Amey, RMJ orcid.org/0000-0002-9540-7916, Elliott, JR orcid.org/0000-0003-2957-4596, Hussain, E et al. (5 more authors) (2021) Significant Seismic Risk Potential From Buried Faults Beneath Almaty City, Kazakhstan, Revealed From High-Resolution Satellite DEMs. Earth and Space Science, 8 (9). e2021EA001664. ISSN 2333-5084
Abstract
Major faults of the Tien Shan, Central Asia, have long repeat times, but fail in large (Mw 7+) earthquakes. In addition, there may be smaller, buried faults off the major faults which are not properly characterized or even recognized as active. These all pose hazard to cities along the mountain range front such as Almaty, Kazakhstan. Here, we explore the seismic hazard and risk for Almaty from specific earthquake scenarios. We run three historical-based earthquake scenarios (1887 Verny Mw 7.3, 1889 Chilik Mw 8.0 and 1911 Chon-Kemin Mw 8.0) on the current population and four hypothetical scenarios for near-field faulting. By making high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from SPOT and Pleiades stereo optical satellite imagery, we identify fault splays near and under Almaty. We assess the feasibility of using DEMs to estimate city building heights, aiming to better constrain future exposure datasets. Both Pleiades and SPOT-derived DEMs find accurate building heights of the majority of sampled buildings within error; Pleiades tri-stereo estimates 80% of 15 building heights within one sigma and has the smallest average percentage difference to field-measured heights (14%). A moderately sized Mw 6.5 earthquake rupture occurring on a blind thrust fault, under folding north of Almaty is the most damaging scenario explored here due to the modeled fault stretching under Almaty, with estimated 12,300±5,000 completely damaged buildings, 4,100 ± 3,500 fatalities and an economic cost of 4,700 ± Million US dollars (one sigma uncertainty). This highlights the importance of characterizing location, extent, geometry, and activity of small faults beneath cities.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021. The Authors. Earth and Space Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | seismic hazard and risk; high-resolution DEMs; geomorphology; Almaty; Kazakhstan; Pleiades; SPOT |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst of Geophysics and Tectonics (IGT) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/S013911/1 Royal Society CHG\R1\170038 Royal Society UF150282 British Geological Survey No External Reference NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/S009000/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Jul 2021 12:54 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:43 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley Open Access |
Identification Number: | 10.1029/2021EA001664 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:176368 |