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Web Tools for Users of the 2018 USGS National Seismic Hazard Model

Session: Updating the US National Seismic Hazard Models III

Type: Oral

Date: 4/21/2021

Presentation Time: 06:00 PM Pacific

Description: 

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) earthquake hazards website (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/) is the central distribution point for the National Seismic Hazard Models (NSHMs), maps, and data for the United States and its territories. The website has evolved over time, moving increasingly from providing static data to delivering data and analyses dynamically through web services and interactive web applications. The Unified Hazard Tool (UHT, https://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/interactive/) web application is the current delivery platform for hazard data from the NSHMs, providing access to both static hazard data and dynamic hazard calculation and disaggregation. It is backed by web services that can be also accessed by third-party applications. We are now rolling out an update to the UHT, which will expand the set of available web tools and services. The updated UHT provides improved access to the seismic source and ground motion models (GMMs) in a NSHM, making it easier to query individual NSHM components. As examples, the updated UHT provides a GMM response spectrum plotting tool and tools to query and plot the magnitude frequency distributions associated with a specific source. Users can also obtain the source and site parameters used by GMMs when computing ground motions. The updated UHT will be the delivery mechanism for the recently published 2018 update to the NSHM for the conterminous United States. In addition, improvements to the codes and model input files underlying the UHT allow us to compute associated uncertainties in hazard. We provide an overview of the updated features of the UHT with examples that will be of use to earthquake engineers, geologists, and risk modelers, among others.

Presenting Author: Peter M. Powers

Student Presenter: No

Authors