General-Guidlines-2024 1

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION
GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION

OF
SITE SPECIFIC SEISMIC STUDY REPORT OF WATER RESOURCE PROJECT
TO
NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON SEISMIC DESIGN PARAMETERS
Secretariat of National Committee on Seismic Design Parameters

FE&SA Directorate, 8th Floor (N), Sewa Bhawan, R.K. Puram
New Delhi 110066
(October 2011)
Second Revision: June 2024
NCSDP Guidelines: 2024 (Revised)

Contents
Page No.
Abbreviations
1.0 Scope 1
2.0 Background and Introduction 2
3.0 Useful Concepts and Definitions 3
4.0 Regional Tectonic and Geologic Settings 7
5.0 Local Geology and Site Soil Condition 8
6.0 Earthquake Catalog and Analysis of Past Seismicity 9
7.0 Delineation and Parameterization of Seismic Source Zones 11
8.0 Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) 18
9.0 Target Response Spectra By PSHA Method 20
10.0 MCE Level of Target Response Spectra by DSHA Method 26
11.0 Finalization of Target Response Spectra 27
12.0 Design Accelerograms and Response Spectra 28
13.0 Design Seismic Coefficients 30
14.0 Preparation of the Study Report 30
15.0 Presentation of Study Report before NCSDP 31
References 32
Annexure A 40
Glossary
Annexure B 43
Illustrative Example : Delineation of Source Zones in Plate Boundary Region of Western Himalaya
Annexure C 48
Delineation of Source Zones In Intraplate Region of Peninsular India
Annexure D 52
Methods for Estimation oF Mmax with Illustrative Examples
Annexure E 56
Disaggregation of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard
Annexure F 58
Template For Preparation Of The Study Report
Annexure G 61
Proforma For Submission Of Study Report To NCSDP
Annexure H 63
Seismic Design Parameters Approved by NCSDP Since 1991 onwards
NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised)

Central Water Commission
GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF SITE-SPECIFIC

SEISMIC STUDY REPORT OF WATER RESOURCE PROJECTS TO NATIONAL
COMMITTEE ON SEISMIC DESIGN PARAMETERS
1.0 SCOPE
1.1 These guidelines provide the methodologies and procedures for preparing a site-
specific seismic study report for a river valley project site and its submission to the
National Committee on Seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) for necessary approval.
The guidelines will help estimate the site-specific ground motion parameters required
for seismic design by dynamic response analysis and safety evaluation of new or
existing dams and their appurtenant structures. The guidelines are expected to bring
uniformity in site-specific seismic studies being carried out by different investigators
vis-à-vis the widely used international practice.
1.2 The site-specific seismic studies need to be carried out and submitted for the approval
of NCSDP in respect of dams (irrespective of the seismic zone in which the dam lies)
falling under the category Intermediate and Large (as classified in clause 3.1.2 of IS
11223: Guidelines for Fixing Spillway Capacity)
1.3 Concerning projects wherein a dam/water storage structure already exists, the project
is to be considered as a whole along with its components, i.e., old structure, new
structure, and appurtenant structure. Hence, site-specific seismic studies need to be
carried out and submitted for the approval of NCSDP for all such structures,
irrespective of whether they are old or new.
1.4 The site-specific seismic studies need to be carried out and submitted for the approval
of NCSDP in respect of all existing dams where–
(i) any extreme seismic event is observed which has the potential to affect or damage
structure or an event with a magnitude of Peak Ground Acceleration greater than the
values specified in paragraph 6.4.2 (Table 3) of IS: 1893-2016 (Part 1) relating to
Criteria for Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures developed by the Bureau of
Indian standards;
(ii) dam re-sectioning is proposed or carried out to the original structure, or there are
changes in design criteria;
(iii) Major geological activity is reported by the Geological Survey of India for the
region, such as the identification of new faults or movement in existing faults:
Provided that the site-specific seismic studies shall be carried out only for those
existing specified dams where risk assessment study warrants.
1.5 The guidelines' provisions also apply to river valley projects and their appurtenant
structures, as well as the powerhouse and other structures located near the dam whose
failure can result in an uncontrolled release of water from the reservoir. However, the
guidelines' provisions need not be applied to project canals and canal structures and
NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 1

also not to temporary structures such as coffer dams.

1.6 The site-specific seismic studies that are not mandated per the above conditions need
not be referred to NCSDP unless directed otherwise by a government or judicial
authority. In all such exempt cases, the selection of seismic design parameters will
continue to be governed as per the values given in Section 13 of this guideline.
1.7 The terms used in these guidelines have standard meanings that apply generally to all
seismic studies. The glossary, given as Annexure A, further elucidates some of the
key terms.
2.0 BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION

2.1 The design of dams to resist damage due to earthquakes is of increasing relevance to
dam designers. The present guidelines were first published in October 2011 and
revised in June 2014, mainly by adding two annexures for a glossary of terminologies
and the list of the seismic design parameters for 177 projects approved by NCSDP
since 1991. The revision includes recent developments in hazard analysis
methodologies and ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs), traditionally termed
attenuation relationships. The revised guidelines more explicitly and elaborately
present the various aspects related to the 'Determination of Seismic Input Parameters'
required for the seismic analysis. This document aims to enable a fair amount of
consistency in earthquake design aspects to international practices, evaluate the
performance of dams in existence, and ensure compliance so as to fulfil requirements
of dam safety by all concerned. However, the use of recent developments in the
subject matter from time to time shall be acceptable as long as there are no
fundamental deviations from these guidelines.
2.2 Dams have been traditionally designed using the pseudo-static analysis method (IS:
6512 – 1984; IS: 7894 – 1975), in which the earthquake effects are represented by
static forces defined by multiplication of the horizontal and vertical seismic
coefficients with the structure's weight. Highly reduced values of the seismic
coefficients are generally used compared to the maximum ground acceleration that a
dam may experience during real earthquakes. Though the dams designed by this
method are, in most cases, expected to perform satisfactorily under actual site-specific
earthquake excitation, this method is unable to establish explicitly the safety of
gravity dams against damage caused by excessive stresses and the safety of earth and
rock-fill dams against permanent crest settlement and liquefaction. The seismic safety
of dams can be ascertained explicitly only by detailed dynamic response analysis
using site-specific design ground motion defined in terms of the acceleration time
histories (termed as design accelerograms) of both horizontal and vertical motion
components and the corresponding design response spectra with different damping
values.
2.3 The initial design of a dam arrived at by seismic coefficient method must be tested by
simplified first-mode response spectrum method and finalised by dynamic response

analysis using rigorous linear time history analysis with finite element modelling
under the design basis earthquake (DBE) level of site-specific ground motion. The
DBE represents the level of ground motion for which there should be no or easily
repairable insignificant damage to the dam and appurtenant structures. However, the
dam's safety must be assessed under the maximum credible earthquake (MCE) level
of site-specific ground motion. The MCE represents a much higher level of site-
specific ground motion for which significant damage to the dam body is acceptable,
provided no uncontrolled release of water occurs from the reservoir.
2.4 The DBE level of ground motion is intended to occur with reasonably high probability
during the life of a dam. Hence, it is to be defined for a return period of 475 years
(10% probability in 50 years) using the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA)
method, which has become the state-of-the-art methodology for estimating the design
ground motion for all important structures. On the other hand, the MCE level of
ground motion is intended to be a much rarer event during the life of a dam. It is,
therefore, required to be defined by the PSHA method for a suitably selected long
return period between 2475 and 9975 years, as defined in Table 1 of this guideline.
The MCE level of ground motion is proposed to be estimated using the deterministic
seismic hazard analysis (DSHA) method, and the final estimate will be arrived at from
a critical comparison of the estimates from both methods.
2.5 Using suitably selected GMPEs for the spectral amplitudes at different natural periods,
the DBE and MCE levels of site-specific design ground motions are obtained directly
in terms of horizontal and vertical response spectra with a damping ratio of 5%, which
are termed as the target response spectra (TRS). The pairs of TRS of horizontal and
vertical motion components for both DBE and MCE conditions are used to generate
3–7 uncorrelated pairs of compatible design accelerograms for use in detailed
dynamic response analysis for design and safety evaluation purposes. If required for
any analysis, the TRS with a damping ratio of 5% can be used to obtain the response
spectra with other damping ratios using the period-dependent scaling factors given in
IS: 1893 (Part 1).
2.6 These guidelines provide details and recommendations on the various aspects of the
DSHA and PSHA methods for estimating MCE and DBE levels of horizontal and
vertical TRS and generating the design accelerograms. However, the preliminary
design and sizing of a dam may be arrived at using pseudo-static methods of analysis
as per IS: 6512 and IS: 7894 for gravity and earth dams, respectively, with the
minimum values of the pseudo-static horizontal and vertical seismic coefficients
for different seismic zones as prescribed in section 13.0 of this guideline may be
used.
3.0 USEFUL CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
The generation of earthquake ground motion at a site involves a complex process of
displacement over a fault surface deep inside the earth as the source of the earthquake,
propagation of the seismic waves from the source to the site, and amplification of the

