Operational Earthquake Forecasting in Italy: validation after 10 yr of operativity

Abstract

SUMMARYIn this paper, we gather and take stock of the results produced by the Operational Earthquake Forecasting (OEF) system in Italy, during its first 10 yr of operativity. The system is run in real-time: every midnight and after each ML 3.5+ event, it produces the weekly forecast of earthquakes expected by an ensemble model in each cell of a spatial grid covering the entire Italian territory. To evaluate the performance skill of the OEF-Italy forecasts, we consider here standard tests of the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability, which have been opportunely adapted to the case of the overlapped weekly OEF forecasts; then we also adopt new performance measures borrowed from other research fields, like meteorology, specific to validate alarm-based systems by a binary criterion (forecast: yes/no; occurrence: yes/no). Our final aim is to: (i) investigate possible weaknesses and room for improvements in the OEF-Italy stochastic modelling, (ii) provide performance measures that could be helpful for stakeholders who act through a boolean logic (making an action or not) and (iii) highlight possible features in the Italian tectonic seismic activity.