UCLA Civil and Environmental Engineering

Ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) relate a ground-motion parameter (e.g. peak ground acceleration) to a set of explanatory variables describing the source, wave propagation path and site conditions. In the past five decades many hundreds of GMPEs for the prediction of PGA and linear elastic response spectral ordinates have been published. An accompanying paper discusses the pre-selection of GMPEs undertaken within the framework of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Global GMPEs project, coordinated by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER). Here, we discuss the following step undertaken to reduce the long list of pre-selected models down to a more manageable number for global hazard assessments. The procedure followed, consisting of an examination of themulti-dimensional (e.g. magnitude, distance and structural period) predicted ground-motion space in various ways and published quantitative tests of the GMPEs against observational data not used for their derivation, is discussed and illustrated for subduction zones.