Ground Motion Prediction Equation For Taiwan Subduction Zone Earthquakes

Research paper
Earthquake Spectra
Ground motion prediction 2020, Vol. 36(3) 1331–1358
Ó The Author(s) 2020
equation for Taiwan Article reuse guidelines:
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subduction zone earthquakes DOI: 10.1177/8755293020906829

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Van-Bang Phung1,2, Chin Hsiung Loh1, Shu Hsien Chao3,

and Norman A Abrahamson, M.EERI4
Abstract
A ground motion prediction equation (GMPE) is presented for computing the median
and standard deviation of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and 5% damped pseudo-
spectral acceleration (PSA) for periods between 0.01 s and 5.0 s for probabilistic
seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) and engineering applications in Taiwan. An integrated
strong motion dataset consisting of two subduction earthquake regions was selected
from 3314 recordings from Taiwan with M4.5 to M7.1 and 3376 recordings from
Japan with M6.5 to M9.1. This dataset was then used to validate, and refit where nec-
essary, the function form provided by Abrahamson et al. for application to Taiwan
subduction earthquakes. The proposed model accounts for the extrapolation beha-
viors associated with the large-magnitude scaling and the near-source scaling terms,
both of which were developed empirically by using the combined Taiwan–Japan data-
set. The distance attenuation and site term were developed specifically for the
Taiwan region. The site term is based on two parameters; the time-averaged shear
wave velocity of the top 30 m depth (VS30) and the depth-to-the-shear wave velocity
horizon of 1.0 km/s (Z1.0).
Keywords
Ground motion prediction, subduction zone earthquake, Taiwan earthquake, regres-
sion analysis, residual analysis
Date received: 27 March 2019; accepted: 26 December 2019
1
Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei
2
Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei
3
National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, Taipei
4
University of California—Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Corresponding author:
Chin Hsiung Loh, Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei
10617.
Email: lohc0220@ccms.ntu.edu.tw
Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/earthquake-spectra/article-pdf/36/3/1331/5168870/10.1177_8755293020906829.pdf

by Nanyang Technological University user
1332 Earthquake Spectra 36(3)
Figure 1. Tectonic structural profiles of the subduction zones sources: (a) tectonic diagram of Taiwan
(Angelier et al., 1986), (b) tectonic profile of seismic sources in the Ryukyu subduction zone, and (c)
tectonic profile of seismic profile of seismic sources in the Manila subduction zone (SSC TI Team, 2018c).
Introduction
Taiwan is located at the collisional boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the
Eurasian plate (Lin and Lee, 2008; Shyu et al., 2016). Figure 1a shows a schematic diagram
showing the major geologic setting in the region. In the southern part of Taiwan, the
Eurasian plate actively sub-ducts eastward under the Luzon volcanic arc on the Philippine
Sea Plate, forming the Manila subduction zone. In the North, the Philippine Sea plate sub-
ducts into the Eurasian plate, forming the Ryukyu subduction zone trench. Taiwan is at the
junction of two subduction zones; as a result, the contact zone of the plates and the subduc-
tion zone intraslab are characterized by frequent earthquakes. Figure 1b and c shows the dif-
ferences in position, geometry, and depth in locations with collision and subduction.
The subduction zone sources are divided into two types: interface and intraslab earth-
quakes. Subduction zone interface earthquakes are low-angle thrust events that occur at
the interface between the subducting and the overriding plate. Subduction zone intraslab
earthquakes occur within the subducting oceanic plate and are high-angle normal faulting
events responding to down-dip tension in the subducting plate (Lin and Lee, 2008;
Youngs et al., 1997), and intraslab earthquakes can be attributed to tension but also to
dehydration of the subducting slab (Preston et al., 2003). A large and destructive interface
earthquake occurred off the coast of northeastern Taiwan on March 31, 2002, M7.1
(Hualien M7.1). In addition, two instraslab known as the Pingtung dual earthquake

Phung et al. 1333
occurred on December 26, 2006 (Pingtung M6.9 and Pingtung M7.0) in southwestern
Taiwan. These three earthquakes, identified as subduction earthquakes, had a strong
impact on civil infrastructure and caused severe loss of life and property. In addition to
the Hualien M7.1 and the Pingtung dual earthquakes, many other large earthquakes
occurred in the past century but were not included in the database due to lack of available
recordings. Examples are the 1909 Taipei earthquake M7.3 (Lin and Lee, 2008) and the
1920 surface wave magnitude M8.1 (Hsiao et al., 2014). According to seismic source char-
acterization (SSC) models (SSC TI Team, 2018b), large earthquakes with M . 8.0 may
occur in the future. This is one of the main motivations for the development of ground
motion prediction equations (GMPEs).
A GMPE is typically used in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) to assess the
expected ground motion for a given return period, and this model expresses the predicted
ground motion as a function of magnitude (M), rupture distance (Rrup), the time-averaged
shear wave velocity in the top 30 m depth (VS30), the depth to top of rupture (Ztor), and
the depth-to-the-shear wave velocity horizon of 1.0 km/s (Z1.0). The most recent GMPE
for Taiwan subduction earthquakes (Lin and Lee, 2008) was developed using only data
from northeast Taiwan. Their model is conditioned on hypocentral distance and the com-
mon site terms for rock and soil, which is not recommended to be used as a modern
GMPEs which use the rupture distance (Rrup) and VS30 as the primary inputs. In addition,
Lin and Lee (2008) use a common linear magnitude scaling term that could potentially
lead to an over prediction of ground motion for large magnitude events (e.g. above M8.0),
and thus causing either over-predicting the hazard or large events to dominate the hazard
deaggregation. In fact, this equation should not be used in PSHA studies, according to the
exclusion criteria proposed by Bommer et al. (2010).
A major issue with PSHA that has been raised under the framework of the NCREE project
(GMC TI Team, 2018b) is how to correctly quantify epistemic uncertainty associated with
GMPEs. In other words, GMPEs have to capture the center body and range of the expected
future ground motion in the area of interest. A single model is not suggested, especially for the
case that lacks an indigenous GMPE because different GMPEs are commonly combined
within a logic tree to capture the whole range of ground motion uncertainty (Bommer, 2012;
GeoPentech 2015). The seismic hazard community therefore relies on using a set of GMPEs
developed from the same database and used for the logic tree framework, as described in
Bommer et al. (2005), where each model occupies a different branch of the logic tree and where
the branch assigned with the weight express a degree of uncertainty.
Motivated by the development of a set of GMPEs employed in the logic tree, a number
of robust GMPEs were reviewed. They include the development of GMPEs for subduc-
tion zone based on worldwide data (e.g. Abrahamson et al., 2016; Atkinson and Boore,
2003; Youngs et al., 1997) and local data (Zhao et al. 2016a, 2016b, for Japan; Idini et al.,
2017, and Montalva et al., 2017, for Chile). The review aims to find key modeling para-
meters that can be modified or calibrated to match the empirical data in the region of
interest. Each model functional form has its own feature and is able to provide a good fit
to the empirical data. However, the function form by Abrahamson et al. (2016) (AGA16)
developed for the BC Hydro project is thought to be the most physically realistic because
it contains a bilinear magnitude scaling term with a break (Mref); Mref is a flexible compo-
nent in the model to predict different source scaling for large magnitudes. This allows for
physically appropriate extrapolation of the ground motion to both large and small magni-
tudes. Lack of strong motion data from large events makes the development of a robust
GMPE for the Taiwan subduction zone difficult, which may also lead to the over