ground motion due to local geology and soil condition at the site. The site-specific
nature of the ground motion stems from the dependences on the characteristics of the
earthquake source, wave propagation path, as well as local site conditions, all of
which have to be modelled realistically to arrive at a realistic estimate of the design
ground motion parameters at a river valley project site. Some useful concepts and
definitions related to the site-specific studies are given below:
3.1 Seismic Source Zones: Site-specific evaluation of design ground motion requires
identifying all probable sources of earthquakes which may affect a project site of
interest. Ideally, all seismic sources should be individual active faults (line or dipping
surface). Still, the area sources of diffused seismicity are commonly used in real
applications due to a lack of exact knowledge about active faults and their seismic
potential. Each seismic source is characterised by distinctly different seismic potential
(occurrence rates and/ or maximum magnitude) from adjacent sources. Area sources
are first identified grossly based on differences in physiography, geology, and tectonic
setup and then subdivided into smaller units based on the differences in the seismicity
characterised by available data on past earthquakes supplemented by data on
paleoseismicity and GPS-based or geologically determined strain or slip rates.
3.2 Fault Rupture Parameters: The source of each earthquake in even an area source has
to be modelled by a rectangular rupture plane of specified length and width depending
upon the earthquake magnitude and predominant style of faulting (Wells and
Coppersmith, 1994). The direction of the strike and the dip angle must also be
specified to define the position of the rupture plane inside the earth completely. Two
important parameters governing the kinematics of the fault rupture process are the
average stress drop and the seismic moment, which may significantly influence the
ground motion characteristics. However, the effects of these parameters are generally
not accounted for explicitly in practical engineering applications.
3.3 Earthquake Distance Parameters: Earthquake events are traditionally characterised
by their magnitudes, epicentral locations, and focal depths. The focal depth and the
distances to the epicentre and the hypocenter of an earthquake are thus used as simple
and convenient distance parameters in the older attenuation relationships. However,
several different distance parameters are used to account for the effects of the finite
size of the fault rupture plane in the modern ground motion prediction equations
(Abrahamson and Shedlock, 1997), which includes the closest distance to the fault
rupture plane ( Rrup ) , the closest distance to the surface projection of the rupture plane
( R jb ) , perpendicular distance to the surface projection of the upper edge of the rupture
plane ( Rx ) , and the depth to the top of the fault rupture plane ( Z tor ) .
3.4 Site Soil and Geological Conditions: The earthquake ground motion at a site depends
strongly and differently on the shallow soil deposits and the geological strata up to
significant depths. In earthquake engineering applications, the geological soil
conditions used to be defined qualitatively till recent times by a limited number of
broad categories. However, more comprehensive and quantitative characterisations

are being used at present, among which is the time-averaged shear wave velocity in
m/s, denoted by Vs30, which is the most widely used parameter. The NEHRP site
classes A, B, C, D and E, representing sites falling within different broad intervals of
Vs30 (BSSC, 2003), are also used in some cases. The geological condition is presently
characterised commonly by depth in km to the strata with shear wave velocity of 1.0
km/s or 2.5 km/s, denoted commonly by z1.0 or z2.5 , respectively.
3.5 Ground Acceleration Time Histories: When the seismic waves from an earthquake
source reach a site, they set the ground particles into motion, which is termed as
ground motion. For engineering applications, the most comprehensive description of
ground motion is provided by the two orthogonal horizontal and one vertical
components of ground acceleration, known as strong motion accelerograms (SMA).
The SMA records are characterised by strong motion portions of almost uniformly
intense ground motion between a very short building-up portion in the beginning and
a slowly decaying long portion at the end. Along with the peak ground acceleration
(PGA), the duration of the strong motion portion as well as the total duration
constitutes important characteristic to be built in appropriately in the site-specific
design accelerograms.
3.6 Response Spectra of Accelerograms: The response spectrum of an accelerogram
represents the maximum response (absolute acceleration, relative velocity or relative
displacement) of a set of single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) oscillators with different
natural periods and a specified damping ratio when excited by that accelerogram. The
absolute acceleration response spectrum in engineering applications is commonly
approximated by the pseudo-spectral acceleration amplitudes, PSA(T ) , defined from
the exact spectral displacement amplitudes, SD(T ) , as PSA(T ) = (2π / T ) 2 SD(T ) . The
response spectrum of the horizontal ground motion is defined in several different
ways considering both the horizontal components. The rotation-dependent non-
geometric mean median spectrum (RotD50) is currently the most widely used
horizontal spectrum (Boore, 2010). However, the geometric mean of two recorded
components of motion and some other definitions of the horizontal spectrum being
used in the past are still being used in some studies (Beyer and Bommer, 2006).
3.7 Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs): Ground motion prediction
equations (GMPE) are simple mathematical models developed empirically from
recorded strong motion data. Equations are commonly developed to predict the
median ground motion parameters (e.g., PGA and spectral amplitudes) in terms of a
limited number of predicting variables defining the source, path, and site
characteristics. The inherent random nature of the ground motion and the effects of
not including the dependence on many of the governing parameters which cannot be
defined accurately are modeled by developing suitable probability distributions for the
residuals between the recorded ground motion data and the median predictions. To
define a GMPE completely, the values or the predictive relations for the statistical
parameters involved in the distributions for the residuals have to be provided along
with the median prediction equation. Such prediction equations are also termed as

ground motion models (GMMs), ground motion attenuation relations, or ground

motion scaling relations. The median prediction equations along with statistical
distribution of residuals can be used to predict the ground motion parameters with any
desired probability of not exceeding (confidence level) due to a given set of the
predicting variables.
3.8 Seismic Hazard Analysis Methods: The PSHA and DSHA are the two methods, that
can be used to arrive at the site-specific estimates of the MCE and DBE levels of
horizontal and vertical TRS at a selected project site. In the PSHA method,the
seismicity is characterized by the occurrence rates of earthquakes between a minimum
magnitude of engineering significance and the maximum possible magnitude at all
possible locations in the region around the project site, which are used along the
probability of exceeding specified values of the ground motion parameter obtained
from the selected GMPEs to estimate the TRS for a given probability of exceeding
during a specified life period (or equivalently a given return period). The DSHA
method on the other hand attempts to arrive at the maximum possible estimate of the
TRS by considering a fixed earthquake scenario of the maximum magnitude at the
closest possible distance without any regard to the likelihood of its occurrence.
3.9 DBE Level of Ground Motion: Dams and appurtenant structures are designed to be
safe for a level of ground motion that can be expected to occur within the service life
of a dam with a reasonably high probability. This has been termed as the design basis
earthquake (DBE) ground motion and is proposed to be estimated using PSHA
method for a return period of 475 years, which is equivalent to 10% probability of
exceeding in 50 years. In the ICOLD Bulletin 148 (2016), this has been termed as
Operating Basis Earthquake (OBE) ground motion and is defined for a much lower
return period of 145 years, which represents 50% probability of exceeding in 100
years. Taking the life period of the dams as 100 years, this means that the estimated
DBE ground motion may be exceeded by some amount in 50% of the cases, which is
quite excessive. Thus, to ensure the safety of dams adequately, a return period of 475
years can be considered more reliable, which has only 19% probability of exceeding
in 100 years.
3.10 MCE Level of Ground Motion (MCE): This is the level of ground motion under
which considerable structural damage and deformations are accepted as long as the
dam is able to store the water in the reservoir safely and the water level in the
reservoir can be controlled after the earthquake. This level of earthquake is thus also
termed as the safety evaluation earthquake (SEE) in the ICOLD Bulletin 148 (2016).
The MCE level of TRS is required to be defined by the PSHA method for a
sufficiently long return period representing very low probability of exceeding during
the life of a dam. Alternatively, this can also be defined by the DSHA method at 84th
percentile (mean plus one SD) for an earthquake scenario leading to the most critical
ground motion for a dam at the site of interest. These guidelines propose to estimate
the MCE level of ground motion by both PSHA and DSHA method and arrive at the
final estimate from a critical comparison of the estimates from the two independent
methods.

3.11 Performance Requirements: The dams and appurtenant structures are actually
proposed to be designed for the DBE level of ground motion with no or easily
repairable insignificant damage. The dam, appurtenant structures and equipment
should remain functional after the occurrence of an earthquake shaking not exceeding
the DBE. Under MCE level of ground motion, it is necessary that no catastrophic
failure, resulting in uncontrolled release of water from the reservoir, takes place.
However, considerable damage and economic losses are permitted, provided the water
retaining and safe evacuation capabilities of the dam are not jeopardized. Thus, the
safety critical elements like bottom outlets, spillway, and control units are required to
be designed for the MCE level of ground motion.
4.0 REGIONAL TECTONIC AND GEOLOGIC SETTINGS

Detailed information on the geological setup and the tectonic features in a large region
surrounding a dam site of interest forms an important and essential database for
seismic hazard analysis by both PSHA and DSHA methods. This along with data on
past seismicity is utilized to define the sources of earthquakes that could affect the
dam site under consideration. Defining and understanding the seismic sources is a
very crucial part of the seismic hazard analysis and has to be established in a realistic
way.
The tectonic features refer to the geological structures developed in the Earth’s
lithosphere due to the geodynamic and plate tectonic processes, which may be the
sources of expected future seismicity in a region. Knowledge of tectonic features
forms an important input to seismic hazard assessment. Various tectonic features of
significance in seismic hazard studies may be listed as: faults, folds, shear zones, rift-
basins, and major lineaments. The earthquakes can be caused only by active faults,
but other tectonic features may also be the locales of earthquakes, because such
structures may be an indirect manifestation of the active faults. The site-specific study
report should provide a detailed account on all the regional tectonic features vis-à-vis
their geological and geophysical manifestations. This may be based on a combination
of comprehensive literature survey and investigations carried out for the project under
study. The regional tectonic and geological data reviewed shall include:
(i) Physiographic and tectonic province within which the project is
located,
(ii) Geologic history of the project area,
(iii) Description of geologic formations, rock types and soil deposits,
(iv) Major geological structural features including folds, fracture
pattern, sedimentary basins, rift valleys, etc.,
(v) Major tectonic features including faults, thrusts, shear zones, and
major lineaments and their capability to generate earthquakes,
(vi) Interpretation of the regional tectonic mechanism and associated
style of faulting,

A regional tectonic map covering an area of not less than 6°× 6° in latitudes and
longitudes around the dam site should be prepared on the basis of the above review
and to be included in the study report. The area of this map may be enlarged suitably
to avoid any excessive truncation of an important tectonic domain. The tectonic map
for the areas within the Indian Territory should conform to the ‘Seismotectonic Atlas
of India and its Environ’ published by Geological Survey of India (Dasgupta et al.,
2000) and available also at the Bhukosh site of GSI (http://bhukosh.gsi.gov.in).
Tectonic features for the areas falling outside the Indian Territory should also be
included in the tectonic map from the other authentic sources. Additional tectonic
features for the areas within the Indian Territory may also be added from the authentic
published sources. The study report should also include a detailed description on the
regional tectonic map included in the report.
5.0 LOCAL GEOLOGY AND SITE SOIL CONDITION

