An Overview of NGA-West3 Research Program
NGA-West3 is the latest phase of the community-based NGA Research Program with the goals of (a) developing a comprehensive database of ground motions recorded in crustal earthquakes and (b) a set of ground motion models (GMMs). The initial phase of the NGA research program was initiated in October 2003 with a focus on shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions. The original NGA phase was followed by NGA-West2, NGA-East (for the Central and Eastern North America) and NGA-Subduction. The GMMs derived in these NGA Programs have extensively been adopted by numerous agencies around the world, including for the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model.
Since the completion of NGA-West2 over 12 years ago, there has been rapid growth in the number of ground motions recorded in crustal earthquakes around the world and numerous large-magnitude events have occurred that were recorded over a wide range of distances, representing hazard-critical conditions for coastal California population centers (e.g., Feb 2023 Türkiye Earthquake sequence). Additionally, there has been impressive intellectual growth in ground motion modeling that can account for regional and subregional effects in a manner that can “localize” GMMs. The NGA-West3 database is by far the largest yet produced with 175,244 three-component recordings (over 8 times larger than that in NGA-West2). The enormous amount of data in NGA-West3 and its extensive spatial coverage across Western US provides an opportunity to update the ergodic NGA-West2 GMMs and also explore the possibility of refining the models to account for smaller crustal sub-regions. The large data volume has also opened an opportunity to develop non-ergodic GMMs, which will be developed following the completion of the NGA-West3 ergodic GMMs. This presentation provides an overview and status of NGA-West3 as a community-based research Program.
Session: Earthquake Ground Motions and Structural Response: Emerging Tools and Applications - I
Type: Oral
Room: Ballroom G
Date: 4/16/2026
Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)
Presenting Author: Yousef Bozorgnia
Student Presenter: No
Invited Presentation:
Poster Number:
Additional Authors
Yousef Bozorgnia Presenting Author Corresponding Author yousefbozorgnia@g.ucla.edu University of California, Los Angeles |
Jennifer Donahue jennifer@jldengineering.com University of California, Los Angeles |
Norman Abrahamson abrahamson@berkeley.edu University of California, Berkeley |
Linda Al Atik linda.alatik@gmail.com Al Atik Consulting |
Gail Atkinson gmatkinson@aol.com Western University |
Mahdi Bahrampouri m22x@pge.com Pacific Gas & Electric Company |
Laurie Baise laurie.baise@tufts.edu Tufts University |
Jeff Bayless jeff.bayless@aecom.com AECOM |
David Boore dboore@yahoo.com U.S. Geological Survey |
Brendon A Bradley brendon.bradley@canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury, Christchurch, , New Zealand |
Tristan E Buckreis tristanbuckreis@ucla.edu University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States |
Kenneth W Campbell kcampbell80439@gmail.com Kenneth W Campbell Consulting LLC, Beaverton, Oregon, United States |
Brian Chiou brian_chiou@comcast.net California Department of Transportation, Sacramento, California, United States |
Izzat M Idriss imidriss@aol.com University of California, Davis, Davis, California, United States |
Tadahiro Kishida kishidapple@gmail.com Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, , United Arab Emirates |
Albert R Kottke arkk@pge.com Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Oakland, California, United States |
Nicolas Kuehn kuehn@g.ucla.edu University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States |
Grigorios Lavrentiadis glavrentiadis@gmail.com University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States |
Shiying Nie shiying.nie@tufts.edu Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
Grace A Parker gparker@usgs.gov U.S. Geological Survey, Moffett Field, California, United States |
Camilo Ignacio Pinilla Ramos pinillar@usc.edu University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States |
Adrian Rodriguez-Marek adrianrm@vt.edu Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States |
Peter Stafford p.stafford@imperial.ac.uk Imperial College London, London, , United Kingdom |
Jonathan P Stewart jstewart@seas.ucla.edu University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States |
Chih-Hsuan Sung karensung@berkeley.edu University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States |
Robert Youngs bob.youngs@wsp.com WSP Global, Oakland, California, United States |
An Overview of NGA-West3 Research Program
Category
Earthquake Ground Motions and Structural Response: Emerging Tools and Applications
Description