Modeling and Simulating Ground Motion from Potential Seismic Sources to Kuwait: Local and Regional Scenarios

• Published in: Geotectonics 2021-05, Vol.55 (3), p.423-438
• Main Authors: Abd el-aal, A. K., Parol, J., Al-Jeri, F., Al-Enezi, A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acceleration; Bridges; Cities; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earthquakes; Geological hazards; Ground motion; Hazard assessment; Modelling; Motion simulation; Regional development; Scientific research; Seismic activity; Seismic hazard; Seismic response; Simulation; Stochastic methods; Stochasticity; Structural Geology; Tall buildings; Towers; Urban development; Urbanization
• ISSN: 0016-8521; 1556-1976
• DOI: 10.1134/S001685212103002X

The urban development in Kuwait is growing rapidly in the past few years. Recently, a large number of new bridges, tall buildings and other infrastructures are constructed in Kuwait. The tallest sculptured tower in the world, the Al-Hmara tower is situated in the Kuwait city. Therefore, predicting ground motion and estimating the seismic hazard in the cities of Kuwait is of utmost importance in mitigating the seismic risk. In 1997, the Government of Kuwait assigned the task of establishing a Kuwait National Seismic Network (KNSN) to the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR). The purpose of this network is to record seismic activity in and around Kuwait, which could help in conducting seismic hazard assessment studies. In our study, the seismic activity data recorded by KNSN was used to perform modeling and simulation of ground motion using the Stochastic Method. The most important seismic sources were identified and the largest and most powerful instrumental earthquakes were detected. Correspondingly, basic input parameters about the seismic source, path, and site effect were taken into consideration during ground motion simulation. The maximum expected magnitudes M max from each seismic source were also determined. The peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak ground velocity (PGV), peak ground displacement (PGD) and response spectrum from both the largest recent earthquakes recorded by the Kuwait network and from the M max were calculated. Preliminary results obtained indicated that local induced seismic sources close to cities most affected the cities of Kuwait although they have small/moderate earthquakes compared to distant sources.