Macroseismic Characterization through Earthquake Environmental Effects: Dataset update and Grid-Based applications of the ESI-07 scale

This PhD dissertation is developed within the GEOSCIENCES-IR project, funded by the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and aimed at building a national research infrastructure for the Italian Network of Geological Surveys (RISG). Within the Work Package 3 “Landslides and Sinkholes”, the research contributes to applied studies, technological innovation, and knowledge transfer to support decision-making for risk reduction. The work focuses on Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEEs), and their integration within the Environmental Seismic Intensity (ESI-07) scale. EEEs represent a direct link between geological processes and seismic intensity, offering a long-term, reproducible record of earthquake impact. Despite the growing adoption of ESI-07 worldwide, gaps remain in data harmonization, methodological standardization, and the integration of heterogeneous sources. To address these challenges, the dissertation pursues two main objectives: a) the compilation of harmonized and interoperable ESI-07 and EEE datasets across different spatial scales, and; b) the development and testing of a grid-based framework for quantitative and reproducible intensity assessment. The research is structured into three main parts. At the global scale, a comprehensive catalogue of ESI-07 applications is developed by expanding the 2022 dataset of Ferrario et al. The resulting inventory collects more than two decades of worldwide studies, highlighting the temporal and geographical distribution of ESI-07 applications, the diversity and evolution of methodological approaches, such as ESI-07 shakemaps and attenuation models. The analysis reveals persistent gaps in time and space, emphasizing the need for coordinated international initiatives and systematic documentation of environmental effects. At the national scale, the study compiles a harmonized dataset of earthquake-induced landslides (EQUILs). This new dataset integrates multiple sources (e.g.,CEDIT, CFTI, EEE, IFFI archives, and academic works) following Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principles and ensuring full compatibility with the national landslide inventory (IFFI). The resulting catalogue provides a national-scale overview of Italian EQUILs and supports the analysis of their spatial-temporal distribution, and recurrence. Building upon these foundations, the third part develops and tests a grid-based quantitative methodology for the derivation of ESI-07 intensities from EQUILs. The workflow, refined from Ferrario (2022), is applied to 40 landslide EQUILs inventories from US Geological Service (USGS) for 33 global earthquakes, in order to explore empirical relationships between ESI-07 intensity, Landslide Number Density (LND), and Landslide Area Percentage (LAP). The methodology is then extended to all