Seismic Hazard Maps for the Western Balkan

Sa？etak The Harmonization of Seismic Hazard Maps in the Western Balkan Countries Project (BSHAP) was funded for 7 years by NATO-Science for Peace Program to support the preparation of new seismic hazard maps of the Western Balkan Region using modern scientific tools. One of the most important outputs of the BSHAP is an updated and unified BSHAP earthquake catalogue that is compiled directly from the datasets of earthquake data providers of the region. In the framework of BSHAP, the regional free field strong motion network capacity was increased significantly by the purchased and installed recorders and the BSHAP strong motion database that includes both pre-BSHAP (mostly analog) and post-BSHAP (all digital) recordings was compiled. The BSHAP strong motion database is used for proper selection of the ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) by comparing the compiled strong ground motions with the predictions of candidate global, European, and Euro-Med GMPEs in a systematic manner. BSHAP collected relevant knowledge about the geological structure of southwestern Balkans provided a better understanding of the prevailing stress regime in the region. The main output of BSHAP is the new probabilistic seismic hazard maps for Western Balkans, obtained by implementation of the smoothed-gridded seismicity approach. The results are expressed in terms of peak horizontal acceleration (PGA) for 95 and 475 years return periods aligned with Eurocode 8 requirements. The seismic hazard maps derived in this project are a good basis to characterize the seismic hazard of Western Balkans. They will help the national authorities, public and private institutions, civil emergencies agencies, etc., for urban planning, disaster preparedness, and seismic hazard mitigation