Setting up an earthquake forecast experiment in Italy

We describe the setting up of the first earthquake forecasting experiment
for Italy within the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability
(CSEP). CSEP conducts rigorous and truly prospective forecast experiments
for different tectonic environments in several forecast testing centers around
the globe; forecasts are issued for a future period and also tested only against
future observations to avoid any possible bias. As such, experiments need to
be completely defined. This includes exact definitions of the testing area, of
learning data for the forecast models, and of observation data against which
forecasts will be tested to evaluate their performance. Here we present the
rules, as taken from the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Models experiment
and extended or changed for the Italian experiment. We also present
characterizations of learning and observational catalogs that describe
the completeness of these catalogs and illuminate inhomogeneities of
magnitudes between these catalogs. A particular focus lies on the stability
of earthquake recordings of the observational network. These catalog
investigations provide guidance for CSEP modelers for developing
earthquakes forecasts for submission to the forecast experiment in Italy.

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