Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): Volume 1, Issue 1, Year 2026
Articles

Examining Seismic Risk Assessment in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: A Critical Analysis

Ringle Raja S Structural Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore - 641 114, Tamil Nadu, India.
Hemalatha G Department of Civil Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore - 641114, Tamil Nadu, India.
Elizabeth Amudhini Stephen S Department of Mathematics, Karunya Institute of Technology and Science, India

Published 2026-02-01

Keywords

  • UAE,
  • Seismic Hazard,
  • PGA,
  • Abu Dhabi,
  • GMPE

Abstract

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is experiencing a surge of demand in seismic hazard analysis in light of the country's rapid increase in multi-story building construction. The study on seismicity, tectonics, and geology plays the vital role in framing the earthquake source model. Before 1994 there were not much research available on Seismic Hazard Analysis of UAE. This becomes the reason for the structural engineers to design buildings for seismic design depending on irrelevant, inappropriate and unjustifiable source data. Hence it is an immediate need for the research on the seismic hazard on UAE by generating Uniform Hazard Maps, response spectral accelerations, Peak ground accelerations (PGA), De-aggregation, site amplification and other parameters required. This paper does a comparative literature survey from the previously published recent papers (for about past 20 years) related to seismic hazard assessment of UAE. Subsequently PGA of Abu Dhabi - UAE, from the past studies is presented which is required for the subsequent research of Vulnerability Assessment of High rise buildings in Abu Dhabi with shear wall construction.

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