Site-specific geologic information is necessary to ascertain some of the characteristics
of the ground motion expected at the dam site and to assess the needs for any
treatments required in the foundation level rock. The study report should summarize
the local geological mapping at the sites of all important components of the project on
1:2000 or larger scale along with topographic contours. The report should also include
geological sections along and across dam axis and other important structures. The
geological sections should be derived through drilling and other geo-physical probing,
and they should show depth to overburden, faults, shear zones etc. The local
geological data should include the following:
(i) Definition of type, extent, thickness, mode of deposition/formation, and stability
characteristics of rock units and soil deposits.
(ii) Location and chronology of local faulting, including amount and type of
displacements estimated from stratigraphic data, time of last rupture, rates of
activity, strain rates, slip rates, etc., to the extent possible.
(iii) Interpretation of the structural geology including orientation and spacing of joint
systems, bedding planes, dip and strike of geologic units, folds and intrusive or
extrusive bodies.
(iv) Determination of the permeability characteristics of the formations encountered.
(v) Determination of foundation and abutment conditions and their physical
properties.
The site-specific characteristics of the design ground motion at a river valley project
site depend strongly on both the local geological and the site soil conditions. The local
geology refers to the earth strata up to large depth, whereas the site soil condition
refers to shallow formations within a few tens of meters above the actual or
engineering bedrock. The effects of the local geological and site soil conditions are
accounted by modeling the dependence of the ground motion parameters on the min
the GMPEs. The older GMPEs (Douglas, 2021) generally include the dependence on
either the geologic condition (defined qualitatively as bedrock, deep sediments and

intermediate sediments) or the soil condition (defined qualitatively as rock sites, stiff
soil sites and soft soil sites). However, the recent GMPEs (Douglas, 2021) include the
effects of the site soil condition defined in terms of the time-averaged shear wave
velocity ( VS 30 ) and the local geological condition characterized by the depth to the
stratum where shear wave velocity becomes 1.0 km/s ( Z1.0 ) or where it becomes 2.5
km/s ( Z 2.5 ).
For a realistic site-specific estimation of the ground motion for a new project site it is
necessary to estimate the VS 30 values by site experiments at the locations of all the
major components of the project using methods like Multichannel Analysis of Surface
Waves (MASW), electrical resistivity survey, seismic refraction method, Cross-Hole
Seismic Tomography or Seismic Cone Penetration Testing (SCPT).
The Vs30 shall be determined as the 30m average from the foundation level of dam.
However if the foundation is to be laid on hard rock the Vs30 may be approximated by
shear wave velocity at the foundation level/hard rock level.
The site experiments for the existing projects may be carried out adjacent to the
various structures or VS 30 may be defined approximately using correlations with in situ
SPT or CPT value or undrained shear strength estimates (Wair et al., 2012), if
available from the older studies carried out before the construction. The site-specific
study report should indicate the locations on the project layout plan of all the sites at
which the experiments were carried out to estimate the VS 30 values. The VS 30 values
obtained at all the sites should be tabulated in the report by indicating the
representative value adopted for the hazard computation and basis for its selection.
The site experiments carried out for estimation of VS 30 will generally be useful to
get the estimate of Z1.0 also. The Z2.5 on the other hand may be estimated from the
published regional velocity models derived from teleseismic receiver function
analysis (e.g., Borah et al., 2015; Bora et al., 2014; Srinivas et al., 2013; etc.) or from
earthquake travel time inversion analysis. Lacking the site-specific estimates, the Z1.0
and Z2.5 parameters may be estimated using empirical relationships in terms of the
average shear wave velocity VS30 at the site as given in Kaklamanos et al. (2011).
6.0 EARTHQUAKE CATALOG AND ANALYSIS OF PAST SEISMICITY

The data on past earthquakes has the strongest bearing on the hazard estimation for a
dam site, because the seismic activity rates as well as the maximum earthquake
magnitudes for various seismic sources are arrived at largely from the analysis of the
available data on past seismicity. Compilation of a reliable and comprehensive
earthquake catalog prepared by unifying the data from all possible sources including
both historical and instrumental periods for the region of study assumes great
importance in having realistic and reliable seismic hazard evaluation at a project site.
6.1 Compilation of the Earthquake Catalogue

The earthquake catalog adopted from a single source cannot be considered adequate

for the purpose of seismic hazard analysis. The main source of earthquake data in
India is a catalog made available online by National Centre for Seismology (NCS),
New Delhi at which is https://riseq.seismo.gov.in/riseq/earthquake/archive, which is
known popularly as the IMD Catalog. However, the Indian National Seismological
Network has grown at a very slow pace with a mere number of 21 observatories for
the vast area of country by end of 1988, which increased marginally to 35 by the end
of 2002 and has grown slowly to 54 during 2007–2018 (Bansal et al., 2021). Thus,
this catalog is not complete even for the most recent period and is increasingly
incomplete as one goes back in time. The completeness of this catalog is still poorer
for the trans-Himalayan area adjacent to the Indian Territory. Also, the type of
magnitude is not specified in this catalog for the period up to 31 May 1998. The use
of this catalog alone in a seismic hazard analysis application is not expected to
provide accurate and reliable ground motion estimates.
In view of the above, it is essential that a starting catalog is prepared by combining the
data from the NCS catalog and the reviewed bulletin of International Seismological
Center (ISC) (www.isc.ac.uk) by adopting the types of magnitude from the ISC
bulletin for the maximum number of events possible. To the extent possible, the initial
catalog should next be enhanced by including data from the local seismological
networks operated by different organizations (e.g., NGRI, CWPRS, MERI, GERI,
IITR, WIHG, NEIST, ISR, etc.) in different parts of the country from time to time.
The compiled catalogue should be checked critically to eliminate the duplicate events
and should include for each event the date (year, month, day), origin time (hour,
minute), epicentral location (latitude and longitude), focal depth, and the magnitude
with type viz. MW (Moment Magnitude), MS (Surface wave Magnitude), mb (Body
wave Magnitude) and ML (Ritcher’s local Magnitude).
The ISC bulletin integrates reports from over 130 seismological agencies worldwide
operating at global and/or local/regional scales. It is thus necessary to follow a
suitable hierarchy for the preferred agencies for adopting the magnitudes of the
earthquakes. It is proposed that the preferred agencies for MS be used as ISC, NEIC,
MOS, and IDC; that for mb as ISC, NEIC, MOS, IDC, DJA, NDI, and DMN; that for
MW as GCMT, NEIC, and NDI; and that for ML as NDI, DMN, BJI, BKK, and DJA
in the indicated orders of preference.
6.2 Homogenization and Declustering of the Catalog

For use in the seismic hazard analysis, it is necessary that the magnitudes of all the
events in the catalog are converted to moment magnitude, MW, using empirical
conversion relations suitable for India. The process is commonly known as
homogenization of the catalog. The homogenized catalog should be produced as an
Appendix to the report. If the total numbers of events are very large, events above a
selected threshold magnitude only may be presented in the report.
The PSHA formulation is based on the assumption that the earthquake events follow a
Poisson distribution, which is commonly considered to have been met by removing
the dependent events (foreshocks and aftershocks) from the homogenized catalog.

This process of eliminating the dependent events from the catalog is termed as
declustering. However, several different algorithms are available for identification of
the aftershocks (van Stiphout et al., 2012), which results in widely differing results. It
is necessary that the algorithms resulting in very severe declustering are avoided (e.g.,
Gardner and Knopoff, 1974), because it would result in significant underestimation of
the hazard (Marzocchi and Taroni, 2014; Teng and Baker, 2019; Mizrahi et al., 2021).
To avoid excessive removal of aftershocks, the cluster identification method due to
Reasenberg (1985) with standard parameters = (τ min 1,=
τ max 10, and=rfact 10) is
proposed to be used for declustering in the site-specific studies.
6.3 Analysis of Past Seismicity Data

To get a quick idea about the important characteristics of the past seismicity in the
region under study, it is necessary that the study report presents with the help of
histograms or tables the following analyses:
(i) Temporal, magnitude wise and distance wise distributions of the available data in
the compiled catalog. The evolution of data from the historic period of up to
1899, early instrumental period of1900-1963, and the modern instrumental period
since 1964 should be identified and discussed in the analysis.
(ii) To analyze the correlation between the past seismicity and the tectonic features in
the region, a seismotectonic map should be prepared by superimposing the
epicenters of the available past data on the regional tectonic map. As the
correlation of past seismicity provides direct evidence for the active status of a
fault, association of the epicenters of past earthquakes with major faults and other
tectonic features should be analyzed critically by taking into account the dipping
nature of faults and possible errors in the epicentral locations.
(iii) At least one regional seismotectonic section through the dam site and across the
major tectonic trend of the region should be presented and discussed in the report.
The section covering a minimum of 50 km reach on either side of the section line
should clearly show (if necessary, by vertical exaggeration) the subsurface
disposition of the major faults and earthquake hypocenters.
7.0 DELINEATION AND PARAMETERIZATION OF SEISMIC SOURCE

ZONES
Identification of the various seismic source zones and defining the expected
occurrence rates of different magnitudes of earthquakes between a minimum and
possible maximum earthquake magnitude at all possible locations in each source zone
forms the most crucial input to the PSHA method. It is also necessary to define the
predominant focal mechanism parameters (angles of strike and dip and style of
faulting) and the probable focal depth for the earthquakes at various locations in each
source zone. The results of a PSHA study depend very strongly on the occurrence
rates as well as the focal mechanism parameters, both of which are associated with
significant uncertainties and are defined with widely varying assumptions and

approximations. This section outlines the guidelines to perform the aforementioned

tasks in the most realistic manner possible with the available data on past seismicity
and the information on the tectonic features and geologic setup of the region of study.
7.1 Delineation of Seismic Source Zones

