Near-fault observation and simulation of earthquake ground motion in an urban environment – E-CITY

This project goes beyond the current seismic risk assessment practice, incorporating recent progresses made in earthquake data observation and numerical modelling. The key scientific questions are (1) how the spatial variability of the near-field seismic ground motion impacts the soil and the structure; (2) how the seismic excitations damage and change the medium properties; and (3) how the building clusters contribute to the spatial variability of the ground motion in urban environment. We study the 2016 Kumamoto in Japan and the 2019 Ridgecrest in California earthquakes. These events have a large number of records in the vicinity of the epicentral area. We then target the impact of a building environment on the seismic risk assessment of the city of Quito, Ecuador, located on a piggyback basin created on the hanging wall of an active reverse fault. Our project respond to the needs of low-probability-high-consequences (LPHC) seismic risk in urban areas subjected to nearby earthquakes.