Earthquake Early Warning and Seismic Risk Assessment

With the current knowledge and technologies of humanity most natural phenomena are not predictable, this is especially true for earthquakes. The only mean to mitigate risks associated with these phenomena is thus thorough assessment of hazards and risks, followed by appropriate actions and preparation and the deployment of early warning systems. Both measures, risk assessment as well as early warning, are probabilistic. While the latter is based on real time measurements and predictions based on these measurements and historic observations the former is mainly relying on projections of past observations to present day conditions. Clearly both tools overlap and are to be integrated in the near future. At the Centre for Early Warning Systems of the German Research Centre for Geosciences, Researchers are working on both parts as well as their integration. This presentation summarizes recent developments in the field at the Centre for Early Warning Systems. Where the main focus lies on methodologies developed for rapid exposure and vulnerability assessment, near real time loss assessment and the development of decentralized early warning systems combing on-site and regional systems. The presentation will give examples from Central Asia and the Middle East regarding the installation of the ACROSS strong motion network in Kyrgyzstan, the development of multi-parameter sensors, decentralized early warning, the loss assessment platform CARAVAN, the rapid remote visual screening approach and research regarding seismic risk assessments that consider full seismic sequence