Seismic Hazard Assessment of Albania by Spatially

Smoothed Seismicity Approach

N. Kuka, Ll. Duni & Sh. Aliaj

Seismological Institute, Rruga “Don Bosko, Tirana, Albania
E. Sulstarova
Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Fan S. Noli” Square, Tirana, Albania

An attempt has been made to assess the seismic hazard of Albania in terms of PGA following the
spatially smoothed seismicity approach known as “zoneless method”. Special attention was devoted to
the analyses of the seismicity parameters. Five seismicity models were investigated with the upper
bound magnitude 7.2 for all of them. The hazard maps have been computed for a 10% exceedance
probability in 50 years, corresponding to a return period of 475 years making use of three different
strong motion attenuation models. The seismic hazard assessment results indicate that very few areas
can be considered safe, part of Northern Albania, where values less than 0.15g are expected.
Acceleration for rock condition ranges from 0.2g approximately in all the territory, up to 0.3g in
northwestern and southwestern part of the country. All the calculations are performed making it use
the computer code OHAZ.
KEYWORDS: Seismicity, Seismic hazard, PSHA, Zoneless method.