stakeholders to define these aims will support SiERRa-TAG in future years to advance additional high-risk priority site studies, including establishing magnitude and timing of pre-historic earthquakes on key faults, seismic site characterization at dams and delineation of liquefaction risk zones, developing ground motion models, and updating decades-old earthquake scenarios for high-risk events.

Citation
Koehler, R. D., Rowe, C. D., & Mason, B. (2026, 08). The Sierra Earthquake Risk Reduction Technical Action Group (SiERRa-TAG). Poster Presentation at 2026 SCEC Annual Meeting.

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Community Capability Building (CCB)