Deterministic seismic hazard map for Taiwan developed using an in-house Excel-based program

Seismic hazard analyses, either in a deterministic (DSHA) or probabilistic (PSHA) framework, are both commonly adopted for evaluating earthquake risk. Although different in methodology, both approaches involving tedious calculation are certainly a computer-aided analysis. For Taiwan, a few PSHA studies have been conducted, but not a single comprehensive DSHA study is yet available for this region. As a result, this study aims to develop a DSHA seismic hazard map for Taiwan through an Excel-based program. In use of the in-house program, the result shows that the deterministic seismic hazards for Taiwan are comparable to those estimated by the recent PSHA; in particular the 50th PGA (mean motion) in this DSHA was found in a good agreement with the PSHA at 10% exceedance probability in 50 years. In addition to developing the DSHA map for Taiwan, this paper provides the details of the in-house, Excel-based tool for Excel applications in geosciences studies. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.