As the earthquakes in a region are generated essentially by active faults, seismic
sources should ideally be specific faults only. Though a near vertical fault can be
idealized by a line source on the ground surface, a dipping fault has to be modeled by
an inclined surface inside the earth. However, all the active faults in a region are
generally not known and also the past seismicity is generally not seen to correlate
closely with the known faults. Area types of seismic sources are therefore used more
commonly in practical hazard analysis applications without or in combination with
fault sources. If the epicenters can be associated with a system of closely related faults
or with a regional geological structure (e.g., fold belt, rift valley, etc.), the source zone
may be modeled by an elongated area source. A very small size of an area source at
long distance from the site of interest can also be idealized as a point source. Thus, in
general, the hazard analysis has to be carried out using a combination of the point,
line, dipping surface and large size area types of seismic sources. To estimate the
occurrence rates of earthquakes at various locations covering a vast region around a
project site it is necessary that the all-possible seismic source zones are delineated in
the region in a realistic way following set scientific principles with minimum
arbitrariness.
Fault specific line and dipping surface types of sources can be defined in a straight
forward way when the past seismicity is associated with a known fault with its
geometry known accurately. The area sources on the other hand are generally defined
when the past seismicity is related only approximately with some of the known faults
and also diffused widely over intervening areas. The area types of seismic sources are
required to be as small as possible in size, such that each source is characterized by
distinctly different seismicity defined by the frequency of earthquakes and/ or
maximum magnitudes compared to the adjacent source zones.
Area types of seismic sources within a region of about 6° latitudes × 6° longitudes
around a project site should be delineated by keeping in mind the physiographic
divisions, geotectonic characteristics, tectonic features, and the expected future
seismicity over a much larger area, and not in an isolation. The general principles and
step-by-step procedure to be followed for delineation of area sources within the region
around a project site can be enunciated as below:
(i) One may start with by segregating the areas of different physiographic divisions
in the region. The main physiographic divisions of Indian sub-continent include
the Himalayan Mountain Belt, Northern Plains, Peninsular Plateau, and the
Offshore Areas.
(ii) The physiographic divisions should next be subdivided based on the geotectonic
setup of the Indian subcontinent as depicted schematically in Figure 1. The major

geotectonic units include the rigid cratonic blocks of Precambrian age,

Proterozoic Mobile Belts and Sedimentary Basins, Gondwana Basins, Volcanic
Province, and the Plate Boundary Zones.
(iii) Area of each geotectonic unit can next be divided into smaller areas on the basis
of the similarity of the tectonic features and the geodynamic deformation rates.
The closely related systems of faults, folds, thrusts, and shear zones, which
cannot be modeled as individual tectonic features, are modeled as elongated
broad area sources. The tectonic features like fold belts, buried ridges, and rift
valleys can also be modeled as elongated area sources. Such area sources can be
segmented into smaller sources based on a characteristic change in the trend,
intersection by some prominent transverse tectonic feature, or variation in the
deformation rate.
(iv) Each of the area sources arrived at as above is confirmed or further divided into
smaller areas on the basis of the differences in the seismicity characteristics like
maximum magnitude, activity rate, average focal depth, and dominant focal
mechanism.
Figure 1A schematic depiction of the major geo-tectonic characteristics of the Indian

sub-continent (after Jain and Banerjee, 2020).

The foregoing principles and guidelines, if applied judiciously, shall help in arriving
at sufficiently realistic area types of seismic sources in a region without much
personal biases. Only the readily available data can be used for this purpose, which
includes data and information on physiographic divisions, geotectonic domains,
tectonic features, and the available data on past seismicity along with data on paleo-
seismicity and the geological and geodetic deformation rates. The study report should
provide a comprehensive description on the identification of various seismic sources
in the region of study with the major tectonic and geological features in each source
zone indicated. To provide an idea about what this description may be, typical
examples of delineation of seismic source zones for one project site in the seismically
active Himalayan plate boundary region and one in the seismically stable intraplate
region of Peninsular India are given in Annexure B and Annexure C, respectively.
7.2 Earthquake Recurrence Models

Recurrence models define the cumulative occurrence rate as a function of earthquake
magnitude, and developing a suitable recurrence model each source zone forms an
important part of the PSHA method. Several different forms of recurrence models
with upper bound magnitude M max have been proposed by different investigators,
which differ mainly in the way the cumulative occurrence rate decays in the vicinity
of the M max (Gupta 2009). All these models have been basically derived from the
following magnitude-frequency relationship proposed by Gutenberg and Richter
(1944) without any upper bound magnitude
log10 N ( M ) = a − bM (7.1)
This is commonly termed as the G-R relationship with N (M ) as the cumulative

occurrence rate of earthquakes with magnitude M or above and a and b are the
constants specific to each source zone.
Two most commonly used models with upper bound magnitude given in Eq. (7.2) and
(7.3) are the (i) truncated model defined simply by truncating the original G-R
relationship at M max (e.g., Bath, 1978; Anderson, 1979) and (ii) the exponentially
decaying model in which the cumulative occurrence rate decays asymptotically to
zero at M max (e.g., Page, 1968; Cornell and Vanmarcke, 1969).
10
a −bM
; M ≤ M max
N (M ) =  (7.2)
0; Otherwise
exp(− β M ) − exp(− β M max )

N (M ) N min ; M ≤ M max (7.3)
exp(− β M min ) − exp(− β M max )
The N min in Eq. (7.3) is the cumulative occurrence rate above a selected threshold
magnitude M min and parameter β = b ln10 . The threshold magnitude M min is not
necessarily equal to the minimum magnitude used in the hazard estimation. The
model of Eq. (7.3) is found to underestimate significantly the occurrence rates in the

vicinity of the maximum magnitude M max leading to significant underestimation of the

hazard. The truncated G-R model of Eq. (7.2) may in general be considered more
realistic in most cases, unless the exponential form of Eq. (7.3) is shown to be
appropriate by the trend of the observed data in a source zone. In some cases, the
observed data may indicate the need for using a bilinear truncated model defined by
two different b-values for magnitudes below and above a certain intermediate
magnitude.
In view of the above, the form of the recurrence model for each source zone should
necessarily be decided on the basis of the observed behavior of the available data on
past earthquake in the source zone, rather than fixing it a priori. Further, the
parameters a and b , and the maximum magnitude M max required to define the
recurrence model should be estimated from a judicious analysis of the available past
earthquake data as described in the next two sections.
7.3 Estimation of Parameters a and b

The parameters a and b for a source zone are estimated by fitting the G-R
relationship of Eq. (7.1) to the available past earthquake data in the source zone. As
the available earthquake data is generally not complete for all the magnitudes for the
entire period of the catalog, it becomes necessary to identify the periods of
completeness for different cut-off magnitudes in a realistic manner. The various
methods available for the completeness analysis fall into two broad categories, viz.
the methods based on the linearity of G-R relationship (Woessner and Wiemer, 2005)
and the methods based on the stability of the occurrence rate as a function of time
(Stepp, 1973; Tinti and Mulargia, 1985; Herak et al., 2009).
The first category of methods defines a single magnitude of completeness above
which the data are considered to be complete for the entire period of the catalog.
However, this cannot be realistic for a catalog compiled from several different sources
and covering a very long period of time. These methods are thus not recommended for
use in seismic hazard analysis as they may underestimate the occurrence rates of
smaller magnitudes of earthquakes significantly. The second category of methods
predict increasing periods of completeness with increase in the cut-off magnitude in a
physically realistic way and are thus more appropriate in the hazard analysis
applications.
Among second category of methods, the most commonly used method is due to Stepp
(1973) and a somewhat less commonly used method is the slope method due to Tinti
and Mulargia (1985). However, a not so commonly used method due to Herak et al.
(2009) can be considered to provide very robust estimates of the periods of
completeness with minimal personal judgment. Further, the period of completeness
for the largest magnitudes in the catalog may generally be larger than even the
complete period of the catalog, and those should be assigned, so that the occurrence
rates of the largest earthquakes do not fall out of the trend for the lower magnitudes.
The study report should include in details of the analysis carried out and the

completeness periods arrived at for all the source zones in the region of study.
The occurrence rates for different magnitudes of earthquakes in a source zone should
be estimated using the data for only the periods for which the respective magnitudes
are estimated to be complete. These should then be used to obtain the cumulative
occurrence rates and used for fitting the relationship of Eq. (7.1) to estimate the
parameters a and b for each source zone. The fitting of Eq. (7.1) should preferably
be carried out using maximum likelihood method due to Weichert (1980), but this
method may not converge well when the available database on past earthquakes in the
source zone is not sufficiently large. The least-squares fitting may be a more
appropriate option in such cases. The study report should tabulate the values of the
parameters a and b obtained along with their standard deviations for all the source
zones.
7.4 Estimation of the Maximum Magnitudes

To define the recurrence model for a source zone completely, it is necessary that the
maximum magnitude, M max , for the source zone is also estimated. However, it is very
difficult to arrive at the M max for a source zone without significant uncertainty,
because the various methods available for the purpose (e.g., Bollinger et al, 1992;
Gupta, 2002; Wheeler, 2009; 2016) are associated with large inherent uncertainties in
their applicability as well as in defining the required input parameters. The M max
estimates from different methods are in general found to vary significantly and the
final choice cannot be made without some element of personal judgement. The
various methods available for estimation of M max for a source zone are listed below:
(i) Increasing the largest historical earthquake by suitable magnitude units

