Earthquake Environmental Effect for seismic hazard assessment: the ESI intensity scale and the EEE Catalogue

In the last twenty years, the interest of scientific community towards Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEEs) has progressively increased especially in the frame of INQUA - International Union for Quaternary Research. In 2007 the ESI 2007 (Environmental Seismic Intensity scale) was published, a new intensity scale based only on EEEs resulting by a revision process taking about 8 years, and promoted by several geologists, seismologists and engineers coordinated by Servizio Geologico d'Italia (now ISPRA). The ESI 2007 scale integrates traditional intensity scales, and allow to define seismic intensity based on the entir e scenario of effects. In 2011 the EEE Catalogue was launched, a web infrastructure realized by ISPRA for data collection of EEEs induced by recent, historical and paleoearthquakes at global level. Cataloguing and classifying EEEs has allowed to compare past seismic events and to identify the most vulnerable areas in term of site effect. Some strong earthquakes occurred in the last years have unfortunately pointed out the primary role played by geological effects in the scenario of damages, confirming that seismic hazard cannot be evaluated only based on vibratory ground motion but also on the knowledge about EEEs. This volume provides the state of knowledge about these topics, with the aim to promote the use of the ESI 2007 intensity scale, that has been translated into ten languages, and the EEE Catalogue, as an helpful tool also for land planning, especially in high seismic hazard areas.