Global Earthquake Model
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Global Earthquake Model (GEM) is a public–private partnership initiated in 2006 by the Global Science Forum of the OECD to develop global, open-source risk assessment software and tools. With committed backing from academia, governments and industry, GEM contributes to achieving profound, lasting reductions in earthquake risk worldwide by following the priorities of the Hyogo Framework for Action. From 2009 to 2013 GEM is constructing its first working global earthquake model and will provide an authoritative standard for calculating and communicating earthquake risk worldwide.
Since March 2009, GEM is a legal entity in the form of a non-profit foundation based in Pavia, Italy. The GEM Secretariat is hosted at the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUCENTRE). The current secretary general is John Schneider.
Mission
Between 2000 and 2010 over half a million people died due to earthquakes and tsunamis, most of these in the developing world, where risks increase due to rapid population growth and urbanization. However, in many earthquake-prone regions no risk models exist, and even where models do exist, they are inaccessible. Better risk-awareness can reduce the toll that earthquakes take by leading to better construction, improved emergency response, and greater access to insurance.
GEM will provide a basis for comparing earthquake risks across regions and across borders, and thereby take the necessary first step towards increased awareness and actions that reduce earthquake risk.
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This entry incorporates text from “Global Earthquake Model” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.