Sensitivity analysis of seismic hazard for Western Liguria (North Western Italy): A first attempt towards the understanding and quantification of hazard uncertainty

The use of logic trees in probabilistic seismic hazard analyses often involves a large number of branches that reflect the uncertainty in the selection of different models and in the selection of the parameter values of each model. The sensitivity analysis, as proposed by Rabinowitz and Steinberg [Rabinowitz, N., Steinberg, D.M., 1991. Seismic hazard sensitivity analysis: a multi-parameter approach. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 81, 796-817], is an efficient tool that allows the construction of logic trees focusing attention on the parameters that have greater impact on the hazard. In this paper the sensitivity analysis is performed in order to identify the parameters that have the largest influence on the Western Liguria (North Western Italy) seismic hazard. The analysis is conducted for six strategic sites following the multi-parameter approach developed by Rabinowitz and Steinberg [Rabinowitz, N., Steinberg, D.M., 1991. Seismic hazard sensitivity analysis: a multi-parameter approach. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 81, 796-817] and accounts for both mean hazard values and hazard values corresponding to different percentiles (e.g., 16%-ile and 84%-ile). The results are assessed in terms of the expected PGA with a 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years for rock conditions and account for both the contribution from specific source zones using the Cornell approach [Cornell, C.A., 1968. Engineering seismic risk analysis. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 58, 1583-1606] and the spatially smoothed seismicity [Frankel, A., 1995. Mapping seismic hazard in the Central and Eastern United States. Seismol. Res. Lett. 66, 8-21]. The influence of different procedures for calculating seismic hazard, seismic catalogues (epicentral parameters), source zone models, frequency-magnitude parameters, maximum earthquake magnitude values and attenuation relationships is considered. As a result, the sensitivity analysis allows us to identify the parameters with higher influence on the hazard. Only these parameters should be subjected to careful discussion or further research in order to reduce the uncertainty in the hazard while those with little or no effect can be excluded from subsequent logic-tree-based seismic hazard analyses. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.