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ASC2002 consisted of: (1) Fourth General Assembly of Asian Seismological Commission (24 November 2002); (2) Symposium on Seismology, Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Risk Management (24 - 26 November 2002); and Pre-Symposium Training Course on Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction for Cities (18 - 22 November 2002). The Symposium ASC2002 was held from 24 - 26 November 2002, at Hyatt Regency Hotel, Kathmandu. About 150 seismologists, geologists, earthquake engineers, civil engineers, disaster managers, etc. from 22 countries participated.
The National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET) was the main organizer. The co-organizer was the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, Bangkok, Thailand (ADPC), and the sponsors were Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), HMG/Nepal, the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI), the Asian Seismological Commission (ASC), and B.P. Koirala India-Nepal Foundation. A Local Organizing Committee, consisting of representatives of government agencies, academic institutions and the private sector provided guidance to the Convener in aspects of the conference. An International Advisory Committee, consisting of reputed scientists form different countries, assisted by reviewing the submitted abstracts. Many of the International Advisers attended the conference.
Dr. Upendra Devkota, Minister for Health and Science and Technology was the Chief Guest at the Inauguration Ceremony. Eminent personalities such as: Prof. Krasae Chanawongse, Adviser to the Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Education, Royal Thai Government, and Chairman, Board of Trustee, ADPC; Prof. Serguei Balassanian, President, ASC; Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen, Secretary General, ASC; and Prof. Wu Zhongliang, Executive Member, IASPEI, also addressed the participants and guests at the Inauguration.
This conference had three parallel sessions broadly classified into Science, Engineering, and Implementation of Earthquake Risk Management Actions. A total of 75 presentations were made, including 47 papers in science of seismology, 13 in earthquake engineering, and 15 in earthquake risk management. 8 invited presentations (keynotes); a Poster Session and a Shake Table Demonstration also took place. The conference underscored the need to use the science of seismology and geology in reducing the impact of earthquakes for which it was necessary to establish and strengthen dialogue and sharing of knowledge/vision among scientists, earthquake engineers, disaster risk reduction specialists, policy-makers and administrators.
The Council Meeting of ASC was also held. The Council concluded that the ASC2002 was organized exceptionally well, at high standards and thanked NSET, the Local Organizing Committee and NSET. It was decided that the Fifth General Assembly of ASC would be held in Armenia in 2004. The Council also endorsed the proposal made by the President, Prof. Balassanian, to put efforts on project implementation. The proposed and endorsed project proposals pertained to 1) Earthquake Hazard Assessment (regional/subregional level), 2) Earthquake Risk Assessment (regional/subregional level), and 3) Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction (national/site level). Researches on Earthquake Prognosis were the fourth item of the proposal.
NSET plans to bring out the ASC2002 Proceedings in the middle of the year 2003. At the suggestion of Prof. Balassanian, a two-stage publication strategy has been adopted. First, NSET will collect all papers and subject to international review. The recommended papers will be published in a Proceedings volume to be brought out by NSET. Subsequently, a reputable publisher, subject to conditions agreeable to NSET and ASC, may publish selected papers.
The workshop/school on Structure and Tectonics of Convergent Plate Margins was held between July 1-6, 2002 at Castle of Zahradky, North Bohemia, Czech Republic. It was organised jointly by the Geophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (GI) and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the Charles University (FMP) under the auspices of International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth Interior (IASPEI).
