GEM: A Global Earthquake Model
GEM is a public/private partnership initiated and approved by the Global Science Forum of the OECD. With committed backing from academia, governments, and industry, GEM will contribute to achieving profound, lasting reductions in earthquake risk worldwide.
GEM aims to be the uniform, independent standard to calculate and communicate earthquake risk worldwide and will hence be the critical instrument to support decisions and actions that reduce earthquake losses worldwide. All who face risk, from homeowners to governments, need accurate and transparent risk information before they will take mitigating action. By providing the information in a manner that is understandable to all users, GEM aims to raise awareness, lead to adoption and enforcement of building codes, promote seismic mitigation, and stimulate insurance use.
GEM will be the first global, open-source model for seismic risk assessment at a national and regional scale, and aims to achieve broad scientific participation and independence. Construction of a first version of the model started in 2009 and is envisaged to be ready by 2013.
Recently, GEM has launched a User Needs Assessment (UNA). It is a brief online survey, developed by SPA Risk, aimed at collecting guidance for the design and development of GEM software and its underlying basis, so that the global earthquake model will serve the needs of all its end-users and stakeholders.
The survey is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi and Japanese, and it should take no more than 10 min to complete. We would therefore like to invite you to visit the GEM website (http://www.globalquakemodel.org/) and click on the red banner at the upper right hand corner in order to access the online survey.
Your participation would be very much appreciated. Results of the UNA will be compiled and made available at the GEM website once the survey is completed.
Download the GEM UNA brochure