prediction of ground motion for assessing the seismic hazard of large earthquakes. A solu-
tion for dealing with this issue has been addressed through the development of models that
combine data from multiple regions, while also accounting for specific regional effects
(Abrahamson et al., 2016; Atkinson and Boore, 2003; Youngs et al., 1997). Therefore, it is
our decision to include data from the Japan region, which provides large magnitude
events, and to adopt the functional form of AGA16 for the development of the model,
which helps to constrain the empirical relations using a physical basic. A difficulty in
adopting the AGA16 model is the nonlinear site response behavior, which requires suffi-
cient ground motion data collected from large-magnitude earthquakes and close recorded
sites with low VS30; however, such recordings in Taiwan are sparse and were mostly
recorded at distances larger than 20 km from a few large-magnitude events. Therefore, the
solution for this is to consider the nonlinear site response developed outside Taiwan; that
is the nonlinearity of the site amplification used in the AGA16.
The objective of this study is to develop a set of GMPEs for Taiwan subduction zones.
The linear site amplification is developed using only local data with the range of VS30
greater than 330 m/s, while the non-linearity site amplification is constrained. The reason
for using VS30 = 330 m/s is that these sites are thought to have very weak nonlinearity.
The development of the proposed model is divided into seven sections. Taiwan ground
motion database describes data selection criteria, followed by Functional form of subduc-
tion GMPE, which describes the modifications of the AGA16 functional form. Then in
Analysis of distance scaling of AGA16 GMPE with respect to Taiwan and Japan data the
functional form is validated against with the empirical data. Model development describes
the regression procedure for model development. Evaluation of model presents the evalua-
tion of the proposed model and compares the model with previous models. Finally,
Summary and conclusion summarizes the main points addressing the applications and the
limitations of the proposed GMPE.
Taiwan ground motion database

Taiwan ground motion database was compiled in the framework of the National Research
on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) project (http://tnga.tw/SSHAC/GMC/flatfile/). The
raw data were processed using the methodology proposed by (Cheng et al., 2012) and pre-
sented in Appendix A of NCREE report (GMC TI Team, 2018a). The database includes
earthquake source parameters (i.e. moment magnitude (Mw), depth to the top of the rupture
plane (Ztor), and focal mechanism), source-to-site measures (i.e. hypocentral distance and
the closest distance to the rupture plane), and the site characterization at each recording sta-
tion (i.e. average shear wave velocity in the upper 30 m (VS30) and the depth to the shear
wave velocity horizon of 1.0 km/s (Z1.0)). There are three sources for obtaining moment
magnitudes (Mw): moment tensor solution published in the online Global Centroid
Moment Tensor (GCMT) Catalog (Mw-Harvard), moment magnitude released by the
Broadband Array in Taiwan Seismology (Mw-BATS; http://bats.earth.sinica.edu.tw/), and
moment magnitude converted from Central Weather Bureau Seismic Network (CWBSN),
International Seismological Centre (ISC) or China Seismic Network (CSN) using the
empirical relationship between local magnitude and moment magnitude (Wu et al., 2016).
Finite-fault models of several earthquakes were not available. For those earthquakes,
the rupture dimensions were estimated following the work of Brian Chiou (personal com-
munication, 2018). Rupture distance and source to site geometry parameters were esti-
mated for the recordings from these events by simulating a hundred possible rupture
planes for each earthquake by moving the rupture plane around the hypocentral depth

Phung et al. 1335
Figure 2. Epicenter distribution of subduction zone earthquake occurred in Taiwan from 1983 to 2016.
and computing the distance for each site for each simulation, and then taking the median
of these values for use in completing the metadata in the Taiwan ground motion database
(SSC TI Team, 2018a). Earthquakes are classified into shallow crustal, deep crustal, sub-
duction interface, and subduction intraslab. Two types of subduction earthquakes can be
recognized by average depth range, and most interface earthquake ruptures are shallower
than those of intraslab earthquakes due to the geometry of Taiwan subduction system.
The database contains high-quality instrumental recordings of strong ground motion
from earthquakes. These recordings were mainly collected from the TSMIP, and partially
collected from the Broadband Array in Taiwan for Seismology (BATs). The TSMIP pro-
gram was initiated in 1991 and deployed by the Seismology Center of the Central Weather
Bureau, Taiwan (CWB) (Liu et al., 1999). The TSMIP stations were in densely populated
regions except for mountainous areas. They are positioned approximately 5 km from each
other on average (3 km in urban areas). The BATs stations system was established by the
Institute of Earth Sciences (IES), Academia Sinica, in 1992, and incorporated with the
CWB in 1999 to increase the total number of BATs stations to 64, covering both mountai-
nous and plain areas of the islands. Since 1993, the TSMIP program has operated more
than 700 stations, which are used together with 64 BATs stations. Currently, there are
more than 764 stations, providing orientation-independent measures of ground motion
(RotI50) as defined in Boore (2010). Figure 2 shows epicenter locations of subduction
earthquakes recorded in Taiwan. This corresponds to 111 events with M ø 4:5, resulting
in 14726 strong motion records, equivalent to 36% of the total number of records in the

database. Also, Figure 2 shows all stations locations grouped by VS30 according to the bin
interval of 120–180 m/s, 180–360 m/s, 360–760 m/s, and 760–1500 m/s.
The database provides the maximum usable distance (Rmax), also known as the cutoff
distance. The concept of Rmax was introduced by Chiou and Youngs (2014) and was
assessed event by event by considering the ground motion level (i.e. peak ground accelera-
tion [PGA]), triggered by earthquakes, set to the instrumentations. For example, the 4 gal
PGA was used for the Taiwan Strong Motion Instrumentation Program (TSMIP) system.
The use of Rmax can help to filter out data that are significantly biased at long distances.
Only data in the distance range 0 to Rmax was used in the development of the GMPE.
Table 1 summarizes the maximum usable distance Rmax of Taiwan subduction earth-
quakes used in this study. Table 1 also shows the number of records per event (Nrec), the
number of usable recordings (Nrec_Rmax), and the number of recordings from BATs sys-
tem. There are 36 BATs recordings in the Taiwan data subset, which is a minor contribu-
tion to the total regression dataset.
As there is a lack of ground motion data recorded from large-magnitude subduction
earthquakes in Taiwan, Japan subduction ground motion data for M . 6.5 were extracted
from the NGA-sub ground motion database (NGAsub_Mega_Faltfile_RotD50_R170930,
from Brian Chiou personal communication, 2017). These data were used together with
Taiwan subduction data. The cutoff magnitude-dependent distance (Rmax) truncation for
Japan was guided by Zhao et al. (2016a). The Rmax was initially set to 200 km (i.e. consis-
tent with Rmax developed for a M6.5 earthquake from Taiwan) for an M6.5 earthquake;
this distance increases linearly with magnitude to 300 km for an M9.0 earthquake. The
Rmax for each individual event can be shortened or extended depending on the data quality
visually inspected so as to select the unbiased data with distance.
The final dataset for regression was developed on the basis of the following criteria: (1)
Select the data in the distance interval of 0–Rmax; (2) select data with VS30 greater than
330 m/s; (3) select the event with a focal depth less than 100 km; (4) select the events with
at least five remaining records after all other criteria are applied; and (5) select only the
response spectral values for spectral frequencies greater than 1.25 times the high-pass cor-
ner frequency used in the record processing. Under the consideration of these criteria, a
total number of 3314 recordings obtained from 51 Taiwan subduction earthquakes were
selected; 21 of these were interface events and 30 were intraslab events. The number of
Japanese data was 3746, selected from 15 subduction interface and 10 subduction intraslab
earthquakes. The magnitude–distance–region distribution and magnitude–depth–region
distribution are shown in Figure 3. The magnitudes of the Taiwan interface were M4.8–
M7.1 with distances ranging 1–180 km. The magnitudes of Taiwan intraslab events were
M4.6–M 7.0 with distances ranging 19–280 km. The magnitudes of Japan intraslab earth-
quakes were M6.7–M7.5 with rupture distances ranging 43–345 km. The magnitudes of
Japan interface earthquakes were M6.5–M9.1 with distances ranging 26–330 km. The
depths to the top of rupture (Ztor) of Taiwan earthquakes are displayed in the range 0–
35 km for interface, while intraslab earthquakes mostly occur at Ztor to a depth greater
than 35 km. The depths to Ztor of Japan earthquakes are displayed in the range 0–60 km
for both interface and intraslab events.
The distribution by VS30 is given in Figure 4. It shows selected records for Japan and
Taiwan. There are more soft rock sites (VS30 < 760 m/s) than rock sites (VS30 . 760 m/
s); the number of soft rock site and rock site records are 3354 and 392 for Japan and 2943
and 284 for Taiwan, respectively.

