Scientists defend earthquake forecasting
SARAH-JANE O'CONNOR
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Earthquake probabilities that became familiar to Cantabrians over the past four years have been defended by an international group of scientists.
A comment article, published in Seismological Research Letters today, responded to criticisms that earthquake forecasting was ineffective or distracting.
For four years, GNS Science has provided probabilities of earthquakes of given sizes in Canterbury.
The mathematical models do not give specific locations or times for earthquakes, but rather the likelihood of a quake of a certain size during a given time period.
GNS Science hazards modeller Matt Gerstenberger said the models had also been used after the Cook Strait earthquakes in July and August last year and the Eketahuna earthquake in January this year.
GNS has only recently stopped publishing earthquake forecasts for the Cook Strait and Eketahuna earthquakes because the probabilities had become so small they were indistinguishable from background levels. It still publishes monthly aftershock probabilities for Canterbury.
After an earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009, Italian authorities established the International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting led by Southern California Earthquake Centre director Thomas Jordan.
Responding to criticisms that earthquake forecasting was ineffective, Jordan and co-authors cited work from New Zealand, Italy and the United States where the models had been used to update the public and inform policy decisions.
"In our view, people deserve all the information that seismology can provide to help them make decisions about working and living with the earthquake threat," Jordan said.
They concluded that while communicating earthquake forecasts was difficult, "not communicating is hardly an option."
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