28.04.2015: Current events are putting particular emphasis on the just released special issue of the journal Annals of Geophysics entitled “Earthquake Model Central Asia: seismic hazard and risk assessment in Central Asia“. The editors Stefano Parolai and Jochen Zschau, both GFZ, and Ulugbek Begaliev from the InTUIT in Kyrgyzstan, present the results of many years of research activities of the GFZ on seismic hazards and risk assessments in Central Asia, as well as latest scientific results on this region.

The focus of this special issue is the Earthquake Model Central Asia EMCA, for the assessment of seismic hazards in Central Asia, a program coordinated by the GFZ. Further topics of this issue are probabilistic seismic hazard assessments, exposure, and vulnerability models for the central asian region. Furthermore, several paper within this publication deal with the state of research 15 years after the GSHAP initiative (Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program), where for the first time a globally comparable map of seismic hazards was established.

The current catastrophic earthquake in Nepal points out the importance of research on areas with extreme seismic hazard.

S. Parolai, J. Zschau, U. Begaliev (Eds.), 2015. Earthquake Model Central Asia: seismic hazard and risk assessment in Central Asia, Annals of Geophysics Vol. 58, No. 1.