ALBERT

Description: The Western Ionian Sea is characterised by an active and diffuse seismicity, directly related to the convergence of the European and African Plates and by gravitational sinking and rollback of the  oceanic lithosphere. In this area, the location of earthquakes is characterised by considerable uncertainties due to large azimuthal gaps, resulting in notable location errors. This problem was  partially overcome with the use of data recorded by NEMO-SN1 seafloor observatory (October 2002 February 2003; June 2012 - May 2013). We relocated 1130 crustal and sub-crustal earthquakes  using land network and NEMO-SN1 data. As most events occurred on Mt. Etna, we focused on 358  earthquakes in the offshore area and near the coasts of Sicily and Calabria. The use of the combined  land-marine networks has improved the earthquake locations in terms of azimuthal GAP, as well as  in horizontal and vertical errors. The comparison between locations performed with and without NEMO-SN1 data shows that differences in latitude, longitude and depths are more evident in the Western Ionian Sea and in the coast of Sicily, where values of the differences over 5 km correspond  to structural heterogeneities. The increased number of seismic stations deployed on land from 2003  to 2012 did not influence the location of events occurring offshore, where NEMO-SN1 continued to be the distinctive tool in the location process. Moreover, the new 73 focal mechanisms computed with  P-wave polarities from NEMO-SN1 and land stations are in agreement with the regional structural   model, showing a prevalent normal, normal/oblique, and strike-slip kinematics. The similarity of two   new focal solutions with the mechanisms of the main shock and aftershock of the 1990 earthquake  demonstrates that the seismic structures are still active and potentially dangerous. The P-wave travel- time residual analysis confirms the activity along the main structural alignments.  A single point of observation in the Ionian Sea can significantly improve the quality of locations, giving an opportunity to focus on the seismogenic structures responsible for the occurrence of  medium-to-high magnitude earthquakes.

Description: Earthquake is one of the most frightening and destructive phenomena of nature. The northeast India region, as well as its adjoining South-Asian neighbours including Myanmar and Bangladesh, is tectonically and seismically most active. The region categorized under the highest level of seismic hazard potential: Zone V, of the seismic zonation map of India, has experienced nearly 22 large (M ≥7.0) and two great earthquakes (M S ∼ 8.7) in the past 130 years. All these earthquakes caused wide-spread damage over the region. In the recent past, with rapid urbanization combined with a significant population rise as compared to those times when these great/large earthquakes occurred, the seismic vulnerability index has increased manifold. The situation demands widespread dissemination of seismic hazard and preparedness information via community engagement and highlighting on potentially tragic consequences of earthquakes by conducting extensive mock drill exercises & earthquake awareness programmes. In this paper, the role and efforts of the statuary bodies in the region, such as National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and CSIR – Northeast Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST) and societal program of Academy of Scientific and Innovative research, to mitigate and minimize seismic hazard by extensive dissemination of earthquake information, via scientific scenario and impact assessment, is holistically compiled.

Description: Encouraging property owners and individuals to adopt mitigation measures to improve the resilience of their buildings and equipments to seismic hazard has been a major challenge in many earthquake- prone countries. Few business leaders are aware of the fragility of their supply chains or other critical systems due to earthquake hazard. Bridging the gap between research production and research use is another crucial challenge for the earthquake risk research process. The KnowRISK project outcome is aimed at encouraging the proactive engagement of multi- stakeholders (community at large, schools, business community and local govern-ment groups) undertaking non-structural mitigation measures that will minimize earthquake losses to individuals and communities. Engaging stakeholders, taking into account their needs and inputs to maintain critical and urgent business activities, can contribute to the research findings and ensure that our data collection is thorough and complete. Engagement with stakeholders, during the whole process can lead to improved outcomes and for the development of viable solutions, for business and society, because of stakeholder’s role and influence within the organizations.

Description: The best chance to achieve a future disaster-resilient society is through risk education in School: it has a great potential to strengthen capacity of communities to mitigate risks. The KnowRISK (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) project took this opportunity and implemented a risk communication campaign for schools in Portugal, Italy, and Iceland. The idea was that suitably changes in people’s knowledge and attitude can trigger best practices. Crucial to reach such target is the raise of awareness on meaningful issues. The main challenge of the campaign was how to effectively address the mitigation of the vulnerability to earthquakes of non-structural elements, which is an issue considered to be of low priority even in the building regulations of many countries around the world. The campaign stood on a communication strategy that was systematized within a protocol, for 13- 15 years old students, that specifies goals, contents, learning strategy, support material, and relies on face-to-face intervention of scientists in the classroom. This protocol had training sessions bounded by assessment sessions, ex-ante and ex-post, that allowed to validate its efficacy. The training made large use of flipped learning and Episode of Situated Learning (EAS) strategy to raise student’s motivation and increase achievements. To ensure its replicability, the protocol was tested in zones matching a wide range of seismic hazard in Italy. The assessment showed the protocol be effective and ready for a wide dissemination.