Phung et al. 1337
Table 1. Summary Taiwan subduction earthquakes used in this study

No EQSN HypLat HypLong Mw Ztor, [km] Eq_type Nrec Rmax, Nrec_Rmax
(degrees) (degrees) (NBATs ) [km] (NBATs )
1 9 24.115 121.689 5.7 25.3 0 69(0) 65.42 13(0)

2 17 24.071 121.851 5.5 55.4 1 192(0) 83.65 13(0)
3 28 24.436 121.915 4.9 8.9 0 60(0) 44.93 15(0)
4 41 24.609 121.851 5.1 71.9 1 191(0) 102.81 74(0)
5 44 21.822 121.037 5.2 14.0 0 12(0) 64.31 7(0)
6 49 24.627 121.630 5.1 63.1 1 139(0) 72.40 18(0)
7 55 24.436 121.851 4.6 35.9 1 60(0) 47.68 9(0)
8 56 24.539 121.699 6.0 43.8 1 325(0) 141.14 167(0)
9 65 24.575 121.638 5.6 44.6 1 191(0) 77.56 85(0)
10 66 24.033 121.653 5.3 26.3 0 161(0) 60.54 37(0)
11 67 24.027 121.714 4.9 40.0 1 69(0) 44.73 14(0)
12 70 23.967 122.268 6.3 0.8 0 221(0) 112.59 49(0)
13 77 24.490 122.258 5.5 66.0 1 286(0) 174.82 141(0)
14 83 24.130 121.734 5.2 35.9 1 213(0) 77.73 46(0)
15 101 24.172 121.725 5.3 7.4 0 35(0) 39.56 22(0)
16 102 22.767 121.042 5.2 5.1 0 41(0) 27.69 15(0)
17 103 22.725 121.010 4.8 3.3 0 27(0) 23.70 11(0)
18 107 24.792 121.923 4.9 81.6 1 157(0) 83.09 1(0)
19 113 22.842 120.779 5.3 21.5 0 158(0) 65.66 52(0)
20 118 24.399 122.363 5.4 61.9 1 205(2) 113.00 37(0)
21 121 24.581 121.855 4.6 70.2 1 117(4) 82.99 14(0)
22 143 24.670 121.961 5.0 60.6 1 92(0) 67.38 6(0)
23 161 24.042 121.755 5.4 4.1 0 67(0) 39.47 29(2)
24 175 24.409 122.402 5.6 67.7 1 265(6) 151.64 98(0)
25 180 24.057 121.695 4.8 44.2 1 91(5) 63.79 32(1)
26 185 24.160 122.172 7.1 21.3 0 408(8) 172.00 237(0)
27 187 23.985 122.278 6.1 7.9 0 178(12) 68.79 26(0)
28 191 24.451 121.649 4.8 40.3 1 171(4) 49.25 19(1)
29 196 24.403 121.993 5.8 19.6 0 225(7) 111.04 114(1)
30 197 24.396 121.868 5.0 4.4 0 78(7) 41.01 19(0)
31 202 24.602 121.569 4.9 55.2 1 156(5) 70.58 32(1)
32 205 24.573 122.000 4.8 63.5 1 134(0) 73.61 17(0)
33 206 23.417 122.110 5.4 29.9 0 243(10) 96.60 54(2)
34 209 24.546 121.815 5.0 68.0 1 188(11) 69.03 11(0)
35 216 24.471 122.778 6.6 84.8 1 417(26) 248.04 219(2)
36 224 24.655 122.077 5.4 62.9 1 25(0) 100.69 7(0)
37 227 24.773 122.026 4.9 66.5 1 127(7) 85.40 32(0)
38 239 21.887 120.568 7.0 24.1 1 427(10) 229.25 169(3)
39 240 22.030 120.405 6.9 25.6 1 459(14) 239.87 206(0)
40 256 24.246 122.327 6.3 46.7 1 448(0) 187.59 257(4)
41 257 24.241 122.332 5.4 52.9 1 85(0) 85.87 12(0)
42 272 24.898 121.783 5.3 93.9 1 209(0) 104.96 73(0)
43 278 23.834 122.241 5.2 25.7 0 221(0) 74.29 17(0)
44 283 24.012 122.220 6.4 4.0 0 288(0) 88.85 47(3)
45 285 21.982 120.397 5.4 48.0 1 78(0) 74.04 7(0)
46 306 24.046 121.638 5.3 15.3 0 137(0) 49.57 47(0)
47 312 22.841 120.697 5.2 18.3 0 198(0) 50.00 35(7)
48 324 24.659 121.806 4.7 73.4 1 302(0) 105.85 126(0)
49 334 22.721 120.741 6.0 25.8 0 341(2) 150.00 151(0)
50 335 24.136 121.677 5.2 28.1 0 138(0) 58.38 41(8)
51 337 24.457 122.330 5.9 69.8 1 473(17) 167.73 200(0)
52 355 24.663 121.608 4.9 61.3 1 160(6) 79.07 47(0)
EQSN: index used to identify events by order in the database; HypLong and HypLat: the longitude and latitude of the
hypo-center; Eq_type: 0 for interface; Eq_type: 1 for intra-slab; Nrec: number of recordings per events; Nrec_Rmax:
number of recordings after applying Rmax; NBATs : number of recordings from BATS system per each event.

(a) (b)
Figure 3. (a) Magnitude–distance–region distribution and (b) magnitude–Ztor–region distribution of final
regression dataset.
(a) (b)
Figure 4. Bar chart showing VS30 bin for records in the selected data: (a) Japan subduction dataset and
(b) Taiwan subduction dataset.
Functional form of subduction GMPE

The functional form of GMPE in this study is based on the AGA16 model (Abrahamson
et al., 2016), which is modified as needed according to the analysis with empirical data.
The reason for choosing this functional form is to use the advantage of bilinear magnitude

Phung et al. 1339
scaling, which can be used to capture the magnitude-scaling rate for large subduction
earthquakes. There are also some modifications compared with the model of Abrahamson
et al. (2016). Instead of using hypocentral depth and hypocentral distance, the closest dis-
tance to the rupture plane (Rrup ) and the depth to the top of rupture (Ztor ) are used for both
types of earthquakes because finite-fault models are determined for the events in the data-
base. Formulations for Ztor were modified to reflect trends in data. The fore-arc to back-
arc model is dropped because there is no metadata specifying whether a record available in
the database was in a fore-/back-arc region. The function form of the median model is
described as follows:
lnPSA = a1 + FMAG ðM, uÞ + FDIST ðM, R, uÞ + a7 Feve + FDEP ðZtor , uÞ