(Bollinger et al., 1992; Wheeler, 2009).
(ii) Extrapolation of Guttenberg‐Richter frequency-magnitude relationship
(Bollinger et al., 1992; Wheeler, 2009).
(iii) Statistical method based on the statistics of the available earthquake magnitudes
arranged in decreasing order (Dargahi-Noubary, 1999).
(iv) Using mixed data probability distribution (Kijko et al., 2016).
(v) Using cumulative strain energy plot (Makropoulos and Burton, 1983).
(vi) Using region specific fault rupture length (Anbazhagan et al., 2015).
(vii) Using geological slip rate data or the strain rate data based on GPS
measurements (Molnar, 1979, Savage and Simpson, 1997).
The illustrative application of all these methods is presented in Annexure D.
However, due to non-availability of the input parameters, it may not possible to
implement all the methods for every source zone. The study report should attempt to
use as many of the methods as possible for each source zone and select the final value
in a balanced way. The values of the M max used for all the source zone should also be
tabulated along with the values of the parameters a and b . The study report should

also present typical examples of the recurrence models based on these parameters
along with the observed data with error bars.
7.5 Estimation of Focal Mechanism Parameters
The recurrence model developed for each source zone is used to estimate the total
occurrence rates of different magnitudes of earthquakes for the source zone as a
whole. To define the input seismicity for PSHA method, these rates are required to be
distributed suitably among a grid of sites covering the complete source zone area,
with each site postulated to be the epicentral location for the expected future
earthquakes. For the computation of the hazard, it is also necessary to define the
various distance parameters (e.g., Rij , Rrup , Rx , and Z tor ) required in the GMPEs from
each postulated epicentral location to the project site of interest. This in turn requires
associating a fault rupture plane to each postulated epicentral location, which cannot
be done accurately because no real fault is associated with every location in an area
type of seismic source. In practical hazard analysis applications, virtual fault rupture
planes are therefore associated with the various locations in an area source under
widely varying assumptions and idealizations (e.g., Kaklamanos et al., 2011; Gupta,
2013; Pagani et al., 2014; Thompson and Worden, 2017; Ordaz and Salgado-Gálvez,
2017; Campbell and Gupta, 2018; etc.).
The focal mechanism parameters (strike, dip and style of faulting) required to specify
the virtual rupture planes for all the locations in an area source can be defined only
approximately using available data on fault plane solutions of past earthquakes, trends
of the major tectonic features, focal depth sections transverse to the major tectonic
features, and the directions of principal tectonic stresses in the source zone. If no basis
exits to assign the focal mechanism parameters to a source zone even approximately,
the style of faulting may be taken as unknown, dip angle as 45°, and strike as
uniformly random between 0° and 360° as the last choice. The various distance
parameters are very sensitive to the direction of strike, and hence the uncertainty in
the strike should be accounted by specifying its possible range. The study report
should describe in details the basis for arriving at the focal mechanism parameters for
each source zone and tabulate their values for all the source zones in the report. The
rupture length and width of the virtual fault can be estimated using an appropriate
empirical relationship (e.g.; Wells and Coppersmith, 1994; Leonard, 2014; Strasser,
2010; Thingbaijam et al., 2017; Huang et el., 2024) in terms of earthquake magnitude
and the type of faulting
7.6 Estimation of Focal Depths

For estimation of the various distance parameters, the fault rupture plane with
specified values of rupture length, rupture width, direction of strike, and dip angle is
required to be placed at certain depth inside the earth. This can either be done by
fixing the depth to the top of the rupture plane or the focal depth and the position of
the hypocenter within the rupture plane. To fix the position of the rupture plane inside

the earth, the hypocenter may be taken at the centroid of the rupture plane and fixed at
a specified focal depth. However, the focal depth is perhaps the most uncertain
parameter among all the parameters of an earthquake because the earthquakes within
an area source can occur over a wide range of depths and because the accuracy of the
focal depths of even instrumentally recorded earthquakes is generally very poor. This
makes it very difficult to assign the focal depths at various locations in an area source
accurately and realistically.
Some studies propose to define the focal depth as a function of the earthquake
magnitude with larger magnitudes occurring at greater depths (e.g., Kaklamanos et al.,
2011). But no definite relation is generally seen to exist between the focal depth and
magnitude of earthquakes in a source zone. In reality, all magnitudes of earthquakes
are seen to occur over a wide range of focal depths, and assigning deeper focal depths
to larger magnitudes would unrealistically underestimate the contributions of the
larger magnitudes and overestimate that of the smaller magnitudes. The use of a
constant median focal depth for all the magnitudes of earthquakes in a source zone
can thus be considered a balanced approach in practical hazard analysis applications.
Such an estimate may be arrived at by approximating the observed distribution of the
focal depths of past earthquakes in a source zone by a lognormal distribution and may
be used with slight conservatism in real applications. However, in case of a dipping
fault surface (such as the Himalayan decollement and Burmese subduction zone), the
focal depth at each location in the source zone can be taken as the depth to this
surface.
8.0 GROUND MOTION PREDICTION EQUATIONS (GMPEs)

The estimation of the site-specific target response spectra with damping ratio of 5% at
a project site using PSHA and the DSHA methods requires using ground motion
prediction equations (GMPEs) suitable for the region around the project site. The
GMPEs are expected to have strong regional dependence and are thus required to be
developed using the strong motion acceleration data recorded in the region of
application. The GMPEs are also expected to depend significantly on the tectonic
environment of the seismic source zone as active crustal region (ACR), stable
continental region (SCR) and subduction zone regions (SZR). However, due to highly
inadequate recorded strong motion data in India, good quality of region specific
GMPEs had not been developed for different parts of the country. Though, several
GMPEs have been recently published in reputed journals for certain parts of India
(e.g., Raghukanth and Kavitha, 2014; Singh et al., 2016; Gupta and Trifunac, 2018ab;
2019; Bajaj and Anbazhagan, 2019; Chhangte et al., 2021; Raghucharan et al., 2021;
Yellapragada et al., 2023), but none of these meets the desired quality requirements
for use in the hazard analysis. It is essential that a GMPE included in the hazard
analysis satisfy the following general criteria as a minimum (Cotton et al., 2006;
Bommer et al., 2010)
• The database used to develop the GMPE should be sufficiently large covering

the complete magnitude and distance ranges of interest without any wide gaps.
• The GMPE should be able to account for the magnitude and distance saturation
effects in a physically realistic way.
• Site amplification effects should include the dependence on both the thick
geological formations as well as the shallow soil deposits with the non‐linear
soil behavior accounted in a physically realistic way.
• The equation should have been developed using multi-stage or random effects
regression analysis with the event-to-event, site-to-site and single-site
components of the aleatory variability obtained explicitly.
• The GMPE should be defined at sufficiently large number of natural periods
between the lowest period of 0.01 s and the highest period of at least 5.0 s.
The use of a GMPE developed using a large database for another region and meeting
the above-mentioned requirements may be considered more appropriate than a region-
specific equation not satisfying these requirements (Douglas, 2007).
Based on the data-driven scores (Delavaud et al., 2009; Kale and Akkar, 2012) from
the limited strong motion data available, the following two GMPEs from the NGA-
West2 models for the horizontal response spectrum amplitudes are found appropriate
for both the Himalaya and the northeast India regions:
(i) Abrahamson NA, Silva WJ and Kamai R (2014). Summary of the ASK14
ground motion relation for active crustal regions, Earthquake Spectra, 30(3),
1025–1055.
(ii) Boore DM, Stewart JP, Seyhan E and Atkinson GM (2014). NGA-West2
equations for predicting PGA, PGV, and 5% damped PSA for shallow crustal
earthquakes, Earthquake Spectra, 30(3), 1057–1085.
The corresponding GMPEs are available for the response spectra of vertical motion as
follows:
(i) Gülerce Z, Kamai R, Abrahamson NA and Silva WJ (2017). Ground motion
prediction equations for the vertical ground motion component based on the
NGA-W2 database, Earthquake Spectra, 33(2), 499–528.
(ii) Stewart JP, Boore DM, Seyhan E and Atkinson GM (2016).NGA-West2
equations for predicting vertical-component PGA, PGV, and 5%-damped PSA
from Shallow crustal earthquakes, Earthquake Spectra, 32(2), 1005–1031.
These equations should preferably be used to estimate directly the target response
spectra of the vertical component of motion by both DSHA and PSHA methods.
Alternatively, the TRS of vertical motion may also be obtained from the TRS of
horizontal motion using the period dependent multiplication factors due to Rezaeian et
al. (2014), which with a lower limit of 2/3rds can be approximated as follows:
0.66667; T ≤ 0.03s or T > 0.1s

V /H = (8.1)
−2.05 − 4.57 log T − 1.84(log T ) ; 0.03s < T ≤ 0.1s
2
Based on a study by Scaria et al. (2021) and a critical analysis of the suitability of the

GMPEs for the Central and Eastern North America (CENA) have indicated that the
above GMPEs are suitable for the Peninsular India also. Thus, these GMPEs only are
proposed to be used for all other parts of India, except for the deep focus intraslab
earthquakes in the Burmese Subduction Zone.
Based on the physical considerations and the data-driven scores estimated from the
available strong motion data, the following two GMPEs are found appropriate for the
Burmese and the Andaman Subduction Zone earthquakes:
(i) Abrahamson NA and Gulerce Z (2022). Summary of the Abrahamson and
Gulerce NGA-SUB ground-motion model for subduction earthquakes,
Earthquake Spectra, 38(4), 2638–2681.
(ii) Si H, Midorikawa S, and Kishida T (2022). Development of NGA-Sub ground-
motion prediction equation of 5%-damped pseudo-spectral acceleration based
on database of subduction earthquakes in Japan, Earthquake Spectra, 38(4),
2682–2706.
The above ground motion models may be replaced by their updated versions or by
acceptable quality of region-specific models, when becomes available in future. Use
of any other GMPE may also be acceptable by establishing its suitability on physical
grounds and by data-driven scores based on recorded strong motion data in the region
of study.
9.0 TARGET RESPONSE SPECTRA BY PSHA METHOD

The probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) method has currently become the
state-of-the-art approach for estimation of site-specific design ground motion for
important projects like dams, power houses, and other infrastructure facilities. The
PSHA method can be used to obtain directly the design basis earthquake (DBE) and
maximum credible earthquake (MCE) levels of ground motions in terms of the
response spectra of horizontal and vertical components of motions with damping ratio
of 5%, which are termed commonly as the target response spectra (TRSs). The PSHA
method accounts for the random nature of the earthquakes and the resulting ground
motion at a project site and is able to consider the effects of all the expected
earthquakes simultaneously and in a balanced way to estimate the TRSs. The various
elements of the PSHA method are described in the following sections.
9.1 Mathematical Formulation

