by Imtiyaz A.Parvez
Earthquakes constitute one of the most feared natural disasters that occur with no warning and can result in great destruction along with loss of lives, particularly the seismically earthquake-prone countries like India. One way to mitigate the destructive impact of such earthquakes is to conduct a seismic hazard and risk assessment and take remedial measures. This chapter aims at demonstrating significant contributions to the application of neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment (NDSHA) in India and neighboring region. NDSHA has been built on a rigorous theoretical basis and exploits the currently available computational resources that permit to compute realistic synthetic seismograms. Parvez et al. (2003) published the first-ever neo-deterministic seismic hazard map of India by computing synthetic seismograms with input data set consisting of structural models, seismogenic zones, focal mechanisms, and earthquake catalogs. Later, using updated input data and advanced computational tools, Parvez et al. (2017) produced a revised neo-deterministic seismic hazard map of India. High-resolution NDSHA has also been applied at the regional and local scale in India, particularly in Gujarat state, Kolkata, and the capital city Delhi. This chapter also discusses how peak ground acceleration estimates alone are not sufficient for the adequate design of buildings and infrastructures, since displacements play a critical role and the dynamical analysis of the structure response requires scenario-based complete time series of ground motion. The applications discussed in this chapter can be used as a preventive definition of the seismic hazard without waiting for the great earthquakes and also help those earthquake and civil engineers to avail realistically estimated ground motion database for the safe design of buildings and other infrastructure in the country.