Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment for Albania, Macedonia and Serbia

C. Galasso, I. Gomez & A. Gupta

AIR Worldwide Corporation, San Francisco, CA, USA

B. Shen-Tu
AIR Worldwide Corporation, Boston, MA, USA

ABSTRACT:
A fully probabilistic seismic hazard assessment study is carried out for three countries in Southeast Europe,
specifically Albania, Macedonia and Serbia. A synthetically generated set of potential earthquakes, with their
temporal and geographical distribution, is developed based on historical and instrumental earthquake catalogs,
tectonic setting and plate motion information, and available data on crustal faults. Different sets of state-of-the-art
ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) are used to account for different types of earthquakes. The effect of
site conditions on ground motion is modeled based on shear wave velocities from high-resolution topographic
slope data. High-resolution seismic hazard maps are presented, which benefit both public and private stakeholders
via multiple applications, such as catastrophe risk insurance markets, urban development planning,
community-based earthquake risk management and mitigation, disaster risk financing, and building code
applications.
Keywords: Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA), Southeast Europe, seismicity model, ground motion

1. INTRODUCTION
During the last century, several devastating earthquakes occurred in the Western Balkan region,
particularly along the whole Adriatic costal area, causing a large number of casualties, substantial
structural and nonstructural damage and economic loss (e.g., BSHAP, to follow). For example, in 1905
a moment magnitude (Mw) 6.6 event (epicentral intensity up to X on the Mercalli intensity scale) near
Shkodra, Albania destroyed a large area in the northwest part of Albania and southeast part of
Montenegro (the area of the Scutari Lake) and was strongly felt in the Apulia region of Italy and in
Croatia. In 1963, a Mw 6.1 earthquake (epicentral intensity up to X on the Mercalli scale) in Skopje,
Macedonia took 1,070 lives and caused more than 3300 injuries and huge economic loss. According to
Petrovski (2004) a very significant proportion of Skopje was in ruins due to the shallow depth of the
event and also due the building stock, which at that time was generally of poor seismic resistance. On
April 15, 1979 a Mw 6.9 earthquake devastated the southern Adriatic coastal area causing 136 deaths in
Montenegro and Albania and considerable material loss mostly in Montenegro. Just one year later, a Mw
6.0 earthquake hit the Kopaonik region in the southwest of Serbia, also causing significant destruction
and damages. More recently, 2 people were killed and over 100 injured in the 2010 Serbia earthquake
(Mw 5.3), though general damage to structures was generally minor. Given the intensive building
construction and increasing urban population density of the last two decades, the current consequential
effects of such disastrous events would be even more dramatic. It is therefore of great importance to
assess the seismic risk properly, raise public awareness and improve disaster planning and management
in the whole region.
To this aim, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - Science for Peace and Security (SPS)
Project 983054 " Harmonization of Seismic Hazard Maps for the Western Balkan Countries" (BSHAP,
http://www.wbseismicmaps.org), through a four year period (2007-2011), has represented a significant
step towards improving seismic safety and implementing the Eurocode 8 (CEN, 2003) into national
practice of all the countries involved in the Project. In particular, state-of-the-art seismic hazard maps

for the Western Balkan region have been generated in addition to the installation of 13 new broadband
seismic stations and 36 strong motion stations in all involved countries, significantly improving density
and quality of the seismic monitoring infrastructure of the region. The results of the probabilistic
hazards assessment are expressed in terms of peak horizontal ground acceleration (PGA) for 95 and 475
years mean return periods (MRPs), that correspond to probability of exceedance of 10% in 10 years, and
10% in 50 years, respectively (for rock conditions with average velocity of shear waves in the upper 30
meters of soil Vs30 800 m/sec).
As part of the Flood and Earthquake Risk Assessment for Albania, Serbia and Macedonia in support of
the Europa Reinsurance (EuropaRe) Facility Ltd. funded by the World Bank, AIR Worldwide has
developed a country-specific probabilistic seismic risk assessment model for three countries in the
Southeast Europe: Albania, Macedonia and Serbia1. This paper describes the hazard assessment module
of the entire risk assessment study (described in a companion paper by Gomez et al, 2013). The main
objective of the hazard component was to create a uniform and detailed regional seismic hazard model
that captures the spatial variation of the hazard and could be used to support realistic estimation of the
earthquake ground shaking risk across the region. In particular, to capture the complex nature of the
earthquakes in the region, seismicity was modeled as a combination of subduction-zone interface, deep
subduction-zone in-slab, and crustal-fault earthquakes, as well as regional background seismicity within
multiple depth layers. The regional seismicity model was constructed by integrating the historical
seismicity data, geological faults information, and geodetic GPS data. Furthermore, we included spatial
resolution sufficient for local level applications, more recent ground motion prediction equations
(GMPEs), and site effects, diversifying this study from similar studies for the region.

