# Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment for United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain
## 2 Review of Previous Assessments and Building Regulations  
Since 1990s, several seismic hazard assessments have been conducted in the Arabian Gulf region including the countries of UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Depending on their availability, they are arranged chronologically as the following: [PERSON] et al. [10], [PERSON] et al. [11], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [12], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [13], [PERSON] et al. [14], [PERSON] et al. [15], [PERSON] et al. [16], [PERSON] et al. [17], [PERSON] [18], [PERSON] et al. [19], [PERSON] et al. [20], and [PERSON] et al. [21]. Table 1 represents an attempt to shed light on and compare those seismic hazard assessments performed previously upon the surroundings of the region of interest. Terms of comparison are the study region (local, regional, or specific sites), the applied attenuation relationships based on the considered seismic sources, the software code used, and the main output results. As it can be seen from Table 1, some of these studies were conducted in order to assess the seismic hazard at a regional level, like those for the Middle East [11], the Arabian Peninsula [10; 21], or the Arabian Gulf countries [14; 19]. While, other studies focused on the UAE (e.g., [12; 15; 20]), or specifically on some important big cities (e.g., [13; 16; 17; 18]). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**The Study** & **Study Region** & **Attenuation Relationships** & **Software Code** & **Results** \\ \hline [PERSON] and [PERSON] [12] & The UAE and its surroundings & [PERSON] [36] model that was derived for the Zagros & EQERSER [37] & PCA map for a return period of 475 years \\ \hline [PERSON] and [PERSON] [13] & Dubai, UAE & Models by [PERSON] et al. [22] and [PERSON] [38] & Not provided & Hazard curves, UHS, and PCA values for return periods of 475, 975 and 2475 years. \\ \hline [PERSON] et al. [14] & The Arabian Gulf including & Models by [PERSON] et al. [9] and [PERSON] and [PERSON] & Not provided & Hazard curves for the selected cities, UHS, and RO analyses [3] were applied for the Arabian stable catonic, while & PGA values for return periods of 475 and 2475 years. \\ \hline [PERSON] et al. [15] & The UAE & Model by [PERSON] et al. [22] was used for the estimation of SA values, while the Ambreasys [41] & Not provided & PCA and SA values for a return period of 475 years \\  & & model was applied for the prediction of the & & \\ \hline [PERSON] et al. [16] & Fifteen major cities in the UAE & The model by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [38] was applied for the defined source. & Hazr\_phree (FOF[]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F]{F[F[]{F[]{F[{F[]{F[{F[{F[{F[{  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
In terms of the implemented seismic source model (Table 1), some of these studies applied a simple and a regional model (e.g., [10; 13; 14; 15; 16]) in which the ZBFTB, the Makran subduction zone, and the Arabian Gulf Craton (see Figure 1) were considered as a single potential seismic source. Meanwhile, other studies, e.g., [12; 17; 19; 20; 21], tried to delimit different seismic zones differentiating the prevailing seismotectonic environment in their studied regions (see Table 1). Accordingly, a variety of different ground-motion attenuation models were applied in each individual study. Some of the most commonly used models in the previous assessments, for the shallow active crustal regions, were those developed by [PERSON] et al. [22; 23], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [24], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [25], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [26; 27], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [28], and [PERSON] and [PERSON] [29]. The applied models for the active subduction regions were those of [PERSON] et al. [30], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [31], and [PERSON] et al. [32]. Furthermore, for some assessments that considered the Arabian stable cratonic area, the models by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [33; 34] and/or [PERSON] [35] were used.