Ricerc@Sapienza

Seismic Microzonation is an essential tool for knowledge-based and site-specific seismic hazard analysis oriented to the mitigation of earthquake damage.
This research project is focused on the improvement of a few specific steps within the seismic microzonation process, which are critical at the current stage of implementation of Microzonation studies, as experienced in the last few years of application for both urban planning and for the reconstruction after destructive earthquakes in our Country.
More specifically, we propose the introduction of newly developed geophysical and GIS-based geostatistical tools to enhance the scientific quality and reliability of current seismic Microzonation studies.
Our research proposal is focused on three main objectives:
- Introducing innovative geophysical measurements and interpretation to enhance the quality of the parametric subsoil models used as input for Seismic Response analysis. The proposed geophysical techniques are targeted to specific hard-to-solve problems such as down-to-bedrock characterization and site-specific seismic attenuation estimation.
- Enhancing the imaging and reconstruction of active faults through a mix of low-budget and high resolution geophysical investigations.
- Defining a quantitative geostatistical approach to produce the final Microzonation maps and to extend unbiasedly the results of the local clusters (which are generally the subject of in-depth analysis at the third and most detailed level of microzonation) to the neighbouring areas.
From a more general point of view, the scientific motivation of this research is to bridge the gap between what is needed in theory for a thorough seismic hazard assessment and what is actually implemented in practice (as a trade-off between resolution, costs and time) by the introduction of newly designed GIS-based tools and affordable geophysical measurements which are cost-effective and innovative in design, layout and diagnostic capability.