ShakeMap implementation in Italy

Abstract

Since 2005, the Italian Civil Protection (Dipartimento della Protezione Cilvile, DPC) has funded several projects driven toward fast assessment of ground motion shaking in Italy - the final goal being that of organizing the emergency and direct the search and rescue (SAR) teams. To this end, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) has started to determine shakemaps using the USGS-ShakeMap package within 30 minutes from event occurrence and adopting a manually revised location. In this paper we present the INGV implementation of USGS-ShakeMap for earthquakes occurring in Italy and immediately neighboring areas. Emphasis is put on data acquisition, the adopted ground motion predictive relations and the site corrections for the local amplifications of the ground motion. Finally, two examples of shakemaps are shown - the first determined for a recent medium size earthquake, the other for the large Irpinia, 1980, M6.9 event. For both events, the maps are compared to the available macroseismic data.