• Product catalogue
  •  
  •  
  •  

Expert elicitation of model parameters for the 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment - Summary of workshop, methodology and outcomes

The 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment (NSHA18) aims to provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of seismic hazard in Australia. As such, NSHA18 includes a range of alternative models for characterising seismic sources and ground motions proposed by members of the Australia earthquake hazard community. The final hazard assessment is a weighted combination of alternative models. This report describes the use of a structured expert elicitation methodology (the ‘Classical Model’) to weight the alternative models and presents the complete results of this process.


Seismic hazard assessments are inherently uncertain due to the long return periods of damaging earthquakes relative to the time period of human observation. This is especially the case for low-seismicity regions such as Australia. Despite this uncertainty, there is a demand for estimates of seismic hazard to underpin a range of decision making aimed at reducing the impacts of earthquakes to society.


In the face of uncertainty, experts will propose alternative models for the distribution of earthquake occurrence in space, time and magnitude (i.e. seismic source characterisation), and how ground shaking is propagated through the crust (i.e. ground motion characterisation). In most cases, there is insufficient data to independently and quantitatively determine a ‘best’ model. Therefore it is unreasonable to expect, or force, experts to agree on a single consensus model. Instead, seismic hazard assessments should capture the variability in expert opinion, while allowing that not all experts are equally adept. Logic trees, with branches representing mutually exclusive models weighted by expert opinion, can be used to model this uncertainty in seismic hazard assessment. The resulting hazard assessment thereby captures the range of plausible uncertainty given current knowledge of earthquake occurrence in Australia.


For the NSHA18, experts were invited to contribute peer-reviewed seismic source models for consideration, resulting in 16 seismic source models being proposed. Each of these models requires values to be assigned to uncertain parameters such as the maximum magnitude earthquake expected. Similarly, up to 20 published ground motion models were identified as being appropriate for characterising ground motions for different tectonic regions in Australia.


To weight these models, 17 experts in seismic hazard assessment, representative of the collective expertise of the Australian earthquake hazard community, were invited to two workshops held at Geoscience Australia in March 2017. At these workshops, the experts each assigned weights to alternative models representing their degree of belief that a particular model is the ‘true’ model. The experts were calibrated through a series of questions that tested their knowledge of the subject and ability to assess the limits to their knowledge. These workshops resulted in calibrated weights used to parameterise the final seismic source model and ground motion model logic trees for NSHA18.


Through use of a structured expert elicitation methodology these weights have been determined in a transparent and reproducible manner drawing on the full depth of expertise and experience within the Australia earthquake hazard community. Such methodologies have application to a range of uncertain problems beyond the case of seismic hazard assessment presented here.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2018-09-18T00:00:00
Date (Publication)
2018-10-10T03:16:01
Date (Revision)
2018-10-16T23:55:29
Date (Revision)
2019-04-09T01:08:53
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/123027

Citation identifier
Digital Object Identifier/http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/Record.2018.028

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Griffin, J.

Author

Gerstenberger, M.

Author

Allen, T.

Author

Clark, D.

Author

Cuthbertson, R.

Author

Dimos, A.

Author

Gibson, G.

Author

Ghasemi, H.

Author

Hoult, R.

Author

Lam, N.

Author

Leonard, M.

Author

Mote, T.

Author

Quigley, M.

Author

Somerville, P.

Author

Sinadinovski, C.

Author

Stirling, M.

Author

Venkatesan, S.

Name

Record

Issue identification

2018/028

Purpose

This Record is the second in the series of Records and datasets that support the release of the NSHA18 (overarching overview provided at ecat 123020)

Status
Final
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Griffin, J.

Point of contact

Allen, T.

Resource provider

Positioning and Community Safety Division

Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Spatial representation type
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

Discipline
  • earthquake hazard

Discipline
  • expert elicitation

Product
  • Published_External

Keywords
  • HVC_144647

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Associated resource

Association Type
Cross reference
Title

The 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment: Model overview

Citation identifier
123020

Website

http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/document/ga/123020

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Associated resource

Association Type
Was informed by
Title

10% in 50 year seismic hazard map

Citation identifier
123132

Website

https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/123132

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Associated resource

Association Type
Was informed by
Title

Selection and ranking of ground-motion models for the 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment of Australia: Summary of ground-motion data, methodology and outcomes

Citation identifier
123034

Website

http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/document/ga/123034

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Associated resource

Association Type
Was informed by
Title

The 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment for Australia – model input files

Citation identifier
123049

Website

http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/document/ga/123049

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
OnLine resource

Download the Record (pdf)

Download the Record (pdf)

Distribution format
  • pdf

OnLine resource

The 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment for Australia

The 2018 National Seismic Hazard Assessment for Australia

Resource lineage

Statement

Geoscience Australia develops the National Seismic Hazard Assessment (NSHA) for Australia. The NSHA defines the level of earthquake ground shaking across Australia that has a given likelihood of being exceeded in a given time period. Knowing how the ground-shaking hazard varies across Australia allows higher hazard areas to be identified and prioritised for the development of mitigation strategies so communities can be more resilient to earthquake events.


The NSHA also provides key information to the Australian Government Building Codes Board, so buildings and infrastructure design standards can be updated to ensure they can withstand earthquake events in Australia. Geoscience Australia schedules the update to the NSHA with the update to the earthquake loading standard, so the committee can consider any changes to the seismic hazard risk of Australia, and whether the code needs to be amended to reflect this. The 2018 update was scheduled to inform the 2017 revision of the earthquake loading standard.


Promotion of project via http://www.ga.gov.au/about/projects/safety/nsha

Hierarchy level
Document

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/f5214c3e-5585-4bee-9097-762a76ea9be4

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Allen, T.

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

GA publication: Record

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/123027

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/f5214c3e-5585-4bee-9097-762a76ea9be4

Date info (Creation)
2018-05-04T03:37:56
Date info (Revision)
2018-05-04T03:38:12

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Edition date
2015-07-01T00:00:00
Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

HVC_144647 Published_External earthquake hazard expert elicitation

Provided by

Access to the portal
Read here the full details and access to the data.

Associated resources

Not available


  •  
  •  
  •