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A comprehensive treatment of seismic risk requires a reliable seismic hazard assessment. For this purpose, authors propose here the application of a synthetic damage-constrained parameter (named as HSM) which establishes, in three chosen vibration period ranges of engineering interest, an absolute ranking of seismic hazard. It includes the regional seismic hazard and the amplification due to the geological and geophysical setting of such areas of the Italian territory where the results of seismic microzonation studies are available. The purpose behind the application of this new parameter is providing new elements for effective implementation of seismic risk prevention and mitigation policies. In particular, a methodology is defined for individuating the thresholds values of the HSM parameter that classify the territory according to an increasing hazard scale, coupling with a theoretical expected average damage. In order to enhance the robustness of this methodology, a tempt of validation using experimental data is described in Appendix 1. The aforementioned scale of representation is applied on the dataset of the seismic microzonation studies conducted in 137 municipalities in Central Italy after the Mw 6.0 earthquake of 24 August 2016, providing for these centers realistic estimates of the overall seismic hazard. As future perspectives, it is shown how the inclusion of this parameter in urban planning and seismic design may help reaching different outcomes. In particular, in this paper it is discussed the effective contribution of HSM at: (i) helping decision makers to highlight priority intervention areas; (ii) defining best practices for existing structures, such as specific response studies, where higher overall seismic hazard values are expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we derive a large-scale V s30 map for Italy starting from the global terrain geomorphological classification based on normalized slope, local convexity, and surface texture (after Iwahashi et al., 2018). The novelty of the present work is the integration of a large amount of data from the Italian seismic microzonation dataset, consisting in about 35,000 borehole logs and 11,300 Vs profiles. The results of our analysis suggest that the geomorphological classes are correlated to subsoil lithologies and V s30 values more than surface lithological types (after Amanti et al., 2008). As already done in Japan (Matsuoka and Wakamatsu, 2006), Greece (Stewart et al., 2014), Central and Eastern North America (Parker et al., 2017), and Pacific Northwest Region of North America (Ahdi et al., 2017), we found a proxy dependence of V s30 from slope gradient and elevation through a lognormal linear regression model for each geomorphological class. A stepwise method allowed us to give meaning and statistical robustness to the regression model dependencies. The polygons inconsistent with the Iwahashi et al. (2018) approach (e.g., Meso-Cenozoic carbonate units of Apulian block and Hyblean Plateau related to the foreland domain) were replaced with the polygons of the lithological map (Amanti et al., 2008) and the associated V s30 lognormal average values. Therefore, a hybrid raster V s30 map was created with a spatial resolution of 50 × 50 m. The comparison with other previous maps shows how the forecast improves in terms of both accuracy and precision. For these reasons, the new V s30 proxy-based map for Italy based on the seismic microzonation dataset represents a useful tool for improving several applications: ShakeMaps, stochastic event based hazard map, total hazard map, assessment of coseismic instabilities, seismic risk assessment for spatially distributed emergency and resilience systems. V s30 raster maps and supplementary material are available in the Research Data (doi: 10.17632/8458tgzc73.1). • Vs30 Italy map was created starting from the global geomorphological classification. • Seismic microzonation dataset was used for better estimation of Vs30 for Italy. • Geomorphological classes represent the best strategy for Vs30 large scale mapping. • The new Vs30 map is a useful tool for seismic risk assessment at large scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]