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Date: 4/22/2021

Session Time: 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific

Recent Engineering Uses of National Seismic Hazard Models

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and agencies of several other countries have recently updated their National Seismic Hazard Models (NSHMs) and/or are in the process of doing so—e.g., GNS Science of New Zealand. Earthquake engineers are using these NSHMs and/or providing input on their development. For example, the 2018 USGS NSHM has been used for the "2020 NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions for New Buildings and Other Structures," developed by the Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) for adoption into building codes throughout the United States. Through prior dialogue between the BSSC and USGS, the BSSC “Project 17” committee requested an expanded set of spectral acceleration periods and site conditions (i.e., 30-meter shear-wave velocities) for the 2018 NSHM. This BSSC request influenced the ground motion models and sedimentary basin depths incorporated by the USGS. Furthermore, BSSC review of preliminary results from the 2018 NSHM led to improvements to the modeling of basin effects. Similarly, the sixth generation of the NRCan NSHM is being used for the 2020 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) and includes an expanded set of site conditions tailored to their use in the NBCC. GNS Science is updating its New Zealand NSHM and is including engineering users throughout their process. Concurrently, the New Zealand government is running a process to re-evaluate how NSHM results are used to meet building code goals. This session invites presentations on other recent engineering uses of and/or input on NSHMs, not only for construction codes but also seismic risk assessments and other engineering applications. In particular, we welcome contributions from international earthquake engineers and scientists who can more readily participate in the online-only format of this year’s SSA Annual Meeting.

Conveners

Nicolas Luco, U.S. Geological Survey (nluco@usgs.gov)
Michal Kolaj, Natural Resources Canada (michal.kolaj@canada.ca)
Sanaz Rezaeian, U.S. Geological Survey (srezaeian@usgs.gov)
Peter Powers, U.S. Geological Survey (pmpowers@usgs.gov)
Matthew Gerstenberger, GNS Science (m.gerstenberger@gns.cri.nz)
Ken Elwood, University of Auckland (k.elwood@auckland.ac.nz)

Poster Presentations