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Training the Trainers: sustainability through capacity development, skills and knowledge sharing
TREQ has engaged and collaborated with five university professors from Latin America to conceptualize, create and implement a unified course for the study of seismic risk at the university level. Brochures in English and Spanish below further explain the concept behind this initiative and outline the early results and experiences of the professors from Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.

If you are a professor and would like to implement a similar course in your institution, contact us at treq@globalquakemodel.org.
Project Updates
Site Effects Modelling and
Urban Exposure Models
Over the past year, TREQ has made significant progress in the risk and hazard assessment for the selected cities: Santiago, Quito and Cali. This includes compiling and preparing existing PSHA models for hazard calculations; and the development of detailed exposure and vulnerability models.
Urban Hazard Assessment
Hazard map using the PSHA model by Beauval et al. (2018). Mean PGA with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years.
For Santiago, Dominican Republic, the project team worked with local experts from the National Geological Survey (SGN) and the Autonomous University (UASD) at compiling, reviewing, and preparing a new seismic catalogue to be used in hazard calculations for Hispaniola. The team has also prepared the national database of active faults, using the information compiled in the CCARA project and additional information provided by SGN (i.e. data and reports). The project is now using the catalogue and fault data to construct the national PSHA model for the Dominican Republic. A preliminary version has been completed, and construction of the final model is underway.

For Cali, Colombia, the project improved the national model proposed by Arcila et al. (2020) by adding a new fault located over the city (i.e. Cauca-Cali-Patia fault), consistent with the seismic zonations used in the microzonation study for Santiago de Cali (Ingeominas-Dagma, 2005), and the Colombian building code (AIS, 2009). For Quito, Ecuador, the project selected the model of Beauval et al. (2018), composed of shallow and subduction seismic sources characterized using an ISC-based catalogue and active shallow fault sources considering geodetic slip-rates assuming a 50% of aseismic slip.
 
Now, the project is consolidating the available geological, geophysical, and geotechnical data for each of the three cities needed to compute site-response (response of the local soil during seismic shaking). Future versions of the OpenQuake engine will support site response through detailed  amplification functions and its corresponding uncertainty.
Urban Risk Assessment
GEM has already developed exposure datasets at the subnational level in the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Ecuador. However, the risk assessment activities planned within the context of TREQ require exposure datasets at an urban scale. To this end, GEM has focused on the development of high-resolution exposure models. These have been established with the support from the decision makers in each city, namely, Oficina de Planeamiento Territorial (Santiago de los Caballeros), Oficina de Planeación y la Secretaría de Gestión del Riesgo de Emergencias y Desastres (Santiago de Cali), and Dirección Metropolitana de Gestión del Riesgo (Quito).

The exposure models were developed using dedicated databases for each city. These include the most recent information from the census, cadaster, and urban planning offices. As a result, they feature better estimates for the occupants, building counts, replacement costs and the vulnerability classification of the structures. In close collaboration GEM and the USGS are validating the exposure by means of scenario loss modelling at a neighborhood level. The objective is to use recorded losses from relevant historical scenarios to assess the performance of the exposure and hazard components. The risk metrics that are being analyzed in each city include building damage, economic losses and fatalities.

USGS has joined the TREQ initiative for urban earthquake scenarios

The USGS and GEM TREQ project are collaborating to model past events using ShakeMaps. Click the button below for more details.
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Did you know that you can combine USGS ShakeMaps with the OpenQuake-engine to perform damage and loss assessment? Learn more here!

TREQ capacity building: Knowledge gained and participants' feedback

The project team has collected more than 250 unique responses with excellent and encouraging feedback regarding the online sessions of Module II including before-and-after evaluation, which helped the team to shape and improve the material and content of the training.

A GIF snapshot of the participants' knowledge gained

Now Available!
Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) Training Manual

Grab your copy of an example-based guide to building PSHA models using open-source data and tools.
Download

TREQ OpenQuake online training summary

The infographic below gives a bird's eye view of TREQ's OpenQuake total online training registrations, total unique individuals trained disaggregated by gender, country and region. The data covers the period from April 2020 - March 2021. 

Online OpenQuake training sessions will be offered in the second half of the year. Subscribe to TREQ newsletter and check our project website regularly for training updates and additional information.

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This newsletter is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.) The contents of this material are the sole responsibility of the GEM Foundation and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

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