2. DATA
2.1. Historical earthquake catalog
The Southeast Europe region has a long history of damaging earthquakes, although the availability of
historical earthquake data for this region is limited compared to other parts of the world. The collision
between the Eurasian and African continental plates, coupled with the movement of a handful of smaller
plates, account for most of the seismicity in this region (to follow). To obtain a relatively complete and
single catalog for the entire region, 26 historical earthquake catalogs were selected, processed and
merged (Glavatovic and Vucic, 2012). These catalogs were created through a long period of data
collection in several countries in the Mediterranean region and in several projects, as well as all other
published and available catalogs for the Western Balkan region. The locations and magnitudes of many
significant earthquakes have been reviewed and, in some cases, modified based on published research,
particularly for events whose moment magnitudes were determined from detailed seismological studies.
The final catalog consists of 10,681 events with moment magnitude Mw 3.5 occurred within the area
17.0-24.5 E longitude and 38.0-47.5 N latitude in the period range 510 B.C. to 01/01/2011.
Before merging the catalogs, the magnitude values (the surface magnitude, Ms, the body wave
magnitude, mb, the local magnitude, ML, the duration magnitude, MD, and unknown magnitudes, M)
reported in each catalog were converted to Mw (typically used in the GMPEs) using the ad hoc local
relationships introduced in Glavatovic and Vucic, 2012. Due to the poor coverage by seismographs,
about 40% of the earthquakes in the merged historical earthquake catalog either lacked a hypocentral
depth or had a default depth value (e.g., 33 km). The hypocentral depth for these events was
probabilistically assigned based on empirically-based depth distributions derived from other historical
events in this region.
Finally, the merged catalog was de-clustered from foreshocks and aftershocks using the method of
Gardner and Knopoff (1974) with local temporal and spatial windows whose size increase with the
mainshock magnitude (Glavatovic and Vucic, 2012). Figure 1 shows the epicenters of the historical
1

It is worth noting that AIR Worldwide has already developed an Earthquake Model for the Pan-European Region
(AIR Worldwide, 2011) covering 30 countries in Europe and including the most at risk such Turkey, Italy, Greece,
Portugal and, within the Eastern Europe, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovenia among others. The framework
used in the study presented here is consistent with the AIR Earthquake Model for the Pan-European Region.

earthquakes included in the final combined catalog (down to Mw 5.0; smaller events were not included in
the plot). The completeness time is estimated zone by zone as the historical catalog is compiled from
multiple sources and historic records in different regions are not uniform. Generally, the overall catalog
is considered to be complete for events of Mw 5 or greater that have occurred since 1905. Events of Mw 6
or greater are complete since 1600 while events of Mw 7 or greater are complete since 1150.

Figure 1. Epicenters of historical earthquakes (510 B.C. to 2010) in the Southeast Europe region, by magnitude
(events > Mw 5) and hypocentre depth (adapted from Glavatovic and Vucic, 2012). Modelled countries boundaries
are highlighted in bold.

