Integration of 3D large‐scale earthquake simulations into the assessment of the seismic risk of Bogota, Colombia

Abstract

Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, is mostly located on a lacustrine soil deposit surrounded by hills in a central plateau of the eastern cordillera of the Colombian Andes. This highly populated urban area is exposed to a significant seismic hazard from local and regional fault systems. In addition, the potential ground motion amplification during earthquakes due to the presence of soft soil deposits, along with the effects of the surface and subsurface topography, can strongly influence the seismic hazard and consequently the seismic risk to the city. This study aims to develop a physics-based framework to generate synthetic ground records that can help better understand the seismic response of the basin and other amplification effects during strong earthquake shaking in the region, and to incorporate these effects into the estimation of seismic risk. To this end, a set of simulations were first conducted on Hercules, the wave propagation octree-based finite element simulator developed by the Quake Group at Carnegie Mellon University, to identify the impacts of hypothetical strong earthquakes scenarios. Then, the results from these simulations were integrated with the exposure and vulnerability information previously developed for the main building constructions in the city to assess the seismic risk in the region under different conditions of analysis. Results from this more detailed model are compared with previously published results from simplified models. Sensitivity analyses help identify critical aspects that should be considered in the future to improve the seismic risk assessment of infrastructure.

A simulation approach for collaborative humanitarian aid distribution management: the case of Bogotá city

“…The city of Bogota-Colombia is chosen as case study since it has an estimated population of more than 8 million people, with an area of 384 square kilometers and it is one of the cities with highest vulnerability to natural disasters in South America ( Riaño et al., 2021 ) and high population density (more than 24,000 inhabitants per square km). The city is located in the central region of Colombia, about 1000km north the Ecuadorian line, in a 2600 m above sea level plateau in the Andean Eastern Cordillera.…”

“…The city is located in the central region of Colombia, about 1000km north the Ecuadorian line, in a 2600 m above sea level plateau in the Andean Eastern Cordillera. Further, it is located on a lacustrine soil deposit surrounded by hills that consists of mainly soft deposits up to 500 m deep, which constitutes a potential risk for a catastrophic earthquake controlled by the Eastern Frontal fault system ( Riaño et al., 2021 ).…”

A comparison of ground motions predicted through one-dimensional site response analyses and three-dimensional wave propagation simulations at regional scales

“…At the same time, a low maximum resolvable frequency will directly filter out the high-frequency components in seismic waves, which are crucial for some ground motion IMs, such as PGA and short-period S a . Up to date, a number of 3D GMS have been carried out to simulate earthquakes in different regions, for example, Istanbul, Turkey (Akinci et al, 2017; Douglas and Aochi, 2016; Infantino et al, 2020; Zhang et al, 2023, 2021), San Francisco, USA (McCallen et al, 2021), Bogota, Colombia (Riaño et al, 2021), Tangshan, China (Fu et al, 2017), Southern California, USA (Graves, 1998; Lee et al, 2008; Roten et al, 2016), Tokyo, Japan (Ichimura et al, 2015), Grenoble, France (Stupazzini et al, 2009), Norcia, Italy (Pitarka et al, 2022), and Kobe, Japan (Pitarka et al, 1998). Most of the existing 3D GMS have a lower than 2 Hz maximum frequency or a high frequency but with only a limited number of earthquake scenarios (e.g.…”

Validation of physics-based ground shaking scenarios for empirical fragility studies: the case of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake

“…In spite of their exceptional interest in the context of seismic risk evaluations at urban scale (see e.g., Smerzini and Pitilakis 2018;Stupazzini et al 2021;Riaño et al 2021), the applicability of PBS ground motion scenarios is questioned because of their high-frequency limitations, both because of computational limits, that prevent using excessively fine numerical meshes and solve short propagation wavelengths, and because of missing details in the geological model description. To solve these issues, hybrid approaches have been proposed to couple results of low-frequency (LF) PBS with high-frequency (HF) components from stochastic or empirical Green's functions based approaches (Irikura and Miyake 2011).…”