An earthquake is a natural phenomenon and natural catastrophe. It can cause massive damage and losses of life. Future prediction of natural catastrophes such as earthquakes can minimize their risks and save people lives and properties. GIS can be very essential for predicting and estimating a future earthquake. Thus, this study is dedicated to predict the locations of future earthquakes in the eastern part of Iraq using GIS techniques. The study involves establishing a GIS database (DB) of the previous earthquake in the period (1985 - 2015), identifying the parameters that a map layers of all parameters (factors) which are responsible on occurring earthquakes, and using GIS techniques to identify and predict the locations of the future earthquakes.
This research is accomplished through a number of essential stages. These are data gathering, data processing and data analyzing. The gathered data among the period of the study (from 1985 to 2015) was classified into three stages ((1985-1995), (1996-2005), and (2006 to 2015) to distinguish a fine details of past earthquakes easily and precisely. The results show that GIS is a powerful tool that can provide an accurate prediction of upcoming natural phenomena such as earthquakes. This can evaluate earthquake hazards and raise the awareness of the government to save people’s lives, properties and infrastructures against the possible future earthquakes and the accuracy assessment processes reveals that about 80% of coming quakes happened where they expected (very close to the prediction seismic line).
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