After the devastating Haiti earthquake in 2010, emergency response of the IASPEI became an important and meanwhile a challenging issue. One of the urgent needs for such emergency response is an address book of key seismologists working in related countries/regions so that after the earthquake they can be contacted in the first time to express the sympathy of the international seismological community, while exploring the urgent needs of the local people and the countermeasures of rescue and aid, and reconstruction, as well as the scientific investigation of the earthquake. The International Seismological Center (ISC), in cooperation with IASPEI, established the seismological contact database which tries to cover the countries/regions both within and out of the framework of the IASPEI. Since that time, situation has kept changing, which calls for the continuous upgrading of the database. The Working Group, with RI2sE as its goal, works on the upgrading of the database, based on the evaluation of the database associated with the investigation of recent earthquakes. The Working Group is cooperating with the International Seismological Center (ISC).
In recent years more and more civilian monitoring videos have been deployed all over the world. Such videos happened to record the ground motion and destruction caused by earthquakes and related phenomena, and provided seismological studies, earthquake engineering studies, and emergency countermeasure studies with visual information, which had been shown by recent earthquakes such as the Myanmar earthquake in 2025 in which the videos contained the information of the rupture process, the Tohoku Japan earthquake in 2011 in which the videos contained the information of the tsunami, and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 in which the videos of escape panic contains the information of emergency evacuation dynamics. The videos are generally shared online after the earthquake, and disappears after the earthquake within some time. In the interdisciplinary investigation of earthquakes, collecting and analyzing such videos may play a unique role in studying earthquakes and associated disasters. Processing and analyzing such visual materials needs the cooperation between earthquake science and information science. The Working Group aims at the establishment of a global database and promote the analysis of such visual materials, while discussing with caution the ethical and legislative problems related.
Significant earthquakes, including both earthquakes with large magnitudes and those with significant impact of economy and society, and special research interests, are the main target of working of the Commission. These earthquakes need a unified catalogue so that systematic analysis could be possible. The Working Group, associated with the commission on RI2sE, will be working on a unified catalogue of significant earthquakes. Regional endeavor of establishing and revising such catalogues have been conducted in different seismological agencies such as the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The comparison and unification of the regional catalogues will be the first step.
Recognizing the devastating impacts of significant earthquakes worldwide, such as the 2023 Türkiye-Syria earthquakes that resulted in nearly 60,000 fatalities, and other recent deadly events; and acknowledging the critical importance of rapid, coordinated, and interdisciplinary scientific response in the immediate aftermath of major earthquakes to capture perishable data and transient/essential phenomena; the Commission on the Rapid Interdisciplinary Investigation of Significant Earthquakes (RI²SE) provides a platform for coordinated international and interdisciplinary scientific responses. By leveraging expertise across seismology, geodesy, geophysics, geochemistry, geology, and allied fields, and fostering cooperation with other IASPEI commissions, RI²SE facilitates rapid investigation of possible earthquake precursors, rupture dynamics, fault zone properties, and secondary hazards when transient phenomena are most pronounced. The coordinated collection of multi-disciplinary datasets strengthens models of earthquake source physics, wave propagation, and crustal deformation, thereby advancing the integrated understanding of earthquake generation and its cascading societal impacts. The RI²SE commission helps institutionalize such timely investigations within the IASPEI framework, and focuses on but is not limited to the following aspects:
In Symposia in IASPEI Assemblies, we will contribute to the Symposium ‘Recent Significant Earthquakes’ and organize topical issues in the internationally peer-review journals based on the Symposia results. Collaborating with already existing cooperating organizations for Scientific Investigation of Earthquakes in capacity building and networking of the technical teams. Working on the scientific guidelines/standards for the rapid interdisciplinary investigation of significant earthquakes, and the unified catalogue of significant earthquakes. Working on the development of remote sensing engineering seismology and seismology for emergency response. Participating in the meetings of the Association, the Union, and the Regional Commissions, as well as other related meetings, by presentations, exhibitions, advertising, and/or public lectures. Inter-Association and Inter-Union communication and cooperation in the rapid interdisciplinary investigation of significant earthquakes shall be facilitated. All possible collaboration with suitable organizations concerned shall be made.
