References in Google Scholar
David J Wald
Dr. Wald is a Seismologist with the USGS in Golden. He is involved in research, development & operations of several real-time earthquake information systems at the USGS National Earthquake Information Center. He developed and manages “ShakeMap”, “Did You Feel it?”, & is responsible for developing other systems for post-earthquake response & pre-earthquake mitigation, including ShakeCast and PAGER.
Biography
Wald's scientific interests include the characterization of rupture processes from complex recent and historic earthquakes using combined geodetic, teleseismic, and strong motion data; waveform modelling and inversion; analysis of ground motion hazards and site effects; earthquake source physics; and modelling earthquake-induced landslides, liquefaction, and losses, macroseismic intensity, building damage, financial and human impact, rapid damage and impact assessment, earthquake scenario development and mitigation planning and drills, and communication with the media, public, and emergency managers.
Previously at Caltech, and now at the Colorado School of Mines, Wald has advised dozens of post-doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate student research projects. Wald directly supervises 10 PhD level scientists and 5 five BS and MS level support staff, and supervises several students. Wald serves on several PhD committees at this time. This research has resulted in more than 450 professional publications that David has authored or co-authored, including journal papers, USGS publication series, conference papers, and published abstracts.
Publications in Google Scholar | Loop | Orcid
Education:
Post-doctoral Fellow, Geophysics, National Research Council, USGS, Pasadena, 1995
Ph.D., Geophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 1993
M.S., Geophysics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 1986
B.S., Geology & Physics, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, 1984
Science and Products
Date published: June 5, 2018
Status: Active Future Opportunities in Regional and Global Seismic Network Monitoring and Science
The past decade has seen improvements in computational efficiency, seismic data coverage, and communication technology - driven by societal expectation for timely, accurate information. While aspects of earthquake research have taken advantage of this evolution, the adoption of improvements in earthquake monitoring has not been fully leveraged. In real-time monitoring, earthquakes are...
Attribution: John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
Date published: October 6, 2014
Status: Active Operational Earthquake Forecasting – Implementing a Real-Time System for California
It is well know that every earthquake can spawn others (e.g., as aftershocks), and that such triggered events can be large and damaging, as recently demonstrated by L’Aquila, Italy and Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes. In spite of being an explicit USGS strategic-action priority (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2012/1088; page 32), the USGS...
Attribution: John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
Year Published: 2019
Global earthquake response with imaging geodesy: recent examples from the USGS NEIC
The U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center leads real-time efforts to provide rapid and accurate assessments of the impacts of global earthquakes, including estimates of ground shaking, ground failure, and the resulting human impacts. These efforts primarily rely on analysis of the seismic wavefield to characterize the...
Barnhart, William D.; Hayes, Gavin P.; Wald, David J.
Year Published: 2019
National earthquake information center strategic plan, 2019–23
Executive SummaryDamaging earthquakes occur regularly around the world; since the turn of the 20th century, hundreds of earthquakes have caused significant loss of life and (or) millions of dollars or more in economic losses. While most of these did not directly affect the United States and its Territories, by studying worldwide seismicity we can...
Hayes, Gavin P.; Earle, Paul S.; Benz, Harley M.; Wald, David J.; Yeck, William L.Attribution: Natural Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, United States of America
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Hayes, G.P., Earle, P.S., Benz, H.M., Wald, D.J., and Yeck, W.L., 2019, National Earthquake Information Center strategic plan, 2019–23: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1457, 17 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1457.
Year Published: 2019
A global empirical model for near real-time assessment of seismically induced landslides
Earthquake-triggered landslides are a significant hazard in seismically active regions, but our ability to assess the hazard they pose in near real-time is limited. In this study, we present a new globally applicable model for seismically induced landslides based on the most comprehensive global dataset available; we use 23 landslide inventories...
Nowicki Jessee, M. Anna; Hamburger, M.W.; Allstadt, Kate E.; Wald, David J.; Tanyas, H.; Hearne, Mike; Thompson, E.M.
Year Published: 2018
Development of a domestic earthquake alert protocol combining the USGS pager and FEMA Hazus systems
The U.S. Geological Survey’s PAGER automated alert system provides rapid (10-20 min) loss estimates in terms of ranges of fatalities and economic impact for all significant earthquakes around the globe. In contrast, FEMA’s Hazus software, which is currently operated manually by FEMA personnel internally within several hours of any large domestic...
Wald, David J.; Seligson, H.A.; Rozelle, Jesse; Burns, J.; Marano, Kristin; Jaiswal, Kishor; Hearne, Mike; Bausch, D
Year Published: 2018
Increasing earthquake insurance coverage in California via parametric hedges
California has the highest earthquake risk of any state in the United States. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported in 2017 that 73% of the nation’s annual losses to earthquakes were expected to be concentrated in California and the Pacific Northwest. California alone constitutes 61% ($3.7 billion out of an estimated $6.1 billion...
Franco, Guillermo; Tirabassi, G; Lopeman, M; Wald, David J.; Siembieda, W.J.
Year Published: 2018
State transportation agencies partner to deploy and enhance ShakeCast
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is organizing and leading a three-year Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) project, Connecting the Dots: Implementing ShakeCast Across Multiple State Departments of Transportation for Rapid Post-Earthquake Response. Ten state Departments of Transportation (DOT)—CA, ID, MO, MS, OK, OR, SC, TX, UT...
