ENVIRONMENT POLICY
Mapping Europe’s
earthquake risk
03 March 2014
by Christian Du Brulle
The rubble of a building destroyed by the earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009. © Shutterstock/Fotografiche
The Balkan and Mediterranean countries as well as Turkey are all at higher risk
of earthquakes than many other Europeans, according to a map produced by
EU researchers.
Researchers at the EU-funded SHARE project have produced a map displaying which parts of
Europe are most at risk from an earthquake, and it shows that Italy, the Balkans, Greece,
Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey are among the most exposed regions of the continent.
‘Europe has a long history of destructive
earthquakes,’ said Professor Domenico Giardini,
coordinator of the SHARE project. ‘We all
remember the tragic events of Izmit (Turkey) in
1999 and L’Aquila (Italy) in 2009.’ In Izmit, a
strong earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter
scale killed 17 000 people, while in L’Aquila a
moderate 5.9 magnitude quake killed more than
300 people and destroyed much of the city.
To produce the map, researchers from the
SHARE project combined data from more than
30 000 European earthquakes with a magnitude
larger than or equal to 3.5 on the Richter scale
since the year 1 000, and factored in their
damaging effects. To gather data they used data
from the AHEAD interactive map of earthquakes
in Europe.
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They then cross-referenced this data with over 1 100 active faults in Europe, which have a
combined length of 64 000 kilometres.
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All the information was combined on a single map that
shows thick purple zones running through the areas of
south-east Europe where earthquakes are more likely,
and where they can cause the greatest damage to
society. It shows the areas where there is a 10 % or larger
probability of experiencing the mapped level of ground
shaking within 50 years.
The European Seismic Hazard Map. Blue
colours indicate comparatively low
hazard areas, yellow to orange colours
indicate moderate hazard areas, and red
colours indicate high hazard areas.©
‘It is the first state-of-the-art reference hazard model for
Europe,’ said Dr Artur Pinto, the head of the European
Laboratory for Structural Assessment at the Joint
Research Centre, the EU’s in-house science service, in
Ispra, Italy. ‘It can be useful for future policies regarding
different kinds of buildings and infrastructure such as
dams, tall buildings or even bridges.’
However, the map also shows earthquake hotspots near
Brussels in Belgium, Lisbon in Portugal, near Budapest in
Hungary and along the Pyrenees mountain range. The hotspots near Brussels, Budapest and
Lisbon are because a number of earthquakes have happened in the past, while the hotspot in
the western Pyrenees is because of the geological make-up of the area, the project said.
SHARE
Seismic hazard
‘Seismic hazard is not just about calculating the probability of an event occurring somewhere
in Europe in a certain period of time,’ said Prof. Giardini.
‘In
our
‘Europe has a long history of destructive earthquakes.’
Professor Domenico Giardini, the coordinator of SHARE
project, seismic risk refers to the likelihood of damages and loss that seismic events can
induce to our economic and human environment,’ he said. ‘A moderate earthquake in a
densely populated part of Europe, or in an area that hosts critical infrastructures, like a
pipeline, can have an enormous impact.’
This was examined in more detail by the EU-funded project SYNER-G, which developed an
open-source software tool to analyse vulnerability and work out the social and economic
impacts of earthquakes in specific urban areas, like the port of Thessaloniki in Greece, by the
time it finished in 2013.
Part of this knowledge is now also being used by geologists, seismologists and engineers as
part of the STREST project, which by the time it finishes in 2016 hopes to have developed a
common way of evaluating the risk to critical infrastructure, and have identified the key
buildings, bridges, roads and pipelines that would have the greatest impact on our society if
they were damaged during an earthquake.
All SHARE products, data and results, are freely available and provided through the project
website and the European Facility for Earthquake Hazard and Risk. The map shown in the
figure can be ordered from the project website.
More info
SHARE
SYNER-G
STREST
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