BSC becomes the first Spanish institution to join Europe’s leading earthquake analysis consortium

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center is now part of the international scientific network that develops reference models used to assess seismic risk across Europe, marking the first participation of both a Spanish institution and a supercomputing centre in the consortium

BSC’s entry into the EFEHR consortium (European Facilities for Earthquake Hazard and Risk) consolidates the role of supercomputing as an essential tool for anticipating hazards, reducing vulnerabilities, and contributing to the safety and well-being of European society.

Over the past century, Europe has experienced more than 300 earthquakes causing significant damage, more than 200,000 deaths, and losses exceeding €250 billion, according to EM-DAT (International Disaster Database). In light of this history, improving seismic risk assessment models has become a strategic scientific priority for the continent.

With this objective, BSC has joined EFEHR, one of Europe’s most significant initiatives in seismic hazard and risk assessment, becoming the first Spanish institution and the first supercomputing centre to form part of this broad international scientific community. EFEHR, a non-profit network, aims to advance earthquake hazard and risk assessment across the Euro-Mediterranean area, supporting and complementing national and local efforts. BSC’s participation strengthens its role in developing advanced reference models to assess seismic risk across Europe, with a direct impact on public safety, urban planning, and sectors such as construction and insurance.

Andrea Camila Riaño Escandón, the BSC researcher responsible for this collaboration, explains that the centre is already working on integrating European seismic hazard studies into advanced simulations carried out on the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer. “We are creating a framework that allows us to use open data from the consortium to generate detailed physical simulations and produce large datasets that can be applied in seismic hazard and risk assessment,” she says. The aim is for this methodology to be used in any region with open data on its geological faults, extending the scientific and societal reach of the results.

These simulations, which can generate vast volumes of data on seismic intensities and synthetic seismograms, not only allow current models to be refined but also enable the training of artificial intelligence algorithms and the improvement of emergency response tools. All this is possible thanks to the BSC research team, which harnesses the centre’s computational power to tackle highly complex mathematical and physical problems.

For Josep de la Puente, leader of the BSC Wave Phenomena group, joining the consortium recognises the work carried out over the past decade in initiatives such as ChEESE CoE, DT-GEO, and Geo-INQUIRE. “The consortium functions as a scientific panel that reviews and validates models using the best available evidence. Being part of this community allows us to contribute directly to improving the tools used by governments, industry, and insurers to protect the population,” he adds.

The EFEHR Consortium

Established in its current form in 2018, EFEHR operates as a collaborative, non-profit scientific community. Its nearly 50 member institutions work to evaluate, review, and update models that estimate where earthquakes may occur in the coming decades, their potential magnitudes, and their likely economic and human impacts.

According to Laurentiu Danciu, Senior Researcher at the Swiss Seismological Service (SED, ETH Zürich), consortium secretary and lead scientist for the European seismic hazard model, one of the consortium’s major achievements has been the continuous advancement of the European seismic hazard model beyond 2013, culminating in the release of the updated ESHM20 (https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2023-3062/). “EFEHR delivered the first European seismic risk model,” he explains, marking a significant milestone. The new release provides transparent, reproducible, data-driven outputs and a broad portfolio of products used by communities ranging from research to industry. These include engineering-facing products such as the informative hazard maps for Eurocode 8, the European standard that sets criteria for building safer structures against earthquakes.

Beyond the scientific advancement, BSC’s participation strengthens the European dimension of natural hazard research. EFEHR operates on a collaborative, “bottom-up” model, where the scientific community drives developments and seeks methodological consensus across countries. In this context, supercomputing is a key element for keeping models “alive,” up to date, and increasingly accurate.

“There are no other members with this level of expertise,” Danciu highlights, referring to BSC’s supercomputing infrastructure, its experience with physics-based simulations, and the direct link it provides between fundamental and applied science. “BSC contributes computational capacity, know-how, and a proven track record in European projects that align perfectly with the next generation of models,” he adds.

Earthquake Simulations

Within this collaboration, a specific line of work is being developed to integrate advanced computing engines for seismic hazard studies. This initiative aims to strengthen BSC’s contribution to the development and advancement of European models. The work combines widely used tools in the scientific community, such as OpenQuake Engine and CyberShake, integrating probabilistic approaches and physical simulations within a single computational workflow.

In recent years, BSC has tested different technologies in real-world scenarios. One example was the national earthquake drill in Mexico, one of the largest preparedness exercises in the world. During the exercise, the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer ran physical earthquake simulations within hours, producing maps showing ground motion, the areas likely to be most affected, and the intensity of shaking in different cities. This information can help authorities make faster, evidence-based decisions in the aftermath of a major earthquake.

This article was first published on 11 March by Barcelona Supercomputing Center