Evaluation of the predictive performance of regional and global ground motion predictive equations against Greek strong motion data

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to evaluate the Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs), applicable in active shallow crustal regions of Greece, for Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA), Peak Ground Velocity (PGV) and various ordinates of Spectral Acceleration (Sa; 5% damping), to be implemented in Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analyses (PSHA). The evaluation is data-driven, taking into account the most updated strong-motion dataset for Greece. According to the authors’ knowledge and literature review, such an effort has not been attempted before for Greece, as the selection of GMPEs for PSHA was made based on qualitative criteria. The steps which were followed to fulfill such a goal include: a) pre-selection of regional, pan-European and global GMPEs, suitable for implementation in Greece; b) selection of appropriate data-driven scoring methods; c) scoring of pre-selected GMPEs for both PGA, PGV and four spectral acceleration values Sa; d) final selection of GMPE suite and weighting. The final selection of GMPEs describes adequately the epistemic uncertainty of the strong-motion in Greece and provides a useful tool for addressing a major component of PSHA studies, that is ground motion modelling.