Overview and Introduction to Development of Non-Ergodic Earthquake Ground-Motion Models

Abstract

This paper provides an overview and introduction to the development of non-ergodic ground motion models, GMMs. It is intended for a reader who is familiar with the standard approach for developing ergodic GMMs. It starts with a brief summary of the development of ergodic GMMs and then describes different methods that are used in the development of nonergodic GMMs with an emphasis on Gaussian Process (GP) regression, as that is currently the method preferred by most researchers contributing in this special issue. Non-ergodic modeling requires the definition of locations for the source and site characterizing the systematic source and site effects; the non-ergodic domain is divided in cells for describing the systematic path effects. Modeling the cell-specific anelastic attenuation as a GP, and considerations on constraints for extrapolation of the non-ergodic GMMs are also discussed. An updated unifying notation for non-ergodic GMMs is also presented, which has been adopted by the authors of this issue.