Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project
Implemented by the Organization of American States
Unit of Sustainable Development and Environment
for the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Caribbean Regional Program

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Sub-regional Seismic Hazard Maps

Designing, engineering and building structures to withstand stresses from seismic activity requires a full understanding of the magnitude of these forces in a given location. To this end, CDMP is supporting the Seismic Research Unit (SRU) of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad in the development of country-level seismic hazard maps for the Caribbean. As part of this project, the SRU is producing page-size maps showing ground acceleration, ground velocity and Modified Mercali intensities. Individual maps have been produced for the Leeward Islands, Windward Islands and larger isolated islands (such as Jamaica). This mapping is based on calculations of hazard values for the project area, at a grid resolution of 0.1 degrees. This work is a refinement of a small-scale (regional) iso-acceleration map that was recently produced for Latin America and the Caribbean, through support of the Pan American Institute for Geography and History. Copies of the maps are available through the links below. The SRU continues work on seismic hazard mapping in the region; updated maps are available on the SRU web site.

Regional Maps

Sub-Regional Maps (Acceleration, Intensity, Velocity)

CDMP home page: http://www.oas.org/en/cdmp/ Project Contacts Page Last Updated: 01 March 2002