The PSHA method is primarily based on computing the occurrence rate, υ[ SA(T )] , of
exceeding a specified value of spectral amplitude SA(T ) at natural period T at a
project site of interest due to all magnitudes of earthquakes expected to occur at all
possible locations in the various source zones in the region around the site. Based on
the formulations due to Cornell (1968) and McGuire (1977), the mathematical
expression for υ[ SA(T )] is commonly presented in a complex triple integral form
(Gupta, 2009). However, by discretizing the earthquake magnitude and epicentral

locations, the following simplified expression in terms of summations only is used in

the actual computation (Anderson and Trifunac, 1978; Gupta, 2002; 2009)
K Jk Ik
=υ[ SA(T )]
=
∑∑∑ q [SA(T ) | M
k 1 =j 1 =i 1
k j , ℜij ]λk ( M j , Ei ) (9.1)
The quantity λk ( M j , Ei ) in this expression represents the annual occurrence rate of

earthquakes within a small magnitude interval around the central magnitude M j at the
ith epicentral location Ei in the kth seismic source zone, and the quantity
qk [ SA(T ) | M j , ℜij ] represents the probability of exceeding the spectral amplitude
SA(T) due to the magnitude M j at ith epicentral location in the kth seismic source
with ℜij representing the set of the associated distance parameters needed in the
GMPEs (e.g., Rrup , R jb , Rx & Z tor ) . The summations in Eq. (9.1) are taken over K
number of seismic source zones, Jk number of discretized magnitude intervals used,
and Ik number of discretized epicentral locations used for the occurrence of
earthquakes in the k-th source zone.
If the earthquake events are assumed to follow a Poisson distribution, the
occurrence rates υ[ SA(T )] can also be shown to follow a Poisson distribution. Thus,
the probability of exceeding a specified spectral amplitude SA(T) during an exposure
period of Y years can be defined by
1 − exp {−υ[ SA(T )] ⋅ Y }
P[ SA(T )] = (9.2)
This probability distribution is commonly used to compute the spectral amplitudes at

all the natural periods with a specified probability of exceeding during a given life
period of Y years, which corresponds equivalently to a return period of TRP [ SA(T )]
years given by
1 −Y
TRP=
[ SA(T )] = (9.3)
υ[ SA(T )] ln(1 − P[ SA(T )])
As the TRP [ SA(T )] can also be defined directly as the reciprocal of occurrence rate
υ[ SA(T )] , it is not essential to make the Poisson assumption for estimating the
spectral amplitudes for a specified return period, which justifies the recommendation
made in section 6.2 that a severe declustering of the catalog should be avoided.
The plots of P[ SA(T )] or TRP [ SA(T )] versus SA(T ) are termed as the hazard curves,
which are interpolated to get the spectral amplitudes at all the natural periods with a
specified probability of exceeding during a specified life period or equivalently a
specified return period. The response spectra thus obtained by the PSHA method are
termed as the uniform hazed target response spectra. The PSHA method for
computing the target response spectra for a project site can essentially be considered
to comprise mainly the estimation of the two input quantities, viz. the occurrence rates

λk ,i ( M j ) and the probabilities qk [ SA(T ) | M j , ℜij ] , involved in the expression of Eq.

(9.1).
9.2 Estimation of Earthquake Occurrence Rates λk ( M j , Ei )
To obtain an estimate of the occurrence rates λk ( M j , Ei ) for the kth source zone, the
recurrence model with upper bound magnitude developed for the source zone as
described in sections 7.2 to 7.4is used to estimate the occurrence rates n( M j ) for the
source zone as a whole for several small sizes of magnitude intervals,
( M j − δ M j , M j + δ M j ) , covering the complete magnitude range between a selected
minimum magnitude, M min , and the maximum magnitude, M max , for the source zone
as
n( M j ) = N ( M j − δ M j ) − M ( M j + δ M j ) (9.4)
The desired occurrence rates λk ( M j , Ei ) are then obtained by distributing the rates
n( M j ) suitably over the complete extent of the source zone. In case of a line source
(vertical fault plane), the fault rupture length for different magnitudes is floated along
the fault trace in small steps (say, 1 km apart) till the entire fault trace length has been
covered. The λk ( M j , Ei ) for each position of the rupture length is obtained by
distributing n( M j ) equally among all the possible positions of the rupture length with
the epicentral location taken at the middle of the rupture length. Similarly, for a
dipping fault surface, the fault rupture area for different magnitudes is floated along
the fault length and width in small steps (say, 1 km apart in both directions) till the
entire fault surface area has been covered. The λk ( M j , Ei ) for each position of the
rupture area is obtained by distributing n( M j ) equally among all the possible
positions of the rupture area with the hypocentral location taken at the centroid of the
rupture area and the epicentral location as its projection on the earth’s surface.
However, in the case of the most commonly used area types of source zones, the
source zone area is divided into a grid of small size square elements (say, 0.1° in both
latitudes and longitudes) and the center of each grid element is considered to be the
expected epicentral location. The λk ( M j , Ei ) for each epicentral location is obtained
by distributing n( M j ) among all the grid points uniformly or non-uniformly.
The traditional uniform distribution of seismicity over an area source can be achieved
simply by distributed the rate n( M j ) equally among all the epicentral locations
defined by the centroids of the grid cells. However, a spatially uniform distribution of
seismicity cannot be considered realistic on physical grounds. Epicenters of past
earthquakes in an area source is in reality seen to be distributed quite heterogeneously
and thus a non-uniform spatial distribution of the rates n( M j ) based on spatially
smoothed epicentral locations of available past earthquake data can be considered
more realistic. The spatial smoothing based on a circular Gaussian kernel (Frankel,

1995) may be used if the epicenters of past earthquakes show no preferred direction of
alignment. When the epicenters show a dominant trend, it will be more realistic to use
an elliptical Gaussian kernel (Lapanje et al., 2003) with the major principal direction
of the ellipse coinciding with predominant direction of the epicenters. The non-
uniform spatial distribution is based on the assumption that the future seismicity is
more likely to occur around the locations of the past earthquakes. This will thus result
in lower hazard estimate at if no past seismicity is known to have occurred in the
vicinity of the project site. In view of the limited period of the earthquake catalog and
the large uncertainty associated with the locations of the past earthquakes, it is
proposed that higher of the hazard estimates based on the non-uniform and the
uniform spatial distributions of the expected seismicity be used in real applications.
9.3 Estimation of Probabilities qk [ SA(T ) | M j , ℜij )
The probability, qk [ SA(T ) | M j , ℜij ) ,represents the probability of exceeding a spectral

amplitude SA(T ) due to magnitude M j of earthquakes at ith epicentral location in the
kth source zone with occurrence rate λk ,i ( M j ) as defined in the previous section.
These probabilities are commonly computed using a Gaussian distribution for
ln[ SA(T )] with the mean and standard deviation obtained from the selected GMPEs,
which requires estimating the various distance parameters ( Rrup , R jb , Rx and Z tor )
denoted collectively by ℜij .
Estimation of the various distance parameters for various locations in an area type of
source zone requires associating a virtual fault rupture plane to each location, which
cannot be done in a unique and exact manner as discussed already in section 7.5. To
have uniformity in defining the required rupture parameters (rupture geometry and
size, angles of strike and dip and style of faulting, and position of the rupture plane
inside the earth) for associating the virtual fault rupture plane for various locations in
an area source, the following guidelines are proposed to be used:
(i) Rupture Geometry and Size: The fault rupture plane of real earthquakes may
not have any regular shape, but it is commonly approximated by circular or
rectangular shape, where circular rupture cannot be considered realistic for
magnitudes greater than about 5.5. The option of using the circular rupture in the
widely used R-CRISIS software (Ordaz and Salgado-Gálvez, 2017) should thus be
avoided. The rupture length and width for a rectangular fault shall be approximated
by the median estimates obtained from suitable empirical scaling relations in terms
of the magnitude M j and style of faulting (e.g., Wells and Coppersmith, 1994).
(ii) Strike, Dip and Style of Faulting: As discussed in section 7.5, the angle of strike
and style of faulting for an area source as a whole may be approximated by their
predominant values, but the angle of strike should be taken to be uniformly distributed
over a limited or complete range (Gupta, 2013; Campbell and Gupta, 2018). These
parameters can be arrived at most reliably by examining the correlation between

tectonic features and the fault plane solutions of the past earthquakes if sufficiently
large number of those is available for a source zone. In other cases, dominant
direction of strike can be inferred from the trends of major tectonic features and the
distribution of the epicenters of past earthquakes, dominant dip angle can be decided
from the focal depth sections across major faults, and the dominant style of faulting
may be inferred from the directions of principal tectonic stresses. However, when no
basis exists to arrive at the source zone specific values of any of the parameters, the
strike may be taken uniformly random between 0° and 360°, dip angle may be taken
as 45°, and style of faulting as unknown (all types).
(iii) Positioning of the Rupture Plane inside the Earth: To specify the position of
the rectangular rupture plane inside the earth, the centroid of the rupture plane may be
taken as the hypocenter and the rupture plane oriented as per the specified angles of
strike and dip may then be placed such that hypocenter lies vertically below the
epicenter at a specified focal depth. The focal depth for this purpose may be arrive at
following the guidelines given in section 7.6.
Having defined the details and position of the fault rupture plane inside the earth for
each magnitude M j at each ith location in a source zone, all the associated distance
parameters can be estimated in a straight forward manner. However, to take the
uncertainty in the angle of strike into account, values of each distance parameter shall
be estimated for all the expected angles of strike at small intervals and the average
value shall be taken as the final estimate (Gupta, 2013; Campbell and Gupta, 2018).
The Openquake software (Pagani et al., 2014) provides several different options to
model the uncertainty in the angle of strike, whereas the commonly used R-CRISIS
software has no provisions to model this uncertainty.
For the simple case of a vertical fault and the epicentre at the middle of the fault
rupture length, Appendix C in Petersen et al. (2014) by S.C. Harmsen presents the
analytical expressions for the mean value of R jb for a given magnitude of earthquake
in terms of the epicentral distance by considering the strike to be uniformly random
between 0 and 2π . Thompson and Worden (2017) have generalized it to a dipping
fault plane and proposed an expression for the mean R jb in a quintuple integral form
with the dip angle to be random between 0 and π / 2 , taking the position of
hypocenter to be uniformly random along both the rupture length and the rupture
width, and accounting for the uncertainties in the rupture length and the rupture width
by considering the rupture area to follow a lognormal distribution. However, these
studies do not indicate that how the other distance parameters have to be estimated.
The use of the relations given in Kaklamanos et al. (2011) for estimating the other
distances ( Rx and Rrup ) from R jb will need specifying a fixed direction of strike of the
fault, whereas it has been taken as completely random in estimating the mean R jb .
In view of the widely varying assumptions and approximations proposed to be used

for estimation of the various distance parameters for area type of source zones, it is
necessary that the study report describes clearly the assumptions made and the values

of the focal mechanism parameters used to estimate the distance parameters. The
distance parameters obtained along with the VS 30 value at the project site can be used
to compute the mean and standard deviation of the logarithm of spectral amplitude,
ln[ SA(T )] , using the selected GMPE. These can be then used to estimate the desired
probability qk [ SA(T ) | M j , ℜij ) based on the Gaussian probability distribution, as
mentioned before.
9.4 Estimation of Target Response Spectra

