Report: 'National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan (2005)'

Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion
Earthquake Research Committee

Released on March 23, 2005
Translation released on March 31, 2006

The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion formulated the 'Promotion of Earthquake Research - Comprehensive Basic Policies for the Promotion of Seismic Research through the Observation, Measurement, and Survey -' (April 23, 1999), in which it cited preparation of the 'National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan' as a major area of investigation on earthquakes.
In preparation for the 'National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan (2005)', the Subcommittee for Long-term Evaluations of the Earthquake Research Committee has undertaken evaluations of the long-term occurrence probabilities for active faults on land and subduction-zone earthquakes, and announced the results to the public. The Subcommittee for Evaluations of Strong Ground Motions has conducted evaluations of damaging ground shaking by using a procedure to predict ground motions from specified earthquakes (the 'detailed method'). Concurrently, the methodology for ground motion prediction was improved and standardized and the results were announced to the public.
The Earthquake Research Committee has recently summarized the results in the 'National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan (2005)', which is reported here.

The translation is based on the original report in Japanese published on March 23, 2005. The original report consists of three volumes containing detailed result explanations and discussions on the data and process used for preparing the Seismic Hazard Maps. The translated report includes only the main volume for the result explanations of the Seismic Hazard Maps.

National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan (2005) (pdf 12.4MB)

Figures of National Seismic Hazard Maps for Japan (2007) (Start date: January 1, 2007)


Preliminary Versions
Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Map (Specific Area) (2002.5.29)
Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Map (Specific Area, Northern Japan) (2003.3.25) (Japanese)
Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Map (Specific Area, Western Japan) (2004.3.25) (Japanese)