ð1Þ
+ FSITE ðVs30, uÞ + FBasin ðZ1:0 , uÞ + h + e,
where PSA is the pseudo-spectral acceleration. The predictor variables are M = moment
magnitude; Rrup = closest distance (km) to the rupture plane; Ztor = depth (km) to the top
of the rupture; Feve is a dummy variable (0 for interface and 1 for intraslab). VS30 = travel
time average shear wave velocity (m/s) of the top 30 m of soil. The random errors h and e
denote the between-event residual and within-event residual, respectively.
The magnitude FMAG ðM, uÞ has the following functional form:
(
a4 M Mref + a13 ð10 M Þ2 for M<Mref
FMAG ðM, uÞ = , ð2Þ
a5 M Mref + a13 ð10 M Þ2 for M.Mref
where Mref is 7:8 + DC1 (DC1 is used to capture the epistemic uncertainty) and represents a
break in magnitude scaling in AGA16.
The depth scaling FDEP ðZtor , uÞ functional form is given by

a10 ðminðZtor , 40Þ 20Þ for interface
FDEP ðZtor , uÞ = ð3Þ
a11 ðminðZtor , 80Þ 40Þ for intraslab:
The caps for depth scaling were chosen because there is not significant increase in
between-event residual as Ztor increases beyond 40 and 80 km.
The distance scaling FDIST ðM, R, uÞ has the following function form:

FDIST ðM, R, uÞ = ða2 + a14 Feve + a3 ðM 7:8ÞÞln Rrup + C4 expða9 ðM 6ÞÞ + a6 Rrup : ð4Þ
The site FSITE ðVs30, uÞ has the following functional form:

8 n
< a12 ln VS blnðPGA1000 + cÞ + bln PGA1000 + c VS for VS30\VLin
VLin VLin
FSITE ðVS30 , uÞ = ,
: VS
a12 ln VLin
V
+ bnln VLinS for VS30 ø VLin
ð5Þ
where PGA1000 = median PGA value at VS30 = 1000 m/s, and VS = minðVS30 , 1000Þ. In addi-
tion, the basin effect term was also considered in the model because it can help to capture
additional site amplification that is not captured by using VS30 alone. This leads to

reduction of the sigma value. The site FBASIN ðZ1:0 , uÞ functional form is chosen based on
Boore et al. (2014):

Z1:0
FBasin ðZ1:0 , uÞ = a8 min ln ,1 : ð6Þ
Z1:0ref
Here, Z1:0ref is reference sediment depth which can be inferred from the VS30–Z1.0 relation-
ship when only VS30 is available. We validate the relationship developed by Kuo et al.
(2017) using 478 profiles, mainly used in this study. By examination the Kuo et al. (2017)
model against the current use dataset, we found that there is some degree of misfit at
VS30 \ 500 m/s; as a result, the Kuo et al. (2017) model was modified, as described in
Equation 7, in order to re-center it relative to the sediment depth.
2
3:96 VS30 + 352:72
ln Zref = ln : ð7Þ
2 17502 + 352:72
Analysis of distance scaling of AGA16 GMPE with respect to Taiwan

and Japan data
This section goes on to use the empirical data to analyze the distance scaling functional
form of the AGA16 model. The key issue is how to justify the appropriate distance scaling
given by the AGA16 model in accordance with the regression data that accounts for the
existence of regional differences between Japan and Taiwan. The distance scaling form
involves two primary effects: a magnitude-dependent geometrical spreading coupled with
magnitude-dependent fictitious depth, which represents the near-source saturation effect
with magnitude, and anelastic attenuation coefficient a6 , representing the slope of distance
attenuation at large distances. The distance scaling functional form combined with site
model is used to describe the natural log of ground motion,lnPSA, as given by Equation 8.

lnPSA = a1 + ða2 + a3 ðM 7:8ÞÞln Rrup + C4 expða9 ðM 6ÞÞ + a6 Rrup + FSite ðVS30 , uÞ: ð8Þ
Here, the functional form FSite ðVS30 , uÞ is used to represent VS30 scaling, and u represents a
coefficient or a set of coefficients needed to determine the site amplification components.
Abrahamson et al. (2016) adopted the results of finite-fault simulation conducted by
Gregor et al. (2002) to constrain the magnitude-dependent fictitious depth related to coef-
ficient C4 and a9 . Abrahamson et al. (2016) also indicated that the geometrical spreading
terms are highly correlated with the saturation term and cannot all be determined from
the data. For this reason and for our limitation, we decided to fix the terms controlling
the near-source distance scaling; thus, the coefficients a3 , C4 , and a9 were fixed to 0.1, 10,
and 0.25, respectively, in our regression model. The distance scaling Equation 8 has two
coefficients that need to be regressed to match the empirical data. Coefficient a2 represents
magnitude-independent geometric spreading and is used to fit the ground motion data
with a distance range of 0–100 km, while coefficient a6 measures the curvature of attenua-
tion at large distances.
Because of a high degree of correlation in the estimation of geometric and anelastic
attenuation, the slope and curvature of distance decay are not easy to determine from
regression, especially for data with significant scatter. This behavior can be analyzed by

Phung et al. 1341
(a) (b)
Figure 5. Fits of distance scaling function form Equation 8 to the data for the 2011 M9.1 Tohoku
interface earthquake from Japan (a) and for the 2006 M6.9 Pingtung intraslab earthquake from Taiwan
(b). Solid and dashed curves indicate the fitted model plotted for average VS30.
carrying out the fit to each individual event for two cases: the model is analyzed using
Equation 8 with coefficient a6 and the other model is analyzed using Equation 8 without
coefficient a6 (i.e. constrain a6 = 0). Figure 5 illustrates the fits to the PSA at T = 0.01 s
for two well-recorded earthquakes: The 2006 Taiwan Pingtung intraslab earthquake with
M6.9 and the Japan 2011 Tohoku Interface earthquake with M9.1. The median curve in
red is the result of the fitting for the average value of VS30 of the data. As shown in the fig-
ure, both models (with and without a6 ) can be used to satisfactorily capture the data
trends. The fit to the Japanese earthquake shows a substantial curvature, while the fit to
the Taiwanese data shows a little curvature. By constraining a6 = 0, the model fitting to
the Tohoku earthquake exhibits an unexpectedly large prediction at a distance of 10 km;
however, this situation is not significant for the fit to the data from the Pingtung earth-
quake. Therefore, there is a need for the anelastic attenuation term for the model fitting to
the Tohoku earthquake but not the model fitting to the Pingtung earthquake.
By using the same approach, the analyses were performed for 30 events with their data
recorded at wider distance ranges, which is equivalent to 90% of the total number of
Taiwan data used in the regression. All data from the Japan events were selected for the
analysis as they are good representations of recorded motions that attenuates with dis-
tance. The results are shown in Figure 6, which illustrates the geometrical spreading coeffi-
cient a2 , obtained to study regional effects for periods 0.01 and 2.0 s. Based on Figure 6,
the first observation is that there is almost no change in coefficient a2 between readings
with and without coefficient a6 in the Taiwan data. On the contrary, results from the
Japan data show that the model without a6 results in more negative values of a2 compared
with the model with a6 , and this is more obvious for T = 0.01 s than for T = 2 s.

