Chapter 18 - NDSHA achievements in Central and South-eastern Europe

Abstract

Natural disasters, increasing in their frequency and complexity, damage infrastructure and hinder economic growth, cause death and injury, and increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks. The Circum-Pannonian region is a well-defined seismically active region in Europe, and a single strong earthquake here may trigger a major catastrophe due to the densely populated areas and the presence of high-risk industrial facilities—chemical industry plants, nuclear power plants, dams, etc. To keep the life of the European citizens and the normal functioning of the society during and after a strong earthquake, it is necessary to work consistently and persistently toward seismic risk mitigation via reliable earthquake hazard assessment. Recent destructive earthquakes have shown a clear discrepancy between the predicted ground motion levels, estimated via the traditional probabilistic seismic hazard assessment method and the instrumental observations (e.g., L'Aquila—Italy (2009), Haiti (2010), Chile (2010), Japan (2011), Emilia—Romagna Italy (2012), Central Italy (2016), Ischia—Italy (2017), Gansu—China (2013)). These very important lessons indicate the necessity to revise and improve the seismic hazard assessment tools. A reliable seismic hazard estimation needs to be fully proven against available data and known scenarios—it is possible relying on integrated available information provided by seismological, geological, geophysical, and geotechnical databases coupled with advanced physical modeling techniques. To keep the critical infrastructure resilient, it is necessary to count on tools for seismic hazard assessment that are capable to provide relevant seismic input at different scales—regional, national, and metropolitan. The neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment (NDSHA) meets all these necessities. In this paper, a summarizing overview of the multiaspect power of the neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment is presented, supported by successful NDSHA applications within Central and South-eastern Europe.