2.2. Tectonic setting of the Mediterranean region, crustal faults and geodetic GPS data
Seismic activity in the Pan-European region is influenced by the movement of the Eurasian, African,
and Arabian plates; consequently, crustal deformation in the Mediterranean region is most active along
the boundary zone between these plates. In particular, the African plate is moving north towards the
Eurasian plate at a rate of 4-7 mm per year. However, the movement north of the African plate is
complicated by the additional and simultaneous movement against the Eurasian plate by three other
smaller plates, the Arabian plate and the Anatolian and Aegean microplates (Bird, 2003). The Anatolian
microplate - the northern boundary of which is the North Anatolia Fault Zone (NAFZ), a source of major
transcurrent events in Turkey - is moving westward with respect to the Eurasian plate at a rate of
approximately 20-24 mm per year. The Arabian plate is moving to the north towards the Eurasian plate
and away from the African plate along the Dead Sea transform fault. Finally, the Aegean plate is moving
southwest toward the Mediterranean Sea causing the subduction of the African plate under the Aegean
plate, which occurs at a rate of approximately 30-40 mm per year. This rapid convergence rate across the
Hellenic trench and the relatively slow motion of the African plate with respect to Eurasia implies that
complicated dynamic forces are driving the relative motion between different crustal block. The result
of this is a significant amount of seismicity with many structures and faults in and around Albania,
Macedonia and Serbia. This complex tectonic environment has triggered a number of damaging
earthquakes in this region generated by several active crustal faults. For example, Montenegro offshore
is one of the main thrust fronts that characterize the continental collision between the African and
European plates, at a depth that ranges up to 15 km. This zone is presently characterized by shallow
seismicity and a large number of strong earthquakes hitting the northern part of Albania. Potentially

active faults have been identified in Albania (both eastern and western zones) and in the north and
eastern parts of Macedonia, including the capital city. More in general, there are more than 330 active
faults and fault segments that have been mapped in the Pan-European region and information about
active faults and their parameters were collected from various published papers and other reports (e.g.,
Aliaj et al., 2004; Dumurdzanov et al., 2005). These crustal faults, together with the subduction
trenches, are displayed in Figure 2. In particular, for those faults for which reliable data exists, a
characteristic earthquake occurrence model (e.g., Schwartz and Coppersmith, 1984) was applied. The
rate of characteristic earthquakes is estimated from the rupture history of the fault, fault slip rate, and
earthquake moment rates estimated from geological and geophysical data. For that purpose, we
developed a kinematic model for Europe (next section) based on GPS measurements of the deformation
rate of the earths crust. Such a kinematic model provides a distribution of strain and stress rates that are
used to calculate moment rates for the characterization of active faults and subduction zone segments.
Finally, we used a total of 782 GPS velocity vectors from various (the most recent) sources: 440 sites
covering the entire Mediterranean region (Reilinger et al., 2006), 189 sites covering western Turkey and
surrounding areas
(Aktug et al., 2009), and 153 sites covering Italy and surrounding areas in the

Mediterranean
region and the Dead Sea fault zone
(Serpelloni et al., 2007). The spatial distribution of

stations is shown is Figure 2.

these GPS

Istanbul

Marmara Sea

GPS data

Perpelloni et al., 2007

Active Faults
Active Faults

Africa
Africa (Nubia)
(Nubia) Plate
Plate

Israel

Arabian
Arabian Plate
Plate

aa
SSee
ddiifftt
RReReR
eezz
SSuu

Reilinger et al. 2006

66 mm/yr
mm/yr

Mediterranean Sea

/yrr
m/y
mm
19
19 m

ee
oonn
ZZ

Black Sea

No
No

An
An
rth
rth

ato
atolia
lia Fa
Fault

ult

2200
//y
rr

m
m
m

m
m
m//

2
lltt

244m

yy
a

auu

F
rr F

n
n
Anatolian
Anatolian
Plate
Plate

aa

i
i

l
l

o
o

aatt

A
An

sstt

a
a

E
E

Aegean

Sea

3300 m
mm
m//yy
rr

rr
m//yy
m
mm
1155

nn
ttiioo
uucc
bbdd
SSuu

Eurasia
Eurasia Plate
Plate

iicc
nn
lllee
HHee

Dea
Deadd Sea
Sea Fau
Faultlt

fftt
RRii

Figure 2. The GPS, Active Faults, Plate Motion Velocity Data used in this study (yellow arrows
indicate plate

motion velocities, red lines indicate plate boundary faults, blue lines indicate other active faults, green and yellow

symbols indicate GPS sites).

