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What is Seismic Hazard?

Seismic hazard is the potential for, or probability of, dangerous earthquake-related phenomena. Most often, this is ground shaking but it could also be liquefaction or fault rupture at the ground surface.

Why Do We Assess Hazard?

The results of seismic hazard assessment are used in a variety of applications. These include the development of building codes, structural design and in assessing seismic risk.

How Do We Assess Hazard?

In assessing seismic hazard, we aim to relate earthquake occurrence to the effects at a site, typically in terms of ground shaking. By combining geological and seismological information, we build up a model of the earthquake-generating processes in a region and use this to compute the hazard.