Simulation of region-specific ground motions at bedrock by combining spectral decomposition and empirical Green’s functions approaches

Estimating earthquake ground motions at reference bedrock is a major issue in site-specific seismic hazard assessment. Deriving or adjusting empirical ground motion models (GMMs) for reference bedrock is challenging and affected by large epistemic uncertainties. We propose a methodology to simulate region-specific reference bedrock time histories by combining spectral decompositions of ground motions with Empirical Green’s Functions (EGFs) simulation technique. First, we adopt the nonparametric spectral decomposition approach to separate the contribution of source, path, and site. We remove the average source and site effects from observed small-magnitude recordings in the target region through deconvolution in the Fourier domain. This way, the obtained deconvolved EGFs represent path term only. Then, we couple the EGFs with k^− 2 kinematic rupture models for target scenario events. For each target magnitude, a set of rupture models following a ω-squared source spectrum are generated sampling the uncertainties in kinematic source parameters (e.g., slip distribution, rupture velocity, hypocentral location, stress drop, and rupture dimensions). The proposed approach is validated using recorded ground motions at reference sites from multiple earthquakes in Central Italy. The power of this approach lies in its ability to map the path-specific effects into the ground-motion field, providing 3-component time histories covering a wide frequency range, without the need for computationally expensive approaches to simulate 3D wave propagation. The region-specific, site-effects-free dataset produced by this approach can be used alone or in combination with existing empirical datasets to adjust existing GMMs, derive new GMMs, or select hazard-consistent time histories to be used in soil and structural response analyses.