The Italian strong motion data base: design, data input and web distribution

A new Italian strong-motion data base was created during a joint project between Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV, Italian Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology) and Dipartimento della Protezione Civile (DPC, Italian civil protection).
The aim of the project was the collection, homogenization and distribution of strong motion data acquired in the time span 1972-2004 in Italy by different institutions, namely Ente Nazionale per l’Energia Elettrica (ENEL, Italian electricity company), Ente per le Nuove tecnologie, l’Energia e l’Ambiente (ENEA, Italian energy and environment organization) and DPC with different purposes, such as permanent strong motion monitoring and temporary monitoring during seismic sequences or before permanent installation.
The data base contains 2182 three component waveforms generated by 1004 earthquakes with a maximum moment magnitude of 6.9 (1980 Irpinia earthquake) and can be accessed on-line at the site http://itaca.mi.ingv.it, where a wide range of search tools enables the user to interactively retrieve events, recording stations and waveforms with particular characteristics, whose parameters can be specified, as needed, through user friendly interfaces. A range of display options allows users to view data in different contexts, extract and download time series and spectral data.
This article describes the data base structure and the working steps which led to the completion of the project.