Researchers Enhance Validity of Earthquake Forecasts

International researchers have made significant updates to an open-source software tool designed to evaluate earthquake forecasts, boosting confidence for governments and researchers in their predictive capabilities. These advancements are vital for long-term planning and preparedness to improve resilience against the devastating impacts of earthquakes, according to a study published on Tuesday, as reported by Xinhua news agency.

Led by New Zealand’s GNS Science, an international team of 12 researchers has enhanced the PyCSEP software package, which is widely used for developing and assessing earthquake forecasting experiments.

“Using New Zealand as a primary case study, we tested the upgraded PyCSEP codebase to project long-term seismicity estimates from a global model onto a specific geographical region,” explained Kenny Graham, a Statistical Seismologist at GNS Science and lead author of the study published in Seismological Research Letters.

This new capability offers valuable insights into the predictive accuracy and comparative effectiveness of global models at a regional level, enhancing the tool’s utility for researchers and policymakers.