Bommer Julian J
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ UK.
Bull Earthq Eng. 2022;20(6):2825-3069. doi: 10.1007/s10518-022-01357-4. Epub 2022 Apr 22.
The fundamental objective of earthquake engineering is to protect lives and livelihoods through the reduction of seismic risk. Directly or indirectly, this generally requires quantification of the risk, for which quantification of the seismic hazard is required as a basic input. Over the last several decades, the practice of seismic hazard analysis has evolved enormously, firstly with the introduction of a rational framework for handling the apparent randomness in earthquake processes, which also enabled risk assessments to consider both the severity and likelihood of earthquake effects. The next major evolutionary step was the identification of epistemic uncertainties related to incomplete knowledge, and the formulation of frameworks for both their quantification and their incorporation into hazard assessments. Despite these advances in the practice of seismic hazard analysis, it is not uncommon for the acceptance of seismic hazard estimates to be hindered by invalid comparisons, resistance to new information that challenges prevailing views, and attachment to previous estimates of the hazard. The challenge of achieving impartial acceptance of seismic hazard and risk estimates becomes even more acute in the case of earthquakes attributed to human activities. A more rational evaluation of seismic hazard and risk due to induced earthquakes may be facilitated by adopting, with appropriate adaptations, the advances in risk quantification and risk mitigation developed for natural seismicity. While such practices may provide an impartial starting point for decision making regarding risk mitigation measures, the most promising avenue to achieve broad societal acceptance of the risks associated with induced earthquakes is through effective regulation, which needs to be transparent, independent, and informed by risk considerations based on both sound seismological science and reliable earthquake engineering.
地震工程的基本目标是通过降低地震风险来保护生命和生计。直接或间接地，这通常需要对风险进行量化，而这又需要将地震危险性的量化作为基本输入。在过去几十年中，地震危险性分析的实践有了巨大发展，首先是引入了一个合理的框架来处理地震过程中明显的随机性，这也使得风险评估能够同时考虑地震影响的严重程度和可能性。下一个主要的发展步骤是识别与知识不完备相关的认知不确定性，并制定对其进行量化以及将其纳入危险性评估的框架。尽管地震危险性分析实践取得了这些进展，但地震危险性估计的接受仍常常受到无效比较、对挑战主流观点的新信息的抵触以及对先前危险性估计的依赖的阻碍。在人为活动引发的地震情况下，实现对地震危险性和风险估计的公正接受这一挑战变得更加严峻。通过适当调整采用为天然地震活动性开发的风险量化和风险缓解方面的进展，可能有助于对诱发地震的地震危险性和风险进行更合理的评估。虽然这些做法可能为关于风险缓解措施的决策提供一个公正的起点，但要实现社会广泛接受与诱发地震相关的风险，最有希望的途径是通过有效的监管，这种监管需要透明、独立，并以基于可靠地震科学和可靠地震工程的风险考量为依据。
