Earthquake cycle progression in major city regions of Taiwan through nowcasting technique

Abstract

The complex tectonic framework of Taiwan makes it susceptible to devastating earthquakes that originate on both mapped faults, and at times, on unmapped faults. The unmapped faults especially highlight the limitation of conventional fault–based hazard assessment methods, emphasizing the need for alternative approaches. In this context, we implement a surrogate area–based earthquake nowcasting technique to assess the seismic cycle progression in 10 densely populated cities across Taiwan. We utilize the notion of natural times, the inter–event counts of small earthquakes between successive large events, to calculate the Earthquake Potential Score (EPS) for each city region. To derive natural time statistics, we analyze eight reference probability models, including exponential distribution and its variants, exponentiated group of distributions, and heavy–tailed distributions. Statistical inference of 114 observed natural times shows that the exponentiated exponential distribution provides the best fit. As of April 24, 2025, the EPS values (%) for M 6.0 earthquakes in the 10 cities range from 53% to 69%, with the following values: Taipei (69%), Hsinchu (68%), Keelung (67%), Hualien (59%), Nantou (58%), Taitung (57%), Chiayi (56%), Pingtung (55%), Tainan (54%), and Kaohsiung (53%). These EPS values indicate the progression in current earthquake cycle toward a M 6.0 earthquake in the corresponding city region. Moreover, there is a consistency in the nowcast scores despite some variations in threshold magnitudes and city regions. The studied approach and results therein offer valuable insights to decision makers to enhance earthquake preparedness and risk management across Taiwan.