Abstract
AbstractA comprehensive understanding of earthquake risks in urbanized regions requires an accurate assessment of both urban vulnerabilities and earthquake hazards. Socioeconomic risks associated with human-triggered earthquakes are often misconstrued and receive little scientific, legal, and public attention. However, more than 200 damaging earthquakes, associated with industrialization and urbanization, were documented since the 20th century. This type of geohazard has impacts on human security on a regional and national level. For example, the 1989 Newcastle earthquake caused 13 deaths and US$3.5 billion damage (in 1989). The monetary loss was equivalent to 3.4 percent of Australia’s national income (GDI) or 80 percent of Australia’s GDI per capita growth of the same year. This article provides an overview of global statistics of human-triggered earthquakes. It describes how geomechanical pollution due to large-scale geoengineering activities can advance the clock of earthquakes or trigger new seismic events. Lastly, defense-oriented strategies and tactics are described, including risk mitigation measures such as urban planning adaptations and seismic hazard mapping.
Highlights
Every earthquake that ruptures somewhere on Earth is triggered by some stress perturbation in the Earth’s crust
Estimating the occurrence F and intensity I of human-triggered earthquakes is associated with uncertainties, as for any other geohazard
Human-triggered earthquakes are an environmental hazard that has been exponentially growing since the 20th century
Summary
Every earthquake that ruptures somewhere on Earth is triggered by some stress perturbation in the Earth’s crust. The majority of all earthquakes are triggered by natural processes and, in particular, along subduction zones surrounding the Pacific Ocean, where oceanic crust slides beneath the continents (e.g., Japan, Alaska). Most of these earthquakes do not affect human societies and economies at all. They occur deep in the interior of the Earth (>50km) and their damaging seismic energy does not reach the surface. In particular, large-scale geoengineering constructions can trigger earthquakes when their induced stress perturbations reach or exceed natural levels, such as daily tidal elongations (strains) of the Earth crust by the sun and the moon.
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