Recent Efforts in Earthquake Prediction (1990–2007)

From an emergency-management and hazard-preparedness perspective, long-term seismic risk analysis of a region is of utmost importance. There have been a good number of efforts during the past 15years or so in earthquake prediction, and this paper is an attempt to present a state-of-the-art review of the subject. The most significant recent efforts in predicting the three earthquake parameters, namely, the time of occurrence, epicentral location, and the magnitude of future earthquakes are reviewed. Prediction studies can be broadly grouped based on the basic approach, which vary from purely theoretical geophysics, to genetic mutations and biology, to statistical, mathematical, and computational modeling of earthquake parameter data recorded in historical catalogs of seismic regions. The papers reviewed in this article are classified into two groups: (1) studies based on recording and analyzing earthquake precursors (seismic monitoring); and (2) studies based on historic earthquake data analysis. The complexity of the earthquake prediction problem notwithstanding, the authors believe that the scientific community should pursue research on the subject vigorously. It is hoped that this article fuels additional interest in the subject.