Improved Seismic Monitoring—Improved Decision-Making, describes and assesses the
varied economic benefits potentially derived from modernizing and expanding seismic
monitoring activities in the United States. These benefits include more effective
loss avoidance regulations and strategies, improved understanding of earthquake
processes, better engineering design, more effective hazard mitigation strategies,
and improved emergency response and recovery. The economic principles that must
be applied to determine potential benefits are reviewed and the report concludes
that although there is insufficient information available at present to fully quantify
all the potential benefits, the annual dollar costs for improved seismic monitoring
are in the tens of millions and the potential annual dollar benefits are in the hundreds
of millions.Table of Contents


Front Matter
Executive Summary
1 Introduction
2 The Role of Seismic Monitoring in Decision-Making
3 Conceptual Framework for Benefit Estimation and a Taxonomy of Benefits
4 Benefits from Improved Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Forecasting
5 Benefits from Improved Loss Estimation Models
6 Benefits from Performance-Based Engineering
7 Benefits for Emergency Response and Recovery
8 Integrating the Benefits--Conclusions and Recommendations
References
Appendix A: Excerpts from Bernknopf et al. (1993), “Societal Value of Geologic Maps”
Appendix B: Committee and Staff Biographies
Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations