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Tools & Products > Getting to know the OpenQuake engine

getting to know the openquake engine

What is OpenQuake engine?

The OpenQuake Engine is the Global Earthquake Model Foundation’s (GEM) state-of-the-art, free, open-source and accessible software collaboratively developed for earthquake hazard and risk modelling. It runs on operating systems such as Linux, macOS and Windows; and can be deployed on laptops, desktops, standalone servers and multi-node clusters.

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The source code for our software is openly available from a public repository - www.github.com/gem where live development of the code takes place. Our test-driven development environment approach allows external software developers to contribute and test our code. The OpenQuake Engine is fully supported with documentation and technical support.

What can OpenQuake Engine do?

Hazard

  • classical PSHA (outputs: hazard curves, maps, UHS, disaggregation)

  • event-based hazard assessment (outputs: stochastic earthquake event sets and ground motion fields, hazard curves and maps)

  • scenario hazard assessment (outputs: single event-stochastically generated ground motion fields)

Physical risk

  • classical PSHA-based (outputs: asset-specific loss exceedance curves, average annual loss, loss maps, building typology disaggregation)

  • event-based risk (outputs: event loss tables, loss exceedance curves - asset [specific and aggregated], average annual loss, loss maps, loss disaggregation)

  • scenario risk (outputs: loss statistics, loss maps)

  • scenario damage (outputs: collapse maps, damage distribution per asset and building typology)

What are the features of OpenQuake engine?

  • Combines hazard and risk in a single software

  • Calculates scenario and probabilistic hazard and risk analysis

  • Accounts for wide spectrum of uncertainties

  • Supports calculations at different scales

  • Compatible with various existing hazard, vulnerability and exposure models

  • Large set of source typologies for modelling faults as well as distributed seismicity

  • Explicit representation of uncertainty, including separation of epistemic (missing knowledge) from aleatory (random)

  • Logic tree support (representing epistemic uncertainty)

  • Runs risk calculations for precomputed hazard curves and ground motion fields

What’s the value of the OpenQuake engine?

The OpenQuake-engine can implement hazard and risk analyses for single scenarios, allowing the modeller to identify the potential losses from an individual earthquake, or it can undertake a probabilistic analysis of hazard and risk, telling the modeller the likelihood of observing a specific level of ground shaking and/or earthquake loss within a given time. The OpenQuake-engine can also calculate the benefit-cost ratio of retrofitting one or more buildings in order to mitigate the potential earthquake risk.

 

The estimated risk profile obtained from the outputs of the OpenQuake engine can provide fundamental information to reinforce or retrofit the existing buildings, to propose new design methods for new buildings, improve building codes and to establish an effective disaster management process.

 

These are all in line with the United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

Getting started

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