3. KINEMATIC MODELING BASED ON GPS AND ACTIVE FAULTS DATA

We used the 782 GPS velocity vectors and the active faults data shown in Figure 2 to invert the regional
strain rate field using the well-established methodology by Haines and Holts (1993) and Haines et al.
(1998). We also adopted the relative plate motion as a constraint in the inversion procedure to
supplement the GPS and the active faults data. Geodetic studies determined the relative plate motion and
slip rates along fault zones within the African, Arabian, and Eurasian plate boundary zones and helped
clarify the dynamics of crustal deformation in the Mediterranean region. In particular, plate motion data
for the African and Eurasian plate boundary zone, the Arabian and Anatolian plate boundary zone, and
the African and Anatolian plate boundary zone, estimated by Reilinger et al., 2006, Nocquet et al., 2003,
and Serpelloni et al., 2007, were used to define the total motion between large plates. The output is a
kinematic model determining a continuous strain rate and velocity field across the entire plate boundary
zone by optimally matching the observed GPS, plate motion velocities and strain rates inferred from
active fault data wherever available.
Based on regional tectonic, geologic, and seismic information, and the spatial distribution of GPS data,

the entire deformation zone between the Eurasian plate and the African and Arabian plates was first
divided into 820 curvilinear grid cells, each of which represents a crustal volume with relatively uniform
deformation style. The average strain rate for each grid area was then determined using all available
GPS, faults, and plate motion velocity data. Figure 3 shows the modeled and observed horizontal
velocities in the region.
5E

10E

15E

20E

25E

30E

35E

40E

45E

50E

55E

60E

50N

50N

45N

45N

40N

40N

35N

35N

30N

30N

25N

25N

10 mm/yr
Observed
Model

20N

20N
5E

10E

15E

20E

25E

30E

35E

40E

45E

50E

55E

60E

Figure 3. Comparison of observed GPS data and plate motion velocities and modeled velocities obtained from the
kinematic model (open arrows indicate observed plate motion velocity data, red arrows indicate modeled plate
motion velocity data, and ellipses represent the 95% confidence error in observed velocities).

Figure 4. Moment Rate Field as Determined from GPS, Active Faults, and Plate Motion Velocity Data.

The modeled velocities match the observed GPS vector at most of the sites, with minor differences at
some stations. These discrepancies may be due to the incompatibility between the GPS data and other
data. The predicted moment rate field obtained from the kinematic model is shown in Figure 4. The
predicted strain rate field is consistent with the plate motions, regional seismic moment tensor solutions
and observed GPS velocities. For example, the highest moment rates are distributed along the Hellenic
subduction zone, the NAFZ, the East Anatolia Fault Zone (EAFZ), the Dead Sea fault zone, the Zagros
Mountains, Central Italy, the Caucasus region, and Western Turkey.
We converted the predicted strain rate field to seismic moment rate budget for each source zone and
used the budget for modeling regional seismicity, to follow.
4. MODELING THE REGIONAL SEISMICITY
As discussed, seismicity in the Southeast Europe region can be attributed to crustal earthquakes on
known faults, large subduction interface earthquakes, large subduction zone earthquakes, and shallow
background and deep seismic activity. To capture these effects, our regional seismicity model comprises
55 source zones, which were delineated based on the regional seismotectonics and historical seismicity
(Figure 5). Different seismic hazard assessment studies pertinent to these zones were used as references
for our model. In particular, the main reference for our study was the European Seismological
Commission (ESC) - Seismotectonic and Seismic Hazard Assessment of the Mediterranean Basin
(SESAME) Project, which developed a unified seismic source model for the European region (Jimnez
et al., 2003) incorporated here.

Figure 5. Modeled Seismic Zones.