Description: This special issue of “Annals of Geophysics” concerns the dissemination of knowledge on the prevention of damage mainly due to non-structural elements during earthquakes and its practical application at houses, schools and offices by common citizens, companies and institutions. The seismic capacity of buildings and other civil engineering structures and infrastructures are object of regulations for design and construction, and in some cases also the design, fabrication and mounting of electrical and mechanical equipments. Consequently, even in strong earthquakes many collapses of buildings and infrastructures are avoided. However, with few exceptions, design procedures do not aim at avoiding seismic vibrations from being transferred to the structures, but enable the structures to resist to the effects of those vibrations

Description: In the last decade, bottom-up strategies of risk education have raised importance, making serious games to become an alternative or complementary teaching tool for enhancing skills for a collaborative and adaptive response to social-ecological challenges. This study describes issues and challenges of serious games implemented within the framework of two European projects, namely UPStrat-MAFA (Urban Disaster Prevention Strategies using Macroseismic Fields and FAult sources) and KnowRISK (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements); the goal is to instil in young people a proactive attitude towards the mitigation of seismic risk . The games were tested in some dissemination events focussed on fostering seismic risk preparedness in students and improving good practices. We discuss the performance of our games even against more standard approaches to risk education. Our experience shows a rise of students’ engagement compared to standard learning activities. The games were effective as students were able to grasp the most relevant actions to reduce risk.

Description: We describe the main structure and outcomes of the new probabilistic seismic hazard model for Italy, MPS19 [Modello di Pericolosità Sismica, 2019]. Besides to outline the probabilistic framework adopted, the multitude of new data that have been made available after the preparation of the previous MPS04, and the set of earthquake rate and ground motion models used, we give particular emphasis to the main novelties of the modeling and the MPS19 outcomes. Specifically, we (i) introduce a novel approach to estimate and to visualize the epistemic uncertainty over the whole country; (ii) assign weights to each model components (earthquake rate and ground motion models) according to a quantitative testing phase and structured experts’ elicitation sessions; (iii) test (retrospectively) the MPS19 outcomes with the horizontal peak ground acceleration observed in the last decades, and the macroseismic intensities of the last centuries; (iv) introduce a pioneering approach to build MPS19_cluster, which accounts for the effect of earthquakes that have been removed by declustering. Finally, to make the interpretation of MPS19 outcomes easier for a wide range of possible stakeholders, we represent the final result also in terms of probability to exceed 0.15 g in 50 years.

Description: An investigation is made on the environmental factors that may determine the seasonal cycle of respiratory affections. The driving role of temperature is examined, for its inverse synergism with the dissolution of oxygen in human plasma. Two best-fit equations are discussed to interpolate the experimental data about the oxygen solubility and the saturation levels reached at various temperatures, referring to the value of the basic alveolar temperature. A vulnerable condition is when the airways temperature is lowered, e.g. breathing cold air, or increasing the breathing frequency. In winter, the upper airways reach lower temperatures and greater oxygen concentrations; the opposite occurs in summer. As low temperatures increase the dissolution of oxygen in plasma, and blood oxidation favours viral activity, an explanation is given to the seasonality of infections affecting the respiratory system.

Description: Many organizations allow GNSS users to access Global Ionosphere Maps (GIMS). However, the TEC estimates derived from GIMs are of insufficient quality to describe small-scale TEC variations over Pakistan. In this paper, the first local TEC map over Pakistan for the year 2019, derived from a regional GPS network, is presented. Spherical harmonics expansion is employed to estimate TEC with the spatial resolution of latitude 0.2° x longitude 0.2° and temporal resolution of 5 minutes. The impact of changing the degree/order of harmonics is assessed and it is determined that harmonic expansion up to 6 degrees is sufficient for estimating accurate TEC map for the region of interest. We have demonstrated that the TEC maps of Pakistan generated by local model conform better to the GIM by Center of Orbit Determination (CODE) (RMS = 5.83) as compared to International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2016) (RMS = 7.18). We found that the TEC estimated by the local model shows a better correlation to measured TEC; CODE-GIM overestimated TEC, while IRI-2016 underestimates it. Moreover, it was observed that TEC peaks during noon (1100-0100 LT) and Equinox (April). The residuals of local TEC estimates with respect to TEC obtained from CODE- GIM indicate the inaccuracy of CODE-GIM over the region of Pakistan: highest deviation of TEC from local model with respect to CODE –GIM was observed in April (RMS = 8.73) and minimum in October (RMS = 2.78). We have also analyzed the performance of our maps in geomagnetically disturbed days. The research presented in this paper will contribute towards the ionosphere study over Pakistan, where limited research is available currently.

Description: A ground magnetic study was performed on the northern upper flank of Mt. Etna to provide new insights into subsurface volcano-tectonic structures. The high resolution magnetic survey was focused on the main structures of Piano delle Concazze, a large flat area dominated by the North- East crater and bounded by the rim of the Valle del Leone depression and the extremity of the North- East Rift. More than 2,500 measurements were gathered with a sampling step of about 3 m covering an area of about 0.2 km2. The total-intensity anomaly field shows the presence of intense South- North aligned maxima related to shallow geological structures affecting this area. Filtering techniques and 2.5D modeling have been applied for the determination of the magnetic source parameters. In order to distinguish the near surface structure, filters of the vertical derivatives, Butterworth high-pass and the tilt derivative were used. The 3D Euler deconvolution has been applied to estimate the depth and the structural indices of the causative sources. The calculated structural indices, that express the geometrical nature of the source, are in agreement with forward modeling. They show that the area is mainly affected by subvertical normal fault and the estimated depth of magnetic sources ranges between 10 m and 40 m. Our total field magnetic survey shows that characteristic magnetic anomalies are related to fault zones in the Piano delle Concazze that are well consistent with the local tectonics. The subsurface structures that have been detected allowed to delineate the general structural framework of the area. In particular, it was possible to clarify that these structures seem to be not deep rooted and consequently they can hardly act as preferential pathways for magma ascent.