New Challenges in Seismic Design - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 28

Work on specific topics is carried out through commissions, sub-commissions,
committees and working groups formed to meet specific needs of new, exciting
problems as they emerge. One of these commissions is the European
Seismological Commission (ECS), having the aim to promote seismological studies
and projects in Europe, countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea and immediate
neighbors: the area from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Urals and the Artic Ocean
to Northern Africa. The activity of ECS is mainly focused in organizing every two
years the General Assembly. The following objectives are of particular interest: to
facilitate exchange of ideas and to organize personal meetings among scientists, to
encourage the cooperation between individuals and organizations as well as
between other European and non-European scientific and engineering communities
by establishing Working Groups on seismological problems, to promote inter-
disciplinary studies involving Seimology, and to organize training courses for
young scientists.
Engineering Seismology scientific activity (Bolt, 2004) is framed in the general
activity of IASPEI, focusing the seismological research topics applicable to the
engineering communities as probabilistic seismic hazard assessment, their
implications versus building codes for a seismic resistant design, and the
earthquake risk assessment as a basis for risk management. Furthermore,
engineering seismology basic research is performed to supply suitable datasets
such as regional earthquake catalogues, numerical models and investigations on the
earthquakes generating potential geological fault zones, and attenuation relations
for potentially damaging ground motion parameters.
1.8.2 Earthquake Engineering
Earthquake Engineering is a 20 th Century development. In 1963 the International
Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) was founded, aiming at
organizing World Conferences on Earthquake Engineering (WCEE). Since the
IAEE foundation, these Conferences have been held every four years. The last
ones, presenting very important progresses in seismic concepts were held in
Madrid in 1992, Acapulco in 1996, Auckland in 2000, Vancouver in 2004, and
Beijing 2008. These World Conferences represent a wide arena giving the
opportunity to scientists, engineers, industrial professionals and government
officials to present their scientific and engineering works, to exchange ideas and
knowledge for the mitigation of seismic risk. They also provide a common
platform for delegates for all over the world to initiate new cooperations. For
instance, about 2500 delegates from about 73 countries were present during the
13 th Vancouver Conference and 2300 technical papers were included in the
Conference Proceedings (available as a CD-ROM containing approximately
27,000 pages).
In 1964 the European Association for Earthquake Engineering (EASS)
(initially called European Commission for Earthquake Engineering) was founded
during the Skopje Conference, having the same tasks as the IAEE organization.
EASS organizes European Conferences on Earthquake Engineering (ECEE) every