Probabilistic seismic hazard assessment in Albania

Albania is situated in the Alpine-Mediterranean seismic belt and accommodates part of the deformation due to collision of the Adriatic microplate with the Eurasian plate. Albania has repeatedly been the site of historical earthquakes with considerable losses al even from moderate size events. The fact is attributed mainly to the poor quality of the construction in rural areas. During Albania's passing from an isolated and communist dictatorship to an open and democratic society in the beginning of 90's, a boom in the construction sector commenced which made imperative a modern seismic hazard assessment. In this work an evaluation of probabilistic seismic hazard in Albania is presented based on an updated seismicity catalogue. For this reason Albania has been subdivided in 8 seismogenic zones on the basis of seismotectonic criteria as well as on the spatial and temporal distribution of earthquake epicenters. The earthquake catalogue adopted contains 530 earthquakes with M > or = 4.5 for the time period A.D.58-2000. Values of Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) for different probability levels of exceedance are obtained for a grid of 10 km X 10 km cells over the territory of Albania. Respective maps are also constructed.