Used by insurers, reinsurers, corporations and government agencies to assess and manage earthquake risk in the US
AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR), a US-based catastrophe risk modeling firm, has updated its probabilistic earthquake risk model for the US. The model is used by insurers, reinsurers, corporations and government agencies to assess and manage earthquake risk in the US.
The USGS has updated the National Seismic Hazard Maps by incorporating new seismic, geologic, and geodetic information on earthquake rates and associated ground shaking. Producing the update involved interactions with hundreds of scientists and engineers, including AIR researchers, at regional and topical workshops.
The AIR model also incorporates the developed Next Generation of Ground Motion Attenuation Models (NGA) equations, which are used for predicting ground motion generated by earthquakes. The damage functions in the model were updated based on engineering analysis, a thorough understanding of building codes, the results of published studies, and analysis of detailed claims and damage data.
The AIR model takes into account the spatial correlation of ground motion parameters. The ground motion generated by an earthquake can produce spatial patterns in which pockets of ground motion are either higher or lower than predicted by attenuation equations.