Local Organizing Committee: A. Spicak (GI, chairman), M. Tuckova (GI, economy), J. Eichler (GI, technical support), O. Cadek (FMP)
Programme Committee: B. Engdahl (IASPEI), G. Schubert (UCLA), O. Cadek (FMP), A. Spicak (GI)
The workshop/school was aimed at exchange of the latest results of research related to dynamics of active convergent margins, namely to the process of subduction, and at providing MSc and PhD students modern views and summaries on this problem. The topics presented and discussed at the workshop/school were as follows:
Oral presentations were committed solely to the invited lecturers. The length of the presentations was 60 minutes. The following invited contributions were given:
Bob Engdahl (Univ. of Colorado & IASPEI): Advances in global seismic event location Wim Spakman (Utrecht Univ.): Different styles of subduction inferred from global tomography Harry Green II (Univ. of California Riverside): Multiple high-pressure faulting mechanisms and their potential roles in earthquakes at depth Heidi Houston (UCLA): Observational constraints on intermediate and deep earthquakes Jonathan Lees (Univ. of North Carolina): Implications of slab tear on geodynamics, seismology and volcanoes Junzo Kasahara (Univ. of Tokyo): Role of water on earthquake generation along the subduction zones near Japan Shigenori Maruyama (Tokyo Inst. of Technology): Fluid and melt transportation under the Japan islands Rachel Abercrombie (Harvard Univ.): Seismicity and dynamics of subduction at the Sunda Arc: three unusual earthquakes Robert Hall (Royal Holloway Univ. of London): The Cenozoic history of subduction in SE Asia and the SW Pacific Rinus Wortel (Utrecht Univ.): Terminal stage subduction, slab detachment and the geodynamical evolution of the Mediterranean-Carpathian region Craig Bina (Northwestern Univ., Illinois): Slab mineralogy in deep subduction Steve Kirby (USGS): Global fine seismic structure of slabs at intermediate- depths in the context of models of slab metamorphism and its effects on slab deformation Jason Phipps Morgan (GEOMAR Kiel): Serpentinization, deserpentinization, and the bending and unbending of subducting slabs Jerry Schubert (UCLA): Onset of subduction Klaus Regenauer-Lieb (ETH Zurich): Towards initiation of subduction: A solid mechanical perspective Marie-Pierre Doin (ENS Paris): Numerical simulation of subduction: interaction between the corner flow and the state of stress and strain in the overlying continental plate Paul Tackley (UCLA): Subduction zone formation by lithosperic yielding in simple numerical models of mantle convection
Poster sessions (usually 2 sessions, an hour each, took place every day) were offered namely to students and post-doc participants; alltogether, 24 posters were presented.
The workshop/summer school was attended by 62 participants (USA 10, Switzerland 9, Germany 6, Japan 3, France 3, Poland 2, Netherlands 2, Italy 1, Belgium 1, Canada 1, Great Britain 1, Czech Republic 23); 20 of them were students (17 foreign and 3 Czech). The conference fee was 630 USD for regular participants and 280 USD for students. Travel expenses to and from the Czech Republic were covered to 13 invited lecturers; accomodation and full board to 14 lecturers.
Elsevier publishing house offered a special issue of one of its journals, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, for contributions presented at the meeting. The guest editors of the special issue are B. Engdahl, O. Cadek and A. Spicak. The volume should be issued by the end of 2003.
The ESC, with the financial support of IASPEI, has sponsored four training courses for Young Seismologists in order to expose them to data acquisition, processing techniques, empirical evaluation of site effects and earthquake location, and their uncertainties, under the tutorship of many established seismologists throughout Europe and the World. The recent training course in Genoa, following the now established format, took place in the three days before the General Assembly and focused on analysis of digital broadband data. The lecturers, Klaus Klinge, Klaus Stammler and Dmitry Storchak tackled the themes of data analysis and seismogram interpretation from single stations, seismic networks and arrays using digital broadband data.
Seventeen students from eight countries attended the course. Questionnaires were distributed amongst the students, inviting them to comment on the overall impression of the course together with the level struck by each individual lecturer. The responses indicated an excellent rating for the course, overall, and the individual lecture questionnaires highly commended the lecturers in both their delivery and level of teaching. CD's were distributed to the students containing software packages, test data and the IASPEI manual, for them to use on their return.
