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Towards the Integration of Field and Web-based Macroseismic Surveys in Italy

Description: 

Macroseismology is the only source of data on the effects of earthquakes before the instrumental era, thus being an essential tool for comparing historical and modern earthquakes. This discipline has recently benefitted from citizens’ contribution to receiving near real-time information on the effects of present earthquakes through the web. However, traditional macroseismic surveys, conducted by specialised personnel to assess the severity of damage to buildings on site, remain the most viable approach for assessing high intensities. For these reasons, field surveys mostly cover the near-field and are less comprehensive for intensities driven by transient effects. In contrast, web-based, citizen-contributed surveys mainly collect information on low intensities based on transient effects.
Currently, Italy is one of the few countries in the world where state-of-the-art macroseismic data of damaging earthquakes are collected with both field and web-based surveys. To date, the integration of the datasets derived from the two methods to get a comprehensive picture of the macroseismic effects for both the near- and far-field has never been attempted. This study analyses the earthquakes with both types of intensity datasets to identify the criticalities related to their overlapping areas, which generally occur in the range of intensities from 4 to 7 on the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98). To compare the two methodologies, the data were spatially homogenized because macroseismic questionnaires are aggregated according to Italian municipalities, whereas field surveys are conducted at the scale of individual populated places, many of which can belong to the same municipality. The integration of the two methodologies for future events will mutually compensate for their respective limitations, to obtain a complete and robust macroseismic intensity distribution.

Session: Macroseismic Intensity: Past, Present and Future - I

Type: Oral

Date: 4/17/2025

Presentation Time: 02:30 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Andrea

Student Presenter: No

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