Rapid estimation of ground-shaking maps for seismic emergency management in the Campania Region of southern Italy

Strong ground-shaking mapping soon after a moderate-to-large earthquake is
crucial to recognize the areas that have suffered the largest damage and losses. These maps
have a fundamental role for emergency services, loss estimation and planning of emergency
actions by the Civil Protection Authorities. This is particularly important for areas
with high seismic risk levels, such as the Campania-Lucania Region in southern Italy.
Taking advantage of the Irpinia Seismic Network (ISNet), a recently installed dense and
wide dynamic seismic network, we have developed a procedure for rapid estimation of
ground-shaking maps after moderate-to-large earthquakes (GRSmap). This uses an optimal
data gridding scheme designed to account for bi-dimensional features of strong groundmotion
fields, such as directivity, radiation patterns and focal mechanisms, to which most
damage can be correlated. The basis of the mapping technique is a triangulation procedure
to locally correct predicted data at the triangle barycentres where their vertices correspond
to seismic stations. The method has been tested off-line using a simulated M 6.6 earthquake
located at the centre of ISNet and applied to data of the 23 November 1980 Irpina M 6.9
earthquake recorded by a sparse network. This has highlighted its ability to predict peak
ground-motion parameters of large magnitude earthquakes with respect to the attenuation
relationships.

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