The primary aim of the Young Seismologist Training Course in Genoa was to provide some basic requirements on data analysis and seismogram interpretation from single stations, seismic networks and arrays using digital broadband data. The course started with all participants introducing themselves and informing all of their level of experience in the analysis of seismic data. The tutors then gave a brief overview of what was to be expected and what could be gained from the course. This was followed by a short introduction to the software package, Seismic Handler, to be used in the analysis of the broadband data. The benefits of continuous broadband data over triggered individual files from short period instruments were highlighted. Following on from this, there was discussion in detail on the different factors that influence a seismic record and the information that can be derived from record analysis. Students then dealt, both in the classroom and practically, with seismogram analysis. This included the ability to recognize the occurrence of an earthquake, the filtering of the waveform data, the identification and description of its many phases, the determination of the onset time and the polarity of these phases, the measurement of the maximum amplitude and period for magnitude calculation, and the calculation of the slowness and azimuth of the earthquake. This was then followed by an explanation of the different seismological methods used, such as the plane- wave method, beamforming and frequency-wavenumber (FK) analysis. The course was then completed with an introduction of the different seismic parameter formats for exchange with international data centres, and how to extract data from the World Wide Web. Facilities for the course were well organised by the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Genoa, Italy.
It was clear that the students had a varied level of experience and background knowledge, a situation that is always difficult to cater to for many of the students had not analysed digital broadband data. Despite this, and because of the expertise of the lecturers, significant advances in understanding and technical ability were achieved for all students. Following receipt of a positive report on the training course, the ESC Bureau commended the lecturers and organisers on behalf of ESC members and endorsed a proposal to hold a fifth training course before the next General Assembly in Potsdam, September, 2004.
30 participants (engineers, geologists, emergency response personnel, professors) attended the training program on Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction for Cities (EVRC-2). This was the second of such training program. The first EVRC-1 was organized in Kathmandu in May 2002 by ADPC in collaboration with NSET, WSSI and EMI. This time the EVRC-2 was organized by NSET in collaboration with ADPC, ITC (Netherlands), and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Of the 30 participants, 13 were Nepalese and the rest came from Bhutan (2), China (2), India (1), Iran (1), Malaysia (1), Pakistan (6), Philippines (3), and Thailand (1). These were senior professionals, leaders of their profession and organizations in their respective countries. NSET supported the participation of attendees from Iran (1), Pakistan (1), India (1), and Nepal (4). Most of the attendees supported by NSET also participated in the ASC2002 Symposium.
The northern African seismological group "NASG" has achieved many goals this year. As the IASPEI support was not available until October 2002, most of the activity has been funded by ICTP. In general, the following represents the main steps achieved by our group.
A considerable number of visits have been supported this year to force the co- operation between scientists in the region. The center of this activity was located at Geology Department Mansoura University, Egypt. To facilitate the work the team of Mansoura University has requested some software for GIS, graphics in addition to scientific programmers. Recently we have also ordered a new workstation to fulfill the needs of the member. Some of visiting scientist has requested some books and recently we are trying to get online journals for the net group (still in progress). The bilateral visits are summarized in the given table.
Two papers published in national and international Journals. The members have work also together to collect and construct database. Recently the NASG groups are trying to make these data as well as the result of the member's work accessible. See http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~attia/working-group.html
About 90 scientists from the northern African countries came together in Algeria in the period (8-10 October 2002). The man sponsor of this meeting was IGCP457 and Bab el Zoar University. However, NASG has also contributed to cover the traveling expensive to three scientists.
As a result of this meeting a link has been established between the IGCP457 UNESCO project and NASG. Recently, the two groups are trying to involve in the Mediterranean Activity program of EC "Mediterranean Dialogue".
As you know the financial support became available in October 2002. Therefore, the money is partially used. However, we were using some limited local funds to keep our group together. However, our group has collected and homogenized catalogue for each country in the Northern Africa. Moreover, individual studies have been carried to estimate the attenuation relationship, physical properties of the crustal structure. All these collected data has used to compute the seismic hazard for frequencies 1 to 10Hz.
These work have been represented by our group member on - Cairo-UNESCO meeting "Training Course on Seismic Risk Reduction: Learning to Design Seismic Codes" The recommendation of this meeting (reflect the importance of NASG activity within the North African and Arab world countries. See http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~attia/working-group.html
As emphasized in this meeting it became an urgent need to have common hazard maps and to enforce both public and governmental levels to apply building codes in the recent construction. In December 2002 Prof. Benouar from Algeria and Prof. Suleimain from Libya will visit Mansoura to merge the collected catalogues in order to generate a homogenized map for the area that are based on deterministic approach.