The design basis earthquake (DBE) level of target response spectra represents the
level of ground motion for which a dam and the appurtenant structures (intake,
penstocks, power house, etc.) are actually designed to be safe with none or
insignificant damage. This is intended to be the maximum level of ground motion that
can well be expected to occur during the life time of a dam. The ICOLD (2016)
guidelines have termed it as the operating basis earthquake (OBE) level of ground
motion and proposes to estimate it by PSHA method for a return period of 145 years,
which has 50% probability of exceeding in 100 years. The 50% probability of
exceeding may be considered quite high to ensure the safety of the dam design
adequately. For actual design of all the dams (specified as well as others), these
guidelines therefore propose to estimate the DBE level of ground motion by the
PSHA method for a return period of 475 years, which has 10% probability of
exceeding in 50 years or 19% probability of exceeding in 100 years. To have equally
reliable dam designs in all parts of the country, the return period of 475 years is
proposed to be used for the dam sites in all the seismic zones
The safety of the design of a dam arrived at using DBE level of ground motion is also
required to be evaluated for a much stronger ground motion, termed as the maximum
credible earthquake (MCE) or the safety evaluation earthquake (SEE) level of ground
motion. Significant damage to the dam is permitted under this level of ground motion,
provided that no uncontrolled release of the water impounded in the reservoir takes
place due to sudden collapse of the dam. Also, the safety related elements like bottom
outlets, spillway gates, control units, and power supply are required to functional after
this level of earthquake, so that reservoir can be evacuated in a controlled manner.
Thus, in principle, the MCE level of ground motion is intended to be the largest
possible ground motion that can be expected to occur at a dam site. However, as it
may be acceptable to use somewhat lower level of safety evaluation level of ground
motion for dams with lower consequences of failure, the ICOLD (2016) guidelines
recommend to estimate this ground motion by PSHA method for return periods of
about 10,000, 3000, and 1000 years for dams with high, moderate, and low
consequences of failure, respectively. Further, due to much longer recurrence period
for the largest possible earthquakes in the Peninsular India compared to that in
Himalaya, the MCE level of ground motion in the Peninsular India is expected to
occur with much longer return periods than in the Himalaya. Thus, to arrive at equally
severe ground motion in all parts of the country, these guidelines also propose to use

different return periods for estimation of the MCE level of ground motion by PSHA
method in different parts of the country, in addition to that for the dams with different
consequences of failure.
As no guidelines exists to categorize the dams on the basis of the consequences of
failure in place in India, till such time the return periods used for estimation of the
MCE level of ground motion by PSHA method for the three size categories of dams
i.e. Large, Intermediate and small (as classified in clause 3.1.2 of IS: 11223:
Guidelines for Fixing Spillway Capacity) are given in Table 1along with the
equivalent probability of exceeding in 50 years given in parentheses.
Table 1: Return periods with equivalent probabilities of exceeding in 50 years given

in parentheses for estimation of MCE level of TRS by PSHA method for three
different categories of dams located in different seismic zones of India.
Seismic Return Period for MCE level of ground motion for dam in Category
Zones Intermediate
Small Large
IV and 1225 Years 2475 Years 4975 Years
above (4% in 50 Years) (2% in 50 Years (1% in 50 Years
II & III 2475 Years 4975 Years 9975 Years
(2% in 50 Years) (1% in 50 Years) (0.5% in 50 Years)
10.0 MCE LEVEL OF TARGET RESPONSE SPECTRA BY DSHA

METHOD
The MCE level of ground motion, which is intended to be the maximum possible
ground motion at a dam site, is conceptually the ground motion corresponding to a
fixed earthquake scenario of maximum possible magnitude at the minimum possible
distance from the dam site. The deterministic seismic hazard analysis (DSHA)method
is used to arrive at such an earthquake scenario by (i) considering all capable faults in
the vicinity of the dam sites, (ii) estimating the maximum credible earthquake (MCE)
magnitude for each fault, (iii)estimating the various distance parameters required in
the GMPEs by assuming the MCE magnitude on each fault at the nearest possible
location to the dam site, and finally (iv) identifying the MCE scenario that is expected
to generate the most critical ground motion at the dam site. The earthquake scenario
thus obtained is known as the controlling MCE scenario. The MCE level of
deterministic target response spectra (TRSs) is computed from the selected GMPEs at
a fixed percentile level (number of standard deviations above the mean) using the
magnitude and the distance parameters of the controlling MCE.The ICOLD (2016)
guidelines proposes to estimate the MCE level of deterministic spectra at 84th,
between 50th and 84th, and 50th percentile levels for dams with high, moderate, and
low consequences of failure, respectively. These guidelines propose to estimate the
MCE level of deterministic TRSs at 84th percentile level (mean plus one standard
deviation) for Intermediate and Large categories of dams and at 50th percentile level

for small category of dams, respectively.

Though, the DSHA method described as above appears to be very simple
conceptually, its use in practical applications is not free from large uncertainties to
specify the various inputs in deterministic way without strong personal biases. All the
faults in the vicinity of a dam site are generally not known and the seismic status of
the known faults is generally not known precisely, particularly for the intraplate
region of the Peninsular India. Whereas, in the Himalaya, the faults like MCT, MBT,
and MFT are not the sources of the largest possible earthquake magnitude, and the
decollement surface with which the largest earthquakes are associated is characterized
by a width of more than 150 km from north of MCT to MFT, which makes it difficult
to fix the position of the rupture width of the MCE magnitude between MCT and
MFT for the deterministic method. Further, the available geological and seismological
data and information are seldom adequate to estimate the MCE magnitudes for
various faults in a scientifically defendable way. Also, the precise knowledge about
the focal mechanism parameters required for estimation of distance parameters for
each fault considered are generally not known accurately. Lacking the required
information about the active faults and their MCE magnitudes, the DSHA method is
also practiced using area types of seismic sources by assuming the MCE magnitude
for a source zone to occur at a location closest to the project site. This will
unrealistically put the MCE magnitude right below the dam site for the source zone
within which the project site is located.
The above-mentioned uncertainties in the DSHA method are generally overcome by
assuming the largest possible magnitude to occur at the closest distance on the nearest
known fault without any scientific basis, which results in highly exaggerated
estimates of the design ground motion. On the other hand, the PSHA method accounts
for the various uncertainties in the earthquake events and the ground motion
prediction by suitable probability distributions with comparatively much less
subjectivity. To arrive at a more realistic final estimate of the design ground motion, it
is proposed that the DSHA estimates are reviewed critically vis-à-vis the
corresponding PSHA estimates, and both or either of the estimates are rationalized in
case of unacceptably large differences.
11.0 FINALIZATION OF TARGET RESPONSE SPECTRA

The general guidelines to be followed for arriving at MCE and DBE levels of the final
TRS from a comparison of the MCE level of TRSs estimated by PSHA and DSHA
methods are given below:
(i) If the MCE level of TRS by the DSHA method is lower than the corresponding
PSHA estimate or not higher by more than 25% of the PSHA estimate over the
natural period range of 0.2 s to 1.0 s, both the DBE and MCE levels of the target
spectra by the PSHA method shall be used as the final target response spectra.
(ii) In case the MCE level of TRS by the DSHA method is higher by more than 25%
of the corresponding PSHA estimate, and if the controlling MCE scenario is

largely subjective and does not have very wide acceptability, the choice of the
controlling MCE scenario should be rationalized based on disaggregation of the
MCE level of TRS amplitudes by PSHA method at suitably selected natural
period (say, natural period of the dam). The method for carrying out the
disaggregation of the probabilistic estimates is described in Annexure E.
However, no change is proposed in the DBE and MCE levels of the target spectra
by the PSHA method, and those are proposed to be used as the final target
response spectra in such cases also.
(iii) Finally, if the MCE level of TRS by the DSHA method is higher by more than
25% of the corresponding PSHA estimate, and if sufficiently high confidence can
be imposed on the occurrence of the controlling MCE magnitude, M max , on a
specific fault, it is proposed to consider that fault as a separate line or dipping
surface type of seismic source zone (refer section 7.1) in the PSHA method also.
The occurrence rates of different magnitudes of earthquakes within a small
magnitude range near M max (say, M max − 0.5 to M max ) are proposed to be
distributed over this fault specific source zone only, and to distribute the
occurrence rates of the lower magnitudes of earthquakes over the complete area
source within which the said fault is located. With this combination of a fault and
the area sources, the DBE and MCE levels of ground motion by PSHA method
are proposed to estimated again and to be considered the final target spectra.
12.0 DESIGN ACCELEROGRAMS AND RESPONSE SPECTRA

For dynamic response analysis of dams and appurtenant structures, the site-specific
ground motion is required to be defined in terms of the design accelerograms and the
design response spectra for several damping ratios of covering all the structures of
interest. The finalized four TRS corresponding to the horizontal and vertical
components of motion for DBE and MCE conditions can be used to generate the
uncorrelated pairs of horizontal and vertical design accelerograms compatible with the
corresponding pairs of the target response spectra. Only a single set of accelerograms
is considered sufficient for use in the linear elastic dynamic response analysis under
both DBE and MCE levels of excitations. For use in simplified dynamic response
analysis, the smoothed design response spectra for other damping ratios of interest can
be computed from the design accelerograms or obtained directly from the target
spectra using the period-dependent scaling factors given in IS: 1893. However, for use
in the nonlinear response analysis to predict the failure modes under MCE level of
ground motion, the analyst will be required to use a suitably selected and scaled set of
at least seven real accelerograms matching closely the MCE level of target spectra in
the vicinity of the natural period of the dam. The guidelines given in the American
Standards ASCE/SEI 41-13 and ASCE/SEI 7-22 may be adopted for the purpose of
selection and scaling of the acceleration time-histories for nonlinear analysis.