(a) (b)
Figure 6. Comparisons of geometrical spreading, coefficient a2 plotted against magnitude, obtained
from fits to individual earthquakes to study regional effects: the cases were compared without and with
anelastic attenuation a6 .
Figure 6 indicates the potential regional difference in terms of geometrical spreading

coefficient a2 between Japan and Taiwan. Due to the trade-off between geometrical
spreading coefficient a2 and anelastic attenuation coefficient a6 , this regional difference
can also be captured by the anelastic attenuation coefficient a6 . The second observation
is that there is a distinct population of a2 values for event types (i.e. interface and intra-
slab) from the Taiwan data. In general, the results from the interface for both periods
reveal a broader range than that for the intraslab case. A more obvious trend is observed
from the results for T = 0.01 s. Conversely, the geometric spreading term coefficient a2
is indistinguishable from the Japan data.
In conclusion, there exists a strong correlation between the geometrical spreading term
and the anelastic attenuation term in the function form of distance scaling (Equation 8).
This behavior has been discussed in earlier studies (e.g. Atkinson, 1989; Boore et al.,
2014). To reflect the fits to regional data as shown in Figure 6, a distance scaling function
form in which a region-independent geometrical spreading is incorporated with a region-
dependent anelestic attenuation can be utilized. Alternatively, a model from a combina-
tion of region-dependent geometrical spreading and region-independent inelestic attenua-
tion can also be made. Due to the fact that anelastic attenuation is the per cycle damping
of the seismic wave, which is a crustal property that depends on small-scale, localized geol-
ogy, and therefore we would expect to see variation between regions at the scale being
considered. However, geometrical spreading is a geometrical effect and we would not
expect to see dramatic regional variation. It is therefore we (1) use a model having a
region-independent geometrical spreading coupled with a region-dependent anelestic
attenuation and (2) use separate geometrical spreading a2 for event types even though it is

Phung et al. 1343
not supported by the Japan data (Figure 6). This is identical to that of AGA16 for which
the distance scaling of interface is different from that of the intraslab case by using differ-
ent magnitude-independent geometrical spreading coefficients.
Model development
The development of the GMPE is performed using the mixed-effect regression method
proposed by Abrahamson and Youngs (1992) with three stages. Each stage is performed
with a number of steps until each regressed coefficient converges. First, for stage 1, we
temporarily undertake the magnitude scaling term of the AGA16 and perform an iterative
regression process to constrain the path term. Then, stage 2 is performed to determine the
source term while the path term is fixed at the values obtained from stage 1. After con-
straining the Ztor term from the primary model, stages 1 and 2 are repeated to refine the
magnitude scaling with the inclusion of the Ztor effect. In stage 3, the site model is devel-
oped by using region-specific data to constrain the amplification term. In this stage, the
basin depth term can be determined from the analysis of within-event residuals with
respect to the lnðDZ1:0 Þ parameter, which is defined as ln ZZ1:0ref
1:0
. During the regression, the
coefficients a3 , C4 , and a9 are held fixed and used for all periods. The coefficient a9 is fixed
at 0.25 but not 0.4 as it is used in AGA16. This makes our model behaving no magnitude
over saturated even though some studies allow magnitude over saturated of the predicted
motion (e.g. Abrahamson et al., 2016; Boore et al., 2014).
Stage 1: regression for distance term

As discussed in the previous section, we fixed coefficients a3 , C4 , and a9 . The distance term
FDIST ðM, RÞ is to determine with two regression coefficients a2 and a6 which can be used to
capture the data trends from Japan and Taiwan. The determination of these two coeffi-
cients was carried out with an iterative regression process using the temporary magnitude
scaling term of the AGA16. In the first step, a preliminary regression was performed to
determine a2 by using a temporary value of a6 determined by fitting data from a well-
recorded earthquake. An example is shown in Figure 5 in which coefficient a6 = 20.00256
and 20.00821 at T = 0.01 s for Taiwan and Japan, respectively. These are estimated from
the December 26, 2006, M6.9 Taiwan Pingtung Intraslab and the 2011 M9.1 Japan
Tohoku earthquake. Then, in the second step, regression was performed by using the geo-
metrical spreading coefficient obtained from the previous stage to get the anelastic attenua-
tion coefficient a6 . The final step was iterating from step 1 to step 2 until coefficients a6
and a2 approach their convergent values.
Figure 7 shows distance scaling for the selected a2 (i.e. the convergent value), which is
compared with those obtained from a set of iterative a2 -the values recorded from the itera-
tive regression process. The distance scaling obtained from data grouped into magnitude
bins are plotted on the same plot for comparison. As shown in Figure 7, the distance scaling
shows moderate to steep slopes for data bins with M . 6.5. For data bins with M \ 6.5,
which is the case for most of Taiwan, the distance scaling shows various slopes from low to
high. From the comparison of a set of distance attenuations, the selected distance scaling
visually shows its slope steeper than the average, which can be consistently observed from
the Japan data. By using combined Taiwanese and Japanese data, the estimation of coeffi-
cient a2 was dominated by the Japanese data, which contribute more short distance data
range to the final regression data than the Taiwanese data. This approach reflects the beha-
vior of our model by extrapolating motion to the range without data (i.e. short distance).

Figure 7. An example of distance scaling for T = 0.01 s, in which different values of coefficient a2 are
compared to gain a sense of the convergent selection of geometrical spreading. Coefficient a2 was
selected after four iterations, each of which is shown by black dashed-dot lines. The dashed lines result
from regression against data grouped into magnitude bins with 0.5 width. This example helps to illustrate
the validity of convergent criteria leading to stable estimation of regressed coefficients.
Stage 2: regression for source term

In stage 2, the ground motions were fit to a model in which each earthquake has its own
constant term referred to as an event term. Event terms were then used to fit a model that
re-determines the source term, including the coefficients for FMAG ðM Þ and FDEP ðZtor Þ. In
the first step of Stage 2 regression, a quadratic function a1 + a4 M + a13 ð10 M Þ2 without
Mref for FMAG ð M Þ was used. This step was used to determine coefficients a4 and a13 . Using
the FMAG ð M Þ function form with a break in magnitude scaling, the second step was per-
formed to determine coefficients a5 and Mref while keeping the linear and quadratic terms
estimated from the first step fixed.
For each spectral period, the magnitude breaking point Mref and coefficients a5 and a13
were estimated. Consideration of these coefficients as period-dependent were supported by
the empirical data and resulted in a significant impact on the reduction of standard devia-
tion of between-event residual, and in contrast to AGA16 that has a period-independent
Mref. To avoid magnitude oversaturation with large magnitudes at short distances, the con-
straint on the slope of the linear magnitude scaling a5 was made to be non-negative while
coefficient a5 estimated in AGA16 is assigned zero to allow oversaturation. It is found that
the implementation of Ztor–depth relation in the development of magnitude scaling affects
the determination of Mref. This effect is depicted in Figure 8, where Mref was estimated to
be 7.42 (without Ztor–depth relation) and 7.68 (with Ztor–depth relation), respectively, for
PSA at T = 0.01 s. We select Mref with its value of 7.68 because this number is close to
that resulted in the finite-fault simulations from Gregor et al. (2002) and Atkinson and
Macias (2009).

Phung et al. 1345
Figure 8. PSA at T = 0.01 s magnitude scaling with and without the consideration effect of Ztor. The
average event term is evaluated within 0.5 magnitude bins. The slab ground motions were corrected by a
constant in agreement with the interface ground motions.
Stage 3: site term and basin depth

In the last stage, the local site term for regional data is considered. The mixed-effects
regression approach was performed with two regression coefficients a1 and a12 . The varia-
tion of region-specific site amplification term with the period is shown in Figure 9. The
local site amplification is compared with the combined dataset and the Japan dataset. As
indicated in the figure, for a range shorter than 1.0 s, the coefficient value for Taiwan is
higher than that from Japan and Taiwan combined, but for periods longer than 1.0 s, the
coefficient value for Taiwan is smaller than that from Japan and Taiwan combined.
Furthermore, in this stage, the within-event residual was used to estimate the coefficient a8
period by period in the basin depth term. The within-event residuals (eij ) against lnðDZ1:0 Þ
along with basin adjustment is shown in Figure 10a for a period of 2.0 s and shown in
Figure 10b for the whole period. As can be seen in Figure 10b, there is little trend for the
range T = 0.3–0.75 s, but has a stronger trend for the rest of the periods.
Model standard deviations

The model standard deviation was computed by using only local Taiwan data. M-indepen-
dent standard deviations (t) were computed from between-event residual relevant to each
event with at least five recordings. The within-event residual, following the study of
Rodriguez-Marek et al. (2011, 2013), was divided into two components: the average event-
corrected residual at each station (dS2Ss ) and the remaining residuals or single station