Turner, L.; Wald, David J.; Lin, Kuo-wan; Chiou, Brian; Slosky, Daniel
Year Published: 2018
Stronger peak ground motion, beyond the threshold to initiate a response, does not lead to larger stream discharge responses to earthquakes
The impressive number of stream gauges in Chile, combined with a suite of past and recent large earthquakes, makes Chile a unique natural laboratory to study several streams that recorded responses to multiple seismic events. We document changes in discharge in eight streams in Chile following two or more large earthquakes. In all cases, discharge...
Mohr, Christian H.; Manga, Michael; Wald, David J.Attribution: Natural Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, Rocky Mountain, United States of America
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Mohr, C. H., Manga, M., & Wald, D. J. (2018). Stronger peak ground motion, beyond the threshold to initiate a response, does not lead to larger stream discharge responses to earthquakes. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078621
Year Published: 2018
ShakeMap-based prediction of earthquake-induced mass movements in Switzerland calibrated on historical observations
In Switzerland, nearly all historical Mw ~ 6 earthquakes have induced damaging landslides, rockslides and snow avalanches that, in some cases, also resulted in damage to infrastructure and loss of lives. We describe the customisation to Swiss conditions of a globally calibrated statistical approach originally developed to rapidly assess...
Cauzzi, Carlo; Fah, Donat; Wald, David J.; Clinton, John; Losey, Stephane; Wiemer, StefanAttribution: Natural Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, Rocky Mountain, Switzerland
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Carlo Cauzzi & Donat Fäh & David J. Wald & John Clinton & Stéphane Losey & Stefan Wiemer, 2018. "ShakeMap-based prediction of earthquake-induced mass movements in Switzerland calibrated on historical observations," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 92(2), pages 1211-1235, June.
Year Published: 2018
The intensity signature of induced seismicity
We analyze a comprehensive database of ∼63,000">∼63,000 geocoded community intensity observations from >400">>400 earthquakes of moment magnitude M≥3.5">M≥3.5 in Oklahoma from 2010 to 2016 to define the intensity signature of induced events. We show that natural and induced...
Atkinson, Gail M.; Wald, David J.; Worden, Charles; Quitoriano, VinceAttribution: Natural Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, Rocky Mountain, United States of America
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Gail M. Atkinson, David Wald, C. Bruce Worden, Vince Quitoriano; The Intensity Signature of Induced Seismicity. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America ; 108 (3A): 1080–1086. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120170316
Year Published: 2018
Improving near‐real‐time coseismic landslide models: Lessons learned from the 2016 Kaikōura, New Zealand, earthquake
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is developing near‐real‐time global earthquake‐triggered‐landslide products to augment the USGS Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) system. The 14 November 2016 Mw">MwMw 7.8 Kaikōura, New Zealand, earthquake provided a test case for evaluating the performance and near‐real‐...
Allstadt, Kate E.; Jibson, Randall W.; Thompson, Eric M.; Massey, Chris; Wald, David J.; Godt, Jonathan W.; Rengers, Francis K.Attribution: Natural Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, Landslide Hazards, Rocky Mountain, New Zealand
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Allstadt, K.E., Jibson, R.W., Thompson, E.M., Massey, C.I., Wald, D.J., Godt, J.W., Rengers, F.K., 2018, Improving Near‐Real‐Time Coseismic Landslide Models: Lessons Learned from the 2016 Kaikōura, New Zealand, Earthquake, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (2018) 108 (3B): 1649-1664.
Year Published: 2018
Integrate urban‐scale seismic hazard analyses with the U.S. National Seismic Hazard Model
For more than 20 yrs, damage patterns and instrumental recordings have highlighted the influence of the local 3D geologic structure on earthquake ground motions (e.g., M">MM 6.7 Northridge, California, Gao et al., 1996; M">MM 6.9 Kobe, Japan, Kawase, 1996; M">MM 6.8 Nisqually,...
Moschetti, Morgan P.; Luco, Nicolas; Frankel, Arthur; Petersen, Mark D.; Aagaard, Brad T.; Baltay, Annemarie S.; Blanpied, Michael; Boyd, Oliver S.; Briggs, Richard W.; Gold, Ryan D.; Graves, Robert; Hartzell, Stephen H.; Rezaeian, Sanaz; Stephenson, William J.; Wald, David J.; Williams, Robert A.; Withers, Kyle
Year Published: 2018
Spatial and spectral interpolation of ground-motion intensity measure observations
Following a significant earthquake, ground‐motion observations are available for a limited set of locations and intensity measures (IMs). Typically, however, it is desirable to know the ground motions for additional IMs and at locations where observations are unavailable. Various interpolation methods are available, but because IMs or their...
Worden, Charles; Thompson, Eric M.; Baker, Jack W.; Bradley, Brendon A.; Luco, Nicolas; Wald, David J.Attribution: Natural Hazards, Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards, Earthquake Hazards, Global Seismographic Network, Rocky Mountain, United States of America
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C. Bruce Worden, Eric M. Thompson, Jack W. Baker, Brendon A. Bradley, Nicolas Luco, David J. Wald; Spatial and Spectral Interpolation of Ground‐Motion Intensity Measure Observations. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120170201
Pre-USGS Publications
Date published: October 1, 2015
ShakeCast
An application for automating ShakeMap delivery to critical users and for facilitating notification of shaking levels at user-selected facilities.
Attribution: Earthquake Hazards