Exploring probabilistic seismic risk assessment accounting for seismicity clustering and damage accumulation: Part I. Hazard analysis

Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA), as a tool to assess the probability that ground motion of a given intensity or larger is experienced at a given site and time span, has historically comprised the basis of both building design codes in earthquake-prone regions and seismic risk models. The PSHA traditionally refers solely to mainshock events and typically employs a homogeneous Poisson process to model their occurrence. Nevertheless, recent disasters, such as the 2010–2011 Christchurch sequence or the 2016 Central Italy earthquakes, to name a few, have highlighted the potential pitfalls of neglecting the occurrence of foreshocks, aftershocks, and other triggered events, and pinpointed the need to revisit the current practice. Herein, we employ the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model to describe seismicity in Central Italy, investigate the model’s capability to reproduce salient features of observed seismicity, and compare ETAS-derived one-year hazard estimates with ones obtained with a standard mainshock-only Poisson-based hazard model. A companion paper uses the hazard models derived herein to compare and contrast loss estimates for the residential exposure of Umbria in Central Italy.