Investigation of the dependence structure in seismic hazard analysis: an application for Turkey

Abstract

In this study, using the earthquake occurrence data (Richter magnitude is equal to 4 or greater than 4 in the years 1901-2014) of the areas limited by 39.5°-42° N latitudes and 26°-45° E longitudes of North Anatolia and 36°-39.5° N latitudes and 26°-31° E longitudes of West Anatolia, it is aimed to model the dependence structure of Semi-Markov model via conditional copulas in which the copula is parametric and its parameter varies as the covariate, based on the assumption that the successive earthquakes in the same structural discontinuity should not be independent events and the occurrence of the earthquakes should be influenced by the elapsed time between them. From the results obtained for these regions with high seismicity, it is seen that the variation in the strength of dependence between the time elapsed from the previous seismic event and the magnitude of the next seismic event at different magnitudes of previous seismic event is highly significant and a usage of the parametric linear form in the copula parameter will be adequately characterized.