OpenQuake Engine — The Complete Guide: Open-Source Seismic Hazard and Risk Calculations
OpenQuake Engine is the calculation engine of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) foundation for seismic hazard and risk assessment. It is open source (AGPL-3.0 licence), and research institutes, authorities and earthquake engineers use it to prepare hazard maps and risk studies.
OpenQuake Engine
GEM Foundation
Seismic hazard and risk calculations — PSHA, earthquake scenarios and damage and loss estimates, from the GEM Foundation.
Get it from the vendorWhat it calculates
- Probabilistic seismic hazard (PSHA) — hazard curves and maps for a region.
- Earthquake scenarios — what happens in a single defined event.
- Building damage — damage estimates for a regional building stock.
- Economic and human losses — estimating the consequences of an earthquake.
- Hazard maps and risk studies — outputs for planning and decision-making.
What you need to start
The engine needs input files: seismic source models, ground-motion models and building vulnerability functions. So it suits people who know the field — earthquake engineers, seismologists and researchers — rather than serving as a quick calculator for a single project.
Related tools
For dynamic analysis of a single structure — OpenSees. For uncertainty quantification around a model — quoFEM. For presenting result maps — QGIS.
OpenSees
Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, UC Berkeley
Nonlinear and dynamic structural analysis driven by scripts, from the earthquake engineering world.
Get it from the vendorquoFEM
NHERI SimCenter
Uncertainty quantification around finite element models — sensitivity, Monte Carlo, Bayesian calibration and surrogates.
Get it from the vendor
pyStrata
Albert Kottke
One-dimensional seismic site response of a soil column — equivalent-linear, time series and RVT, in Python.
Get it from the vendor
QGIS
QGIS.org
Open-source GIS for spatial analysis, layer work and map production.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
OpenQuake Engine is a professional, free tool for seismic hazard and risk calculations at regional scale. It demands knowledge and good input data, and in return gives a transparent, open engine.