How will the risk and losses change by using the newest Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast models in Catastrophe Modeling?

NEGAR NAZARI

Published July 22, 2019, SCEC Contribution #9233, 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #294

The Earthquake Catalog is the core of the loss calculation. Currently, as far as I know, only the “UCERF3-time independent” model is being used in most of Catastrophe modeling evaluations for California. Obviously, it takes time for industry to synchronize with the best available Earthquake Forecast Models such as UCERF3-time dependent and UCERF3-ETAS.

My goal is to see how the loss evaluations will change if we use the more recent UCERF3-time dependent and UCERF3-ETAS as earthquake forecast models for California.

This comparison is done by:
1) Comparing the hazard curves generated by using the three ERFs above for all of California locations in Project 17 for a fixed building
2) Quantifying the change is risk and losses due to the change in hazard (which is resulted from the change in ERF). This can also work as a sensitivity analysis and we can figure out which type of structures are more sensitive to the ERF change. For example, we can get a conclusion like this; areas with more background seismicity show more change due to including aftershocks by UCERF3-ETAS model (this is just an example); Or we can investigate the effect of ERF change on different damage states.

The conclusions will be helpful for the insurers and the stake holders to understand their risk better based on best available science. For example, the insurer may conclude that the short buildings are at higher risk based on UCERF-ETAS model, so they might increase their premium or inform the risk managers to take actions such as retrofitting the structure; or on the other hand the home owner of the same building may end up retrofitting their own building because of the higher risk predicted by UCERF-ETAS model where previously, the UCERF3-TI model was predicting lower risk for his building.

Key Words
UCERF-ETAS model,Earthquake Catalog , Risk, loss

Citation
NAZARI, N. (2019, 07). How will the risk and losses change by using the newest Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast models in Catastrophe Modeling?. Poster Presentation at 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Earthquake Engineering Implementation Interface (EEII)