Figure 9. Variation of coefficient a12 with periods, representing various degrees of site amplification
for each of regional data.
(a) (b)
Figure 10. (a) Plots showing within-event residuals against basin differential parameter DZ1:0 along
with adjusted model (red plus) for 2s. (b) Plot showing the variation of coefficient a8 with period.
residual (dW0 ). Therefore, the total standard deviation of the model is the square root of
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
the sum of their squares, that is, sT = t2 + f2S2S + f2SS in which fS2S is standard deviation
of dS2Ss quantifying the site-to-site variability and fSS is the single station standard devia-
tion. The computation was done considering the criteria for stations with at least 10
recordings with regard to a period of 0.01 s, and used the same stations in determining
fSS and fS2S .
Regression results and smoothing of coefficients

After the model components were developed, the coefficients were obtained separately for
each period. A smoothing process was undertaken in which coefficients a2 , a6 , Mref , a4 , a5 ,
and a13 were first smoothed. Later, a11 was smoothed. The final smoothing was done with
the site parameter a12 . We re-regressed the model using those fixed values following the

Phung et al. 1347
Table 2. Model coefficients

T(s) a1 a4 a5 a13 Mref
0 4.4642 0.4420 0.0385 –0.0257 7.68

0.01 4.4819 0.4423 0.0403 –0.0260 7.68
0.02 4.5046 0.4361 0.0419 –0.0263 7.68
0.05 4.6252 0.3633 0.0451 –0.0270 7.71
0.075 4.7904 0.3195 0.0462 –0.0276 7.77
0.1 4.9262 0.3259 0.0482 –0.0281 7.77
0.15 5.0950 0.3506 0.0433 –0.0288 7.78
0.2 5.1811 0.4011 0.0369 –0.0291 7.72
0.25 5.1352 0.4408 0.0660 –0.0291 7.62
0.3 5.0775 0.4861 0.0620 –0.0288 7.54
0.4 4.9151 0.5939 0.0698 –0.0270 7.42
0.5 4.7932 0.7192 0.0878 –0.0236 7.38
0.6 4.6610 0.8481 0.0961 –0.0181 7.36
0.75 4.4014 0.9652 0.1061 –0.0151 7.32
1 3.7433 1.1749 0.2274 –0.0032 7.25
1.5 2.8223 1.3610 0.1614 –0.0032 7.25
2 1.8833 1.3831 0.2277 –0.0032 7.25
2.5 1.0148 1.3828 0.2715 –0.0032 7.25
3 0.4117 1.3917 0.2882 –0.0032 7.25
4 –0.5199 1.3680 0.3259 –0.0032 7.25
5 –0.9236 1.3799 0.3038 –0.0032 7.25
series steps described above. Parameters such as a1 , a4 , and a5 were adjusted manually to
achieve a visually smoothed response spectra.
Tables 2 to 4 list the final coefficients of our model development, and the variation of
the relevant coefficients with period are shown in Figure 11. Note that the difference in
geometric coefficients for the interface is slightly different from that for intraslab, which
were shown by the variation of coefficient a2 . The differences in anelastic attenuation and
site effects between Taiwan and Japan are represented by coefficient a6 (Figure 11) and
coefficient a12 (Figure 9), respectively. The values of coefficients a6 and a12 obtained from
combined Taiwan–Japan regression dataset were also plotted for comparison, and these
coefficients were used in the development of the source term.
Evaluation of model
Examination of residuals
In this section, residual analysis was carried out to check for any uncaptured dependence
on the explanatory variables. The residuals are shown for spectral periods of 0.01, 0.2, and
2 s. Figure 12 shows between-event residuals plotted with respect to source parameters M
and Ztor , respectively. There exists a cluster of interface events with a few high values of
between-event residuals appearing at depths of 20 to 30 km; however, these high between-
event residuals were not shown significantly with respect to magnitude. Therefore, we
accepted our model with this local bias against Ztor rather than M. Figure 13 shows within-
event residuals plotted against Rrup and VS30 along with medians in bin. No significant
trend of the within-event residuals is visible with respect to Rrup and VS30 ; this confirms the
validity of the derived model capturing data behaviors in terms of distance attenuation and


T(s) a2 a14 a3 C4 a9 a7 a10 a11 a6
0 –1.5528 –0.0119 0.1 10 0.25 0.6819 0.0160 0.0150 –0.0006

0.01 –1.5542 –0.0124 0.1 10 0.25 0.6799 0.0172 0.0149 –0.0006
0.02 –1.5552 –0.0169 0.1 10 0.25 0.6976 0.0183 0.0149 –0.0006
0.05 –1.5560 –0.0851 0.1 10 0.25 1.0361 0.0208 0.0149 –0.0005
0.08 –1.5546 –0.1180 0.1 10 0.25 1.2299 0.0222 0.0149 –0.0004
0.1 –1.5512 –0.1712 0.1 10 0.25 1.5344 0.0228 0.0149 –0.0004
0.15 –1.5391 –0.1247 0.1 10 0.25 1.2637 0.0218 0.0149 –0.0003
0.2 –1.5208 –0.1210 0.1 10 0.25 1.1773 0.0202 0.0150 –0.0002
0.25 –1.4891 –0.1163 0.1 10 0.25 1.0462 0.0186 0.0152 –0.0001
0.3 –1.4641 –0.0774 0.1 10 0.25 0.7831 0.0170 0.0154 0.0000
0.4 –1.4148 –0.0550 0.1 10 0.25 0.5695 0.0146 0.0160 0.0000
0.5 –1.3832 –0.0342 0.1 10 0.25 0.4371 0.0126 0.0164 0.0000
0.6 –1.3600 –0.0607 0.1 10 0.25 0.4978 0.0112 0.0165 –0.0001
0.75 –1.3137 –0.0391 0.1 10 0.25 0.2629 0.0092 0.0162 –0.0001
1 –1.2368 0.0178 0.1 10 0.25 –0.1268 0.0069 0.0158 –0.0002
1.5 –1.1006 –0.0057 0.1 10 0.25 –0.1213 0.0038 0.0140 –0.0004
2 –0.9903 0.0532 0.1 10 0.25 –0.4967 0.0017 0.0119 –0.0006
2.5 –0.8961 0.0688 0.1 10 0.25 –0.5135 0 0.0097 –0.0009
3 –0.8182 0.0716 0.1 10 0.25 –0.6005 0 0.0078 –0.0011
4 –0.7307 0.0424 0.1 10 0.25 –0.4251 0 0.0049 –0.0012
5 –0.7348 0.0547 0.1 10 0.25 –0.5286 0 0.0034 –0.0010

T(s) a12 a8 n c b VLin t fS2S fSS
0 0.9903 –0.0628 1.18 1.88 –1.186 865.1 0.3523 0.3443 0.4130

0.01 0.9904 –0.063 1.18 1.88 –1.186 865.1 0.3492 0.3441 0.4126
0.02 0.9928 –0.0633 1.18 1.88 –1.186 865.1 0.3448 0.3434 0.4113
0.05 1.3192 –0.0887 1.18 1.88 –1.346 1053.5 0.3554 0.3907 0.4095
0.08 1.502 –0.0941 1.18 1.88 –1.471 1085.7 0.3808 0.4405 0.4003
0.1 1.6376 –0.0978 1.18 1.88 –1.624 1032.5 0.3885 0.4499 0.4094
0.15 1.8934 –0.0855 1.18 1.88 –1.931 877.6 0.3681 0.4104 0.4280
0.2 2.0873 –0.0707 1.18 1.88 –2.188 748.2 0.3686 0.3782 0.4438
0.25 2.2348 –0.0605 1.18 1.88 –2.381 654.3 0.3753 0.3559 0.4503
0.3 2.3464 –0.0537 1.18 1.88 –2.518 587.1 0.3658 0.3460 0.4532
0.4 2.4881 –0.0143 1.18 1.88 –2.657 503 0.3836 0.3546 0.4428
0.5 2.5006 0.0296 1.18 1.88 –2.669 456.6 0.3785 0.3589 0.4383
0.6 2.4024 0.0627 1.18 1.88 –2.599 430.3 0.3698 0.3812 0.4426
0.75 2.0748 0.0894 1.18 1.88 –2.401 410.5 0.3756 0.3856 0.4556
1 1.4895 0.1248 1.18 1.88 –1.955 400 0.3758 0.3692 0.4518
1.5 0.3851 0.1643 1.18 1.88 –1.025 400 0.3996 0.3703 0.4305
2 –0.4154 0.1754 1.18 1.88 –0.299 400 0.4114 0.3713 0.4413
2.5 –0.7537 0.1699 1.18 1.88 0 400 0.4289 0.3578 0.4379
3 –0.7364 0.1637 1.18 1.88 0 400 0.4329 0.3500 0.4302
4 –0.6914 0.1506 1.18 1.88 0 400 0.4359 0.3234 0.4268
5 –0.7013 0.1565 1.18 1.88 0 400 0.4153 0.3040 0.4286
site amplification. Figures showing examination of residuals are given in Supplemental

Appendix B.

