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National Seismic Risk Assessment for Residential Buildings in Australia using NSHA23

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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The overall earthquake bedrock hazard across Australia is low compared to the hazard of countries located at tectonic plate boundaries. This hazard is, however, variable and some regions of the country have hazard that would be considered moderate. Coupling this variability with the variability of overlying regolith and that of the building stock, the risk associated with earthquake damage has greater spatial variability that is not well understood. Reported in this paper is a consistent national-scale seismic risk assessment for residential houses in Australia that has used the latest seismic hazard model developed through the National Seismic Hazard Assessment 2023 (NSHA23). For the exposure information used, building attributes were extracted from the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) developed and maintained by Geoscience Australia (GA). All the residential buildings were grouped into four primary types for which vulnerability was assessed using empirical damage data from past Australian earthquakes. In turn, the vulnerability models were nuanced to consider the high lateral load resistance of houses in cyclonic regions of Australia. The average annualised loss (AAL) ratio was computed using the OpenQuake-engine implemented at the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). The computed AAL ratio was later aggregated to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Statical Area One (SA1). The AAL ratio of the whole Australia was estimated to be 0.00646 (%). Northern Territory was the highest state and territory by AAL ratio, followed by Western Australia. In this paper, details of the inputs and outcomes of the assessment are presented. These are discussed in terms of the changes in hazard understanding in transitioning from NSHA18 to NSHA23 and in terms of the change of vulnerability models across the country.

Presented at the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES) National Conference 2024

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title National Seismic Risk Assessment for Residential Buildings in Australia using NSHA23
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/89239fc5-26d1-4a37-8bea-f5637fb0acd4
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 27/04/2025
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
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        112.92,
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      ],
      [
        159.11,
        -54.75
      ],
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        159.11,
        -9.2402
      ],
      [
        112.92,
        -9.2402
      ],
      [
        112.92,
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      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "National Seismic Risk Assessment for Residential Buildings in Australia using NSHA23". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/national-seismic-risk-assessment-for-residential-buildings-in-australia-using-nsha23