Improving the Development Pipelines for USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Real-Time and Scenario Products

The real-time and scenario products of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program, such as the ComCat catalog, Did You Feel It?, ShakeMap, ShakeCast, and PAGER, are highly visible and used by a wide variety of stakeholders. We propose two significant enhancements to the development pipelines for the Earthquake Hazards Program real-time and scenario products that have far-reaching benefits. First, we propose incorporating processed and archived ground-motion records into the data streams for real-time products. This increases reproducibility and transparency for ShakeMap and downstream products that serve critical functions in earthquake response and long-term research. It will also provide comprehensive, open access databases of ground-motion metrics (for example, peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and acceleration response spectra) and ground-motion time histories that are fundamental tools in most engineering seismology studies. Second, we propose extending the pipeline for scenario products to provide a full set of complementary products to the real-time pipeline. This would define a comprehensive set of standards for archiving scenarios, including three-dimensional ground-motion simulations, and allow the suite of scenario products to be disseminated in the same way as real-time products. Ultimately, these enhancements would increase the value of some of the most important Earthquake Hazards Program products and transform the way USGS scientists and the engineering seismology community conduct ground-motion research.