12.1 Generation of Design Accelerograms for Linear Elastic Response Analysis

The accelerograms compatible with a given TRS can be generated by modifying
iteratively a suitably selected real accelerogram or a synthetic accelerogram. Several
studies have suggested the methods for generation of synthetic accelerograms and for
spectrum matching (e.g., Gupta and Joshi, 1993; Giaralis and Spanos, 2009; Rezaeian
and Der Kiureghian, 2011; etc.). Other investigators (e.g., Mukherjee and Gupta,
2002; Al Atik and Abrahamson, 2010; Alexander et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2019; etc.)
have proposed the spectrum matching techniques for real accelerograms, which may
also be applied to artificially generated initial accelerograms.
The horizontal and vertical components of the real accelerograms are already
uncorrelated, but the artificially generated horizontal and vertical accelerograms are
required to be transformed along the principal directions (Penzien and Watabe, 1975)
to get a pair of uncorrelated accelerograms. Any of the available methods can be then
used to generate the pair of uncorrelated accelerograms compatible with the pair of
the final TRS. The spectrum compatible accelerograms should finally be subjected to
the baseline correction in the same way as the recorded accelerograms (Boore and
Bommer, 2005; Gupta, 2018), so that physically realistic velocity and displacement
records can be obtained by double integration of the accelerograms.
The selected real or the synthetic accelerograms are also required to be characterized
by realistic strong motion duration, which is commonly defined as the duration
between building up of 5% and 95% of the Arias intensity (Trifunac and Brady,
1975). Several empirical prediction equations are available for this strong motion
duration in the published literature (e.g., Novikova and Trifunac, 1994; Bommer et
al., 2009; Kempton and Srewart, 2006; Afshari and Stewart, 2016; Du and Wang,
2017, etc.). Any of the mean prediction equations that accounts for the dependence on
earthquake magnitude, source-to-site distance, and the site soil condition can be used
to estimate the strong-motion duration to be realized in the design accelerograms. As
the strong motion duration plays crucial role in attaining the steady state condition in
the structural response, a minimum of 5.0 s of the strong motion duration shall be
used in generating the design accelerograms. However, the total duration of the design
accelerograms does not play that crucial role and hence a total duration of four times
the strong motion duration can be considered an optimum choice, because longer
durations will take longer time in response analysis.
The study report shall describe briefly the method used for generation of design
accelerograms indicating the duration of strong motion used and the basis for its
estimation. At least one typical plot shall be given to illustrate the compatibility
between the TRS and the time-history computed response spectrum. The study report
shall also present the plots of all the four design accelerograms obtained (horizontal
and vertical accelerograms for DBE and MCE conditions) along with the digital
values of their amplitudes in soft form at equally spaced time interval of not greater
than 0.01 s.

12.2 Design Response Spectra for Different Damping Ratios

For use in the estimation of the maximum dynamic response of dams and appurtenant
structures using simpler method of linear-elastic mode superposition analysis, the
smoothed response spectra may be computed for damping ratios of 1%, 2%, 3%, 5%,
10% and 15% from the four design accelerograms generated from the TRS with
damping ratio of 5%. The design response spectra should be computed at sufficiently
large number of natural periods between 0.01 s and 5.0 s, so that no excessive
interpolation is required for use in practical applications. To preserve the site-specific
nature of the design ground motion, the design response spectra should not be
normalized by PGA or approximated in terms of the amplitudes at a few natural
periods. The study report shall present the plots for all the four sets of design response
spectra along with the digital values of their actual amplitudes for all the six damping
ratios in soft form at sufficiently large number of natural periods.
13.0 DESIGN SEISMIC COEFFICIENTS

The site-specific design accelerograms and response spectra are meant for design of
new dams and safety evaluation of existing dams using methods based on the detailed
dynamic response analyses. However, preliminary design of dams can be evolved
using pseudo-static methods of analyses given in Indian Standards IS: 6512 and IS:
7894 for gravity and earth dams, respectively.
Horizontal seismic coefficient: The horizontal seismic coefficient values (αh) for all
types of dams shall be computed using effective peak ground acceleration (EPGA)
criteria as per the DBE level of design response spectrum of horizontal motion with
damping ratio of 5%. and return period of 475 years. The EPGA is determined by
dividing the spectral acceleration value of the DBE level of design response spectrum
with a damping ratio of 5% at natural period of 0.2 s by 2.5. (USACE EM 1110-2-
6053). The horizontal seismic co-efficient is then arrived at by taking 2/3rd of the
EPGA value.
The horizontal seismic co-efficient (αh) thus obtained shall be compared with the
values arrived as per the decision taken in the 35th meeting of NCSDP for seismic
zones II, III, IV, and V of India as 0.08, 0.12, 0.18, and 0.27, respectively and the
higher of the two values shall be adopted.
Vertical seismic coefficient: Vertical seismic co-efficient (αv) shall be taken as 2/3rd
of the horizontal seismic co-efficient.
14.0 PREPARATION OF THE STUDY REPORT

To facilitate the reviewing of a site-specific study report by the National Committee
on Seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP), it is necessary that the report includes all the
necessary details in an explicit and transparent manner. For the purpose of uniformity,
a template for preparation of the reports is given in Annexure F.

The full study report should be compiled in a single dossier along with the proforma
given in Annexure G duly filled up and signed. This proforma reflecting the status of
compliances (along with reasons for non-compliances, if any) for different items of
the study should be furnished as a check-list in the beginning of the study report. The
list of projects with seismic design parameters approved by National Committee on
Seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) from1991 onwards is given in Annexure I for
ready reference.
Fifteen (15) bound volumes and one soft copy of the study report should be submitted
to the NCSDP Secretariat (Foundation Engineering & Special Analysis Directorate,
Central Water Commission, 8th Floor (N), Sewa Bhawan, R.K. Puram, New Delhi). In
order to ensure consideration of study report in a particular meeting of the NCSDP,
the study report should reach the secretariat at least two months ahead of that meeting.
Only such study reports, which are found satisfactory (in terms of compliances of the
guidelines) on preliminary inspection by the Secretariat, will be put up to the NCSDP
for consideration and approval.
15.0 PRESENTATION OF STUDY REPORT BEFORE NCSDP

The date on which study report of a particular project will come up before NCSDP
will be intimated by the Secretariat to the project authorities. It will be the
responsibility of the project authorities to ensure presence of experts/ consultants
connected with the study on the stipulated date and time. The project authorities will
make a PowerPoint presentation of the study report before NCSDP, and answer to the
queries of the members of the Committee.
The presentation should cover: (i) details of the project; (ii) regional geological &
seismotectonic setting; (iii) seismic history; (iv) local geological setting; (v) study
methodology and deviation, if any, from the recommended approach; (vi) evaluated
parameters of the site-specific seismic study; and (vii) recommendations on design
approach.

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GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION

GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION

Secretariat of National Committee on Seismic Design Parameters

Second Revision: June 2024

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024 (Revised)

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised)

GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF SITE-SPECIFIC

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 1

also not to temporary structures such as coffer dams.

2.0 BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION

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NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 3

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NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 5

ground motion models (GMMs), ground motion attenuation relations, or ground

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 6

4.0 REGIONAL TECTONIC AND GEOLOGIC SETTINGS

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 7

5.0 LOCAL GEOLOGY AND SITE SOIL CONDITION

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6.0 EARTHQUAKE CATALOG AND ANALYSIS OF PAST SEISMICITY

6.1 Compilation of the Earthquake Catalogue

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6.2 Homogenization and Declustering of the Catalog

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6.3 Analysis of Past Seismicity Data

7.0 DELINEATION AND PARAMETERIZATION OF SEISMIC SOURCE

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approximations. This section outlines the guidelines to perform the aforementioned

7.1 Delineation of Seismic Source Zones

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 12

geotectonic units include the rigid cratonic blocks of Precambrian age,

Figure 1A schematic depiction of the major geo-tectonic characteristics of the Indian

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 13

7.2 Earthquake Recurrence Models

This is commonly termed as the G-R relationship with N (M ) as the cumulative

exp(− β M ) − exp(− β M max )

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vicinity of the maximum magnitude M max leading to significant underestimation of the

7.3 Estimation of Parameters a and b

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7.4 Estimation of the Maximum Magnitudes

(i) Increasing the largest historical earthquake by suitable magnitude units

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7.5 Estimation of Focal Mechanism Parameters

7.6 Estimation of Focal Depths

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8.0 GROUND MOTION PREDICTION EQUATIONS (GMPEs)

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0.66667; T ≤ 0.03s or T > 0.1s

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9.0 TARGET RESPONSE SPECTRA BY PSHA METHOD

9.1 Mathematical Formulation

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locations, the following simplified expression in terms of summations only is used in

The quantity λk ( M j , Ei ) in this expression represents the annual occurrence rate of

This probability distribution is commonly used to compute the spectral amplitudes at

NCSDP Guidelines: 2024(Revised) Page 21