Open AccessComment on “Communicating with uncertainty: A critical issue with probabilistic seismic hazard analysis”
Author(s) -
Musson R. M. W.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2004eo240004
Subject(s) - seismic hazard , probabilistic logic , hazard , earthquake scenario , ground motion , seismology , computer science , incremental dynamic analysis , key (lock) , earthquake simulation , geology , computer security , artificial intelligence , chemistry , organic chemistry
With earthquake prediction appearing now as a possibly unrealizable goal, the contribution that seismologists can make to protecting society against the disastrous effects of earthquakes chiefly revolves around making estimates of likely future levels of earthquake activity that engineers and planners can use in the course of implementing mitigation strategies: seismic hazard analysis. One of the key issues in this field is the treatment of irreducible uncertainty in some of the input parameters, which has been found to defeat simple attempts to produce unique deterministic values for maximum ground motion. Seismologists handle this by modeling uncertainty with a probabilistic approach, referred to as probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA).