The Jordan valley, which constitutes a major part of the Dead Sea
Transform (DST), is the most seismically active region in the Middle East,
having a history of four thousand years of documented destructive 
earthquakes. This project focus on better assessment and, consequently, 
mitigation of the possible effects of earthquakes that will most definitely
occur in this region. It is our aim to join forces in order to quantifying 
this threat more accurately, i.e., assess the earthquake hazard.
         The occurrence of strong earthquakes along the Dead Sea transform
fault system becomes a major threat to the safety, social integrity and 
economics for the peoples of the Middle East. The only remedy to earthquake
loss is proper planning and building: “Earthquakes do not kill 
people - houses do!”. The relevant governmental institutions in Israel and
in Jordan are already in the process of preparing and/or updating their 
building codes. The Palestinian National Authority will coordinate its 
regulations with those of Jordan and Israel. A-seismic building code 
requirements are based on seismological assessments of the spatially 
distributed seismic hazard parameters. These assessments are the prime 
objective of the proposed project. 

    State-of-the-art earthquake hazard assessment no longer refers to 
single parameters such as the horizontal peak ground acceleration (PGA) as 
a quantifier of the hazard. The modern construction engineer requires 
information about the expected accelerations at frequencies similar to the 
natural frequencies of the building under design. In order to provide this 
information, we have to know (even at the most simplified level) the 
attenuation laws of ground motions at different frequency bands. These 
attenuation laws should preferably be obtained experimentally. However, 
empirical attenuation functions can only be developed in regions that are 
well instrumented and exposed to frequent occurrence of relatively strong 
earthquakes. The seismicity of the Middle East is relatively low and, in 
large parts of the region, there are no strong motion instruments. 
Consequently, the development of empirical attenuation functions which are 
applicable to the region is a non-practical task.
        Shapira and van-Eck (1993) proposed a method (the SEEH Method) that
provides realistic estimates of the uniform hazard acceleration response 
at a given site. The SEEH has been successfully implemented in site specific
seismic hazard assessments in Israel, Central Asia (Turkmenistan) and in the
South Pacific islands. The SEEH is based on ground motion simulations using 
the stochastic method of Boore (1983) and others. Recently, Beresnev and 
Atkinson (1998) proposed a significant modification to that approach by 
better simulating the earthquake process at the source. We plan to conduct 
studies to evaluate the local parameters that control these simulation 
procedures and also test the applicability of the proposed new method in a 
modified SvE process.

    During long years of hostility, the seismological communities in 
this part of the world worked separately, sometimes reaching contradictory
conclusions regarding the very same earthquakes which have affected the 
peoples. Cultural and language difficulties lead to misinterpretations of 
historical evidence. The fact that the DST was also a political border, 
made its study particularly difficult even with modern technology. It is 
evident that the peoples of the region should join forces in an attempt to
update and better quantify the regional seismic hazards from the DST and 
its associated fault systems. 
         Laboring under these difficulties for too long a time, it is 
evident to the seismological and engineering communities of the nations 
bordering the DST that the ONLY way to address the problem of earthquake 
hazard assessment is through genuine and true collaboration. By 
collaboration we mean basically: joint validation and verification of 
existing data, linkage of monitoring systems, pre-agreed definitions of 
seismological parameters, unification of evaluation procedures and joint 
interpretation of the data and information gathered
         These tasks require collaboration at all working levels; from 
technical fieldwork through routine data analysis to high-level 
seismological modeling and statistical analysis. It should be emphasized
that even the most elementary seismological information such as the 
location of an earthquake, cannot be determined accurately enough by any
individual (national) seismological institution without the collaboration
of other institutions in the region. Although the Seismology Divisions of
Jordan and Israel will be mainly involved in executing the seismological 
tasks, our Palestinian colleagues will be leading the engineering aspects 
of the project, also providing the necessary engineering expertise 
associated with traditional building practices among the Arab population
throughout the region.
         As will be elaborated in the work plan, much of the work will be 
carried out through workshops to be held alternately on both sides of the 
Jordan River. It is proposed that the workshops will be used as proper 
venues for training technicians and analysts in using specially developed
processing techniques, to operate and maintain seismological equipment 
and, most important, to be exposed to new methods and procedures for 
seismic hazard assessments that are currently under development in the US
(this would be the main task of our US collaborators).
        We should also mention that one of the first cooperative acts after
the signing of the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel was the linking
of the national seismic networks. There is already an on-going cooperation 
between the seismologists of the region either bilateral (Jordan - Israel),
or through the initiative of the US Geological Survey and UNESCO, 
called RELEMR - Reduce Earthquake Losses in the East Mediterranean Region.
Due to lack of funding resources, much of the RELEMR activity is currently
limited to seismic data exchange. However, with the assistance of our US 
collaborators we hope to increase participation of colleagues from other 
nations in the region who are also vulnerable to earthquakes from the DST.