Phung et al. 1349
Figure 11. Variation of regression coefficients listed in Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, and Supplemental Table
A1 and model variability (t, fS2S , and fSS ) with period.
Comparison of Taiwan model with previous published models

Comparison on the proposed GMPE model with global GMPE AGA16 (Abrahamson
et al., 2016), regional GMPE Zh16 (Zhao et al. 2016a, 2016b) for Japan, and local GMPE
LL08 (Lin and Lee, 2008) for Taiwan is made. The global GMPE AGA16 was used in the
BC Hydro project to estimate the seismic hazard assessment. The Zh16 was developed
from the most recent Japan subduction earthquakes to supersede the GMPE Zh06 (Zhao
et al., 2006). Both regional GMPEs, LL08 and Zh06, were selected by the Global
Earthquake Model (Stewart et al., 2015) as recommendation for seismic hazard assess-
ments in subduction zones. The comparison is presented by the range in which the data
are available and by the range the ground motions are extrapolated to large magnitude
and short distance for T = 0.01 and 2.0 s.
The main characteristics of these published GMPEs are listed in Table 5. It is noted
that the AGA16 was developed using distance including both rupture distance (Rrup) and
hypocentral distance (Rhypo), but using hypocentral depth (H). The Zh16a,b were

(a) (b)
Figure 12. Between-event residuals plotted against: (a) magnitude (M) and (b) depth to the top of the
rupture plane (Ztor) spectral period of 0.01, 0.2, and 2 s. Number of event (Ne) and standard deviation
of between-event residuals (t) are shown at the top of each panel.
developed using Rrup and H. The Rhypo and H were used in the development of the LL08.
Even though GMPEs are guided with different uses in distance and depth metrics, the
comparisons are not distinguishable between distance and depth.
Figures 14 and 15 show the comparison of distance attenuations for T = 0.01 s and
2.0 s. The comparisons are shown on each panel by the data grouped into three bins (i.e.
M = 4.5–5.5, M = 5.5–6.5 and M = 6.5–7.5) in which the GMPEs were computed at
three different average M, average Ztor–depth, and average VS30 over each data bin. As
can be seen in these figures, all GMPEs generally provide a good fit to the observation
data; however, our model shows a visually better fit to the observation data in the range
for M = 4.5–5.5 and M = 5.5–6.5 except for M = 6.5–7.5 at which there is some degree
of misfit due to intraslab motion for T = 2.0 s; the misfit is probably due to the regres-
sion dataset with the present of Japanese data, which hindered the fit to M = 6.5–7.5 data

Phung et al. 1351
(a) (b)
Figure 13. Within-event residuals plotted against: (a) the rupture distance (Rrup) and (b) the time-
averaged shear wave velocity in the top 30 m depth (Vs30) for spectral period of 0.01, 0.2, and 2 s. Number
of records (Nrec) and standard deviation of within-event residuals (f) are shown at the top of each panel.
bin. For this data bin, LL08 shows a better fit to the data, while other models show over-
prediction. As developed from the Taiwan data, our model and LL08 show the predictions
close to each other for most of the data range.
For the model extrapolation features, Figure 16 shows the prediction for an interface
earthquake with M8.2 at 8 km depth and VS30 of 401 m/s shown for T = 0.01 s and 2 s.
Note that the ground motion data is also plotted along with GMPEs’ prediction, and
GMPEs were computed using a scenario (top panel), which is the average values over the
relevant dataset. The dataset corresponds to a set of events including one event M8 from
Central America & Mexico region, three events M8.2, 8.3 and 8.3 from Japan region, and
three events M8.4, 8.3 and 8.2 from South America. In addition, Figure 17 shows the pre-
diction for an intraslab earthquake with M7.8 at 290 km depth and the site condition VS30
of 435 m/s shown for T = 0.01 s and 2 s. The data bin corresponds to a set of intraslab
events deeper 100 km including one event M8.0 from Alaska region, three events M7.6,

Table 5. Main features of the previously published models

GMPE Input M range (Ne) Depth Distance Site
parameters range range amplification
(Nrec)
Interface Intraslab
Abrahamson MW, Rrup, Rhypo, 5.0–7.9 6.0–8.4 unknown 10–300 km Nonlinear,

et al. (2016) VS30, H (43) (63) f (PGA, VS30)
(3543)
Zhao et al. MW, Rrup, Ztor 5.0–9.1 5.0–8.0 1–160 20–300 km Site Classes:
(2016a, 2016b) (76) (136) km Hard rock, SCI,
SCII, SCIII, SCIV
(3574, 4710)
Lin and Lee MW, Rhypo 4.1–6.7 5.3–8.1 3–150 10–300 NEHRP Site
(2008) (17) (37) km km Class: Rock
and Soil
(4383)
This study MW, Rrup, Ztor, 4.8–9.1 4.6–7.5 0–100 0–310 Nonlinear,
VS30, Z1.0 (36) (40) km km f (PGA, VS30)
(3314)
GMPE: ground motion prediction equation; PGA: peak ground acceleration; Ne: number of events; Nrec: number of
records; SCI, SCII, SCIII, and SCIV are four site classes defined by Molas and Yamazaki (1995). NEHRP is Site class
defined by Building Seismic Safety Council (2000).
Figure 14. Distance attenuation showing for comparison of the proposed model with previously
published GMPEs (Zh16, LL08, and AGA16) and for T = 0.01 s. The shaded area indicates the prediction
range within one sigma around the median.
7.9, and 8.4 from Japan region, and three events M7.5, 7.7, and 7.8 from South America.
As can be seen in the figures, the set of GMPEs show a wide range of prediction with vari-
ous level of distance attenuation in which the proposed model exhibits moderate distance

Phung et al. 1353
Figure 15. Distance attenuation showing the comparison of the proposed model with previously
published GMPEs (Zh16, LL08, and AGA16) and for T = 2.0s. The shaded area indicates the prediction
range within one sigma around the median.
Figure 16. Distance attenuation showing the comparison of models’ extrapolation with large
magnitude M8.2 of interface event for T = 0.01 s and 2.0 s.
attenuation and close to the prediction of the LL08, but notably different from the
AGA16 and the Zh16, especially for T = 2 s. The AGA16 and the Zh16 perform compa-
rable distance attenuation, but their predictions are largely different. The prediction range
of intraslab models have shown to be much broader than those of interface models. This
is because of the LL08 and the Zh16 not considering a cap on the depth scaling term. Our
intraslab model exhibits low predictions for distance less than about 300 km, and it shows
to be close the AGA16 prediction. In terms of the models comparing with the data, the
proposed model shows a generally good fit to the data over wide range of distance,

