The SPOT project (potentially triggerable offshore seismicity and tsunamis): a first appraisal of the possible impact of oil and gas platforms on the seismic and tsunami risks along the Italian coasts

The SPOT Project (potentially triggerable offshore seismicity and tsunamis) is aimed at helping Italian authorities to comply with the application of the Safety of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations European Directive (2013/30/EU) and the ensuing Italian codes. An extensive reconstruction of offshore geological structures is being implemented in order to assess the existence of potentially seismogenic faults in the surroundings of offshore oil and gas platforms, as a propaedeutic step for the assessment of potentially triggered seismicity connected with operations on such platforms. The descriptive parameters of the identified faults will be used to estimate their natural earthquake rates. The impact of these natural earthquakes along the coasts will then be modeled in terms of expected ground shaking and tsunamis. In turn, these models will be used to estimate potential human and economic losses in a multi-hazard approach to risk assessment. Wherever the combined earthquake and tsunami modeling indicates a relevant impact along the coasts, a more detailed analysis will be carried out, also involving the operators of the related platforms, to perform specific models which also take into account production data. The project has been conceived and funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, with the technical support of the National Department of Civil Protection. The involved research institutes are the Institute of Marine Sciences of the National Research Council (ISMAR), the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUCENTRE), and the Laboratories University Network of Seismic Engineering (ReLUIS).