We are planning to intensify our research cooperation through more visits to the participating countries organize one course on seismology and building codes for fifteen days in Mansoura University (Egypt).
During the reported time period (September-November 2002) the following activities have been done in frame of the ASC project "Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment in Asia":
Asia is the most populated continent of the Earth, and has a high level of seismic hazard. Earthquakes are the major threat to the social and economic development of many developing nations in Asia. Death tolls from the recent earthquakes in urban areas have been the largest all over the world. The rapid growth of the Asian population in earthquake prone urban areas will make such disasters more deadly and more frequent.
With the increasing scale of disasters projected for the 21st century by the experts, the ASC should play an important role as a catalyst and coordinator for the Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Risk Management Strategy developed and implemented in Asia and Pacific for prevention of the earthquake hazards impact on population, vital infrastructure and property.
The ASC should promote the understanding that Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Risk Management in Asia and Pacific are immediately linked to the ability of the country to function appropriately for the guarantee of business continuity and hence economic growth and the potential of any Asian country to prosper and develop.
To promote this critical understanding for benefit and safety in particular for the most vulnerable developing countries the ASC should undertake steps by way of the ASC pilot projects.
Considering the existing background of earthquake hazard assessment and risk management in Asia and Pacific, the ASC pilot project "Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment in Asia" for the Asian and Pacific countries should be focused on the following issues:
The implementation of the ASC pilot projects will promote the ASC further capacity building through networking and cooperation.
Shortly, IASPEI will have at its disposal 35 copies of each of the publications described below. We have decided to distribute free copies of these publications to institutional libraries located in less developed countries. We ask that you work through the IASPEI liaison in your organization to nominate an institution either in your own or in another country to receive these complimentary copies. Unless there are exceptional reasons to do otherwise, only one set per country will be permitted. Requests received will be ranked by IASPEI in early 2003 and the copies posted as they become available. Please send your nominations directly to me as soon as possible, but no later than IUGG 2003 at Sapporo.
The first of a two-volume comprehensive review of earthquake and engineering seismology is now available. This state-of-the-art work, edited by W.H.K. Lee, H. Kanamori, P.C. Jennings, and C. Kisslinger, fulfills an IASPEI ambition to create a useful reference for earthquake and engineering seismologists, as well as earthquake engineers, geologists, and geophysicists. Part A, which includes a CD-ROM, features 56 full-length chapters detailing the history of seismology, theoretical and observational seismology, earthquake geology and mechanics, and the Earth's structure. Part B will be published in Spring, 2003, and features 34 chapters detailing strong-motion seismology, selected topics in earthquake engineering, earthquake prediction and hazards mitigation, and miscellaneous topics, including over 50 national reports and 2 CD-ROMs. Each volume contains about 1,000 pages, printed in top-quality paper (8.5 by 11 inch size with hard cover, and weighs about 3.6 kilograms). For more information, please consult the website http://www.academicpress.com/quake.
The new Manual, edited by Peter Bormann, outlines in a very consistent way the social and scientific goals as well as the scope, technology, methodology and basic procedures of observatory seismology. It provides the essential scientific and technical fundamentals, reveals their inter-relationship and motivates observatory personnel to do their job as carefully as possible. The Manual will appear in two volumes as a loose-leaf collection in two clamp-folders. Volume 1 comprises 13 topically and didactically closely linked chapters. Volume 2 is an annex volume comprising information sheets with a more elaborate treatment of special problems, program descriptions, data sheets and practical exercises related to basic observatory tasks. For more information, please consult http://www.seismo.com/msop/msop_intro.html and http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/pb2/pb21/index_e.html.
IASPEI uses this system to broadcast announcements about forthcoming meetings and other information of interest to IASPEI members.
IASPEI continues development of its Home Page on the WorldWideWeb which contains organizational information, a publications list, meeting announcements and Internet connections and other information of interest to IASPEI scientists. The current address for this web site is: http://www.iaspei.org/
The IASPEI Secretariat with the assistance of Carl Kisslinger (Editor) has published a 26 page Brochure entitled "The International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior: Cooperation for Better Understanding of the Earth". Copies can be obtained from the IASPEI Secretariat.
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November 20, 2007
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