Figure 17. Distance attenuation showing the comparison of models’ extrapolation with large
magnitude M7.8 of intraslab event deeper than 100 km for T = 0.01 s and 2.0 s.
(a) (b)
Figure 18. Comparison on response spectra for earthquakes M6 (a) and M8 (b) at distance of 50 km
with given VS30 = 760 m/s.
suggesting the applicability of our model to large magnitude and deep intraslab earth-
quakes for PSHA in Taiwan.
Figure 18 shows a comparison of the response spectra for sites with a VS30 = 760 m/s.
The response spectra were computed for two magnitude earthquakes at a rupture distance
of 50 km: M = 6.0 earthquake using Ztor = 20 km and M = 8.0 earthquake using
Ztor = 5 km. Observations from our model reveals that the peak of the response spectra
of M6 is about T = 0.2 s for interface earthquake, while it appears at T = 0.15 s for
intraslab earthquake. The peak of response spectra of M8 is shifted to T = 0.5 s and
T = 0.2 s for interface earthquakes and slab earthquakes, respectively. This is not seen
from global GMPE–AGA16 and Zh16 model in which the peaks are observed to be
around 0.1 to 0.2 s. The LL08 model shows its peak to be near 0.15 s for M = 6.0, while

Phung et al. 1355
the peak is seen to be at 0.4 s for M = 8.0. It is understood that the dataset for the devel-
opment of AGA16 was a major part of the Zh16 dataset, while the regional difference
between Taiwan and Japan was already explored in the previous section. This might cause
significant misfit among peaks. However, we need to investigate the case further and need
more data from larger events to prove this point.
Summary and conclusion

As one of the GMPE models used for PSHA Taiwan study under the framework of
NCREE project, a GMPE model for predicting Taiwan subduction motion is developed
in this study. Development of the model was started by comparing the AGA16
(Abrahamson et al., 2016) function form with respect to the chosen dataset to find the key
modeling parameters that needed to be adjusted or calibrated to match the empirical data.
The use of large recorded motions gathered from Japan allowed us to reduce the gap for
Taiwan ground motion database. It was found that Japanese earthquakes show steeper
attenuation compared with Taiwanese earthquakes. This can be attributed to the differ-
ences in the source depth, the crustal thickness, and crustal structure (Burger et al., 1987;
Mori and Helmberger, 1996). The regional differences between Japan and Taiwan were
accounted for by using separate coefficients for anelastic attenuation (a6 ) and site amplifi-
cation (a12 ). The magnitude scaling term and the near source distance term (i.e. a
magnitude-dependent geometrical spreading) were constrained using combined regression
database. The result indicates that the developed model shows a faster attenuation slope
compared with the LL08 model and AGA16. However, the model is shown to have a
good fit in the range from M4.5 to M7.1 where the bulk of the data lie. This behavior can
be accepted and set by using the limitation of our GMPE in extrapolation to M9.0 as the
upper bound. By the same reason, the proposed model is suggested to be used for interface
and intraslab at distances and depths in the range that the data were used for the regres-
sion (i.e. Rrup \ 300 km and Ztor \ 100 km). If PSHA studies consider significantly for
the events deeper than 100 km, then an accompanying test is needed for the model
applicability.
It was found in the study that the inclusion of the Ztor–depth effect in the determination
of magnitude scaling term leads to the Mref value of 7.68 for T = 0.01 s. This is close to
7.8, a value used in the AGA16 as it is guided by results of the finite-fault simulations from
Gregor et al. (2002) and Atkinson and Macias (2009). In other words, intraslab earth-
quake ground motion for periods less than 0.5 s as observed to be larger than for interface
for small distances. Nevertheless, the attenuation is higher for slab earthquakes which
decreases the potential influenced area. These results are in agreement with those from the
global GMPEs (Youngs et al., 1997 and Atkinson and Boore, 2003).
Using a data set with VS30 . 330 m/s, a GMPE for PGA and pseudo-spectral accelera-
tion (PSA) with a 5% damping ratio for periods between 0.01 s and 5 s is developed for
predicting ground motion with linear scaling with VS30. Therefore, the site effect term
derived in this study is not recommended for soil sites (e.g. VS30 \ 250 m/s) unless a test
for the application is performed. Since the database provides basin depth parameters, Z1.0,
the proposed model with an additional basin depth term imposes a better constraint on
site parameters and reduces the value of fs2S , which in turn implies a reduction in total
within-event variability f. The results is also consistent with other regions (Montalva
et al., 2017), in which enhanced site term reduces model dispersion.

We note that one of the limitations in this study is that our GMPE does not consider
the characterization of the attenuation difference between force-arc and back-arc regions
(as indicated in Figure 1), which can be observable in Taiwan especially from the deep sub-
duction earthquakes or at large distances (.100 km). Because of the strong lateral hetero-
geneity, the stronger attenuation in the back-arc was identified to be significant in several
regions (e.g. Japan, Romania, New Zealand) (Beauval et al., 2017; Vacareanu et al., 2015).
We consider use of an average attenuation model acceptable in the current situation since
there is no metadata indicating fore-/back-arc locations in the database we employed. As
the metadata become available, we need to redevelop our GMPE considering distinct
attenuation in the force-arc and back-arc as it is modeled in the development of the global
Abrahamson et al. (2016) GMPE.
Acknowledgments
This research is part of the research program in National Center for Research on Earthquake
Engineering (NCREE). We thank Dr. Brian Chiou, Prof. Kuo-Liang Wen, and Prof. Yin-Nan
Huang for their meaningful discussions. We thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments,
which greatly helped to improve the manuscript. We also thank Uni-edit (www.uni-edit.net) for edit-
ing and proofreading this manuscript.
Data and resources

This study used the ground motion database compiled for the Taiwan NCREE–PSHA project. The
strong ground motion data in the NCREE GMC Ground Motion database version 9-20180620 is
provided by National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). Resource is web
page for Reevaluation of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard of Nuclear Facilities in Taiwan Using
NCREE Methodology Project (www.ncree.narl.org.tw/publication/technical).
Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
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Ground Motion Prediction Equation For Taiwan Subduction Zone Earthquakes

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Research paper

subduction zone earthquakes DOI: 10.1177/8755293020906829

Van-Bang Phung1,2, Chin Hsiung Loh1, Shu Hsien Chao3,

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Taiwan ground motion database

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Table 1. Summary Taiwan subduction earthquakes used in this study

1 9 24.115 121.689 5.7 25.3 0 69(0) 65.42 13(0)

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Functional form of subduction GMPE

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lnPSA = a1 + FMAG ðM, uÞ + FDIST ðM, R, uÞ + a7 Feve + FDEP ðZtor , uÞ

The site FSITE ðVs30, uÞ has the following functional form:

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Analysis of distance scaling of AGA16 GMPE with respect to Taiwan

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Figure 6 indicates the potential regional difference in terms of geometrical spreading

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Stage 1: regression for distance term

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Stage 2: regression for source term

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Stage 3: site term and basin depth

Model standard deviations

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Regression results and smoothing of coefficients

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Table 2. Model coefficients

0 4.4642 0.4420 0.0385 –0.0257 7.68

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Table 3. Model coefficients

0 –1.5528 –0.0119 0.1 10 0.25 0.6819 0.0160 0.0150 –0.0006

Table 4. Model coefficients

0 0.9903 –0.0628 1.18 1.88 –1.186 865.1 0.3523 0.3443 0.4130

site amplification. Figures showing examination of residuals are given in Supplemental

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Comparison of Taiwan model with previous published models

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Table 5. Main features of the previously published models

Abrahamson MW, Rrup, Rhypo, 5.0–7.9 6.0–8.4 unknown 10–300 km Nonlinear,

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Summary and conclusion

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Data and resources

Declaration of conflicting interests

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Atkinson GM and Boore DM (2003) Empirical ground-motion relations for subduction-zone

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