Success Stories

In an effort to address one of Central Asia's leading concerns, the STCU, together with the ISTC and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has organized the Central Asia Seismic Risk Initiative (CASRI). On October 5-6, 2004 representatives of the STCU participated in the opening session of CASRI along with dignitaries and collaborators from the Uzbekistan Government, the European Union, the United States, the ISTC, and scientists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Following the experience gained from the ISTC's Caucasus Seismic Initiative, CASRI will be a multi-year/multi-institute effort to establish a technical basis for regional efforts to reduce seismic risks in Central Asia. Historically, the most catastrophic losses in the region (located in one of the most seismically active and hazardous zones within continental Asia) have resulted from strong earthquakes. Because of fairly recent population increases in Central Asia and the construction of non-seismically-resistant structures coupled with the poor disaster preparedness of the population, the generally weak economies in that region, and underdeveloped disaster-mitigation planning efforts, Central Asia is particularly vulnerable to the severe human, economic, and social consequences of dangerous earthquakes.

CASRI projects will engage seismological institutions across Central Asia, bringing together scientists from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to perform cooperative research on seismic hazard and risk assessment, monitoring seismological and other geophysical fields, and seismic risk reduction. It is envisioned that participating institutions will create shared regional databases with data quality control, which includes geological, geophysical, seismological, geodetic, geotechnical, as well as data on critical facilities that could have a significant impact on the region if damaged under severe seismic events. CASRI’s true value lies in the fact that scientists from Central Asia have joined forces to address a region-wide public safety issue, and demonstrates the STCU's ability to organize and foster such regional cooperation as well as work together with other international organizations such as the ISTC.

The STCU is supporting CASRI by financing two Uzbek-based projects:
(1) A communications /infrastructure support project to provide Uzbek seismological institutes with communications equipment, material, software, connectivity and training where existing capabilities are unable to support the implementation of CASRI projects;
(2) À seismological risk assessment project in Uzbekistan that will (a) create a unified, shared, distributed, and common database, (b) characterize faults and tectonic structures, (c) conduct seismic and landslide hazard assessments, (d) appraise and select sites for establishing new regional seismic monitoring stations, and (e) provide information and recommendations to regional governments as the technical basis upon which to base decisions on seismic risk reduction actions.