The multiple facets of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis: a review of probabilistic approaches to the assessment of the different hazards caused by earthquakes

A seismic hazard assessment is often thought of as a process that calculates the mean annual rates of exceeding given ground-motion values on rock at a specific location. However, in many applications this view is reductive. A more complete definition should account for the hazard due to other effects induced by seismic activity at a site, such as the effect of soil deposits (including cyclic mobility and liquefaction) and topography on surface ground-motion, and for sites on slopes and for those straddle by fault lines, the effects of slope instability and of possible tectonic movements along faults. Moreover, for some coastal sites the effects of tsunami waves, not discussed in this paper, should be taken into account. The aim of this article is to present an overview of different probabilistic methods for advanced site-specific seismic hazard applications based on an extensive literature review and authors' experience. Application to real cases is also presented and discussed.