Building Collapse and Life Endangerment Risks From Induced Seismicity in the Central and Eastern United States

Abstract eng:
An increasing number of studies indicate that the elevated earthquake rates in the Central and Eastern United States are induced by fluid injection associated with the oil and gas production. In early 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published a sensitivity study of alternative probabilistic hazard models that incorporate the induced seismicity in a sensitivity study. The final USGS seismic hazard model that includes induced and natural earthquakes was released in 2016. This study investigates the risks of building collapse and non-structural component falling by combining the USGS induced seismicity hazard models from the 2015 sensitivity study and the fragility curves defined in the 2015 NEHRP Recommended Seismic Provisions for New Buildings and Other Structures. As expected, the risks are increased compared with those due to natural seismicity only. This increase varies from a few times to more than a few hundred times depending on the key hazard modeling decisions, including declustering and the slope of the magnitude-recurrence relations, and the location of the site. The increases of risk for different risk objectives are similar, but are more significant for short-period than moderate-period buildings. In addition, the paper explores how induced seismicity could impact risk-targeted ground motions and seismic design category assignments used for building design.

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