Historical data was used to quantify the magnitude-rate and spatial distributions of background
seismicity, employing the results from the geodetic modeling (Section 3) to constrain the upper bound
seismic moment rate for each source zone. For each seismic zone in the model, the magnitude-rate
distribution based on a Gutenberg-Richter (GR) formulation was determined from the historical and
instrumental data for the zone. Specifically, a- and b- values were estimated for each seismic source
zone based on the magnitudes reported in the historical catalog. These parameters are not uniform across
the modeled area.
To determine the spatial distribution of small-to-moderate events that occur on as yet unknown or

unmapped faults, three-dimensional regional density functions of earthquake locations were constructed
using the magnitude, epicenter, and depths of historical events. The contribution of each individual
earthquake to these functions was calculated using a Gaussian-type spatial (i.e., three-dimensional)
probability distribution on a 10 km 10 km 5 km grid. The density functions were sampled to
distribute earthquakes that are simulated based on the GR magnitude-rate distribution for each region.
The result is a smoothed, but non-uniform, regional background seismicity that is compatible with the
regional distribution and rates of historical and instrumental earthquake data.
The seismicity model can be partially verified by comparing the model seismicity vs. historical
seismicity rate. This has been done for each of the seismic source zone. The left panel in Figure 6 shows
the cumulative magnitude-frequency distribution from the model (green curve) and historical catalog
(red dots) at large scale for the entire model domain. The long tails of the green curves derive from the
moment rate based on the geodetic model discussed in Section 3 that is considerably higher than the
historical moment rate.

Figure 6. Comparison of Historical and Simulated Frequency-Magnitude Distributions (left) and epicenters of
simulated earthquakes in the Southeast Europe region, by magnitude (events > Mw 5) and hypocentre depth (right).

5. PROBABILISTIC SEISMIC HAZARD MAPS

The probabilistic seismic hazard is computed using an earthquake catalog of simulated events consistent
with the magnitude-frequency curves of the source zones (Section 4). The synthetic catalog included
10,000 realizations of the next year seismicity and contains 83,467 events with Mw 5. The right panel
of Figure 6 illustrates the distribution of the simulated catalog. Each event in the stochastic catalog is
characterized by an epicenter, a focal depth, a moment magnitude, rupture geometry (length, width,
azimuth and dip angle,) and rupture mechanism. Both the spatial and the depth distributions are
consistent with the historical earthquake catalog shown in Figure 1.
Our model incorporates a weighted combination of suitable, state-of-the-art, GMPEs for active and
subduction/deep earthquakes, which are appropriate for a variety of focal depths, magnitudes, rupture
mechanisms, and distances from the rupture site.
For active shallow crustal events, the GMPEs of Abrahamson and Silva (2008), Boore and Atkinson
(2008), Campbell and Bozorgnia (2008), Chiou and Youngs (2008), Akkar and Bommer (2010) and

Ambraseys et al. (2005) are used with equal weighting. For extensional events of normal faulting
mechanism, the GMPEs of Abrahamson and Silva (2008), Boore and Atkinson (2008), Campbell and
Bozorgnia (2008), and Chiou and Youngs (2008) are used with equal weight. For subduction interface
events, the GMPEs of Zhao et al. (2006) with a 50% weight, Atkinson and Boore (2003) with a 25%
weight and Young et al. (1997) with a 25% weight, are used. For deep intra-slab earthquake, the GMPEs
of Atkinson and Boore (2003) and Young et al. (1997) are used with equal weight. In our model, the
geometry of all sources is formulated by a three-dimensional rupture area (based on the faults'
parameters in the stochastic catalog) which assures that the distance calculation in the GMPEs is
accurate and realistic. To account for the uncertainty in the local intensity calculation, 100 stochastic
ground motion fields were simulated for each event in the catalog using the uncertainty information
(intraevent and interevent residual distributions) from the different GMPEs.
Site conditions have a strong influence on earthquake ground motions and, therefore on seismic hazard
and risk estimates. Given the lack of detailed microzonation studies for these countries, we derived
site-conditions maps based on high-resolution topography data using the method of Wald and Allen
(2007) and Allen and Wald (2009). We first evaluated the applicability of this method by using a set of
measured Vs30 values for seismic stations in the considered countries from the European Strong-Motion
Database (ESD, http://www.isesd.hi.is/, last accessed July 2007 at former web address
http://www.isesd.cv.ic.ac.uk/). Finally, estimates of the Vs30 values derived from the topography-based
approach were embedded in the ground motion calculations.
The performed probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) includes different ground motion
intensity measures, namely the maximum horizontal peak ground acceleration (PGA) and 5%-damped
linear spectral accelerations at different oscillator periods (0.3s, 1s and 3s). This choice is functional to
the vulnerability module in the whole risk assessment model (Gomez et al., 2013).
As an example of the results obtained, Figure 7 shows free surface PGA, on rock (left panel) and
including site effects (right panel), with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years (i.e., 475-years
MRP) for the three countries. In particular, the PGA values on soil vary from a few percent of g (i.e., the
gravitational acceleration = 9.80665 m/s) in the north-western part of Serbia, to more than 30% at the
peri-Adriatic zones, especially at the south-western where it reaches about 40% of g.

Figure 7. Probabilistic seismic hazard map showing the median PGA values with 10% probability of exceedance
in 50 years (i.e., a 475-years MRP), computed on hard ground (left) and soil (right).

The results of the this seismic hazard assessment are consistent with other previous and concurrent
studies on the seismic hazard for the considered countries, e.g., Giardini et al. (1999) in the framework
of the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment (GSHAP) Program, and some local studies (e.g., Glavatovic
and Vucic, 2012). In particular, Table 5.1 shows the 475-years MRP earthquake hazard results (median
values) for the three capital cities (using a specific location) from our analysis (for both rock and soil
conditions) as well as the analysis carried out by Glavatovic and Vucic, 2012. Observed differences
between this study and similar studies, can be attributed to the combined impact of differences in
earthquake source models, GMPEs, site condition and the details of the hazard calculation. The seismic
hazard maps presented here, developed using the current state-of-the-art in probabilistic seismic hazard
assessment, have sufficient details to be used in local seismic risk studies.
Table 5.1. Median PGA values with 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years (i.e., a 475-years MRP), for the
three capital cities and from this study and Glavatovic and Vucic, 2012.
475-years MRP PGA [g]
City (Longitude, Latitude)

This study, rock

This study, soil

Tirana, Albania (41.33, 19.82)

0.30

0.37

Glavatovic and Vucic

(2012), rock
0.30

Skopje, Macedonia (42.00, 21.43)

0.20

0.24

0.22

Belgrade, Serbia (44.82, 20.47)

0.11

0.14

0.04

6. CONCLUSIONS
Underlying the Southeast Europe region is a vast and complex pattern of plate boundaries and crustal
faults that have produced and may potentially produce some devastating earthquakes. Therefore, we
have developed a fully probabilistic earthquake risk assessment model for the Southeast Europe region
that captures the effects of earthquake-induced ground shaking on properties in Albania, Macedonia and
Serbia. It is an event-based earthquake model designed for portfolio risk management and capturing the
complex seismicity of the Mediterranean region by generating events along known crustal faults, in
subduction zones, and within seismic source zones through smoothed background seismicity.
This paper has described the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment module of the whole risk
assessment study. A regional seismicity model was constructed by integrating the historical seismicity
data, geological faults information, and geodetic GPS data. Furthermore, we included spatial resolution
sufficient for local level applications, state-of-the-art ground motion prediction equations, and site
effects, diversifying this study from similar studies for the region and contributing to the advancement
of probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for the considered countries. The output of this study consists
of high-resolution seismic hazard maps, for different mean return periods, which benefit both public and
private stakeholders via multiple applications, such as catastrophe risk insurance markets, urban
development planning, community-based earthquake risk management and mitigation, disaster risk
financing, and building code applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Mehrdad Mahdyiar of AIR Worldwide, Boston for the constructive discussions on
the topics covered in this study and Stephen Roberts of AIR Worldwide, San Francisco for proofreading the manuscript.
The work presented here has been developed within the project Flood and Earthquake Risk Assessment for Albania,
Serbia and Macedonia in support of the Europa Reinsurance Facility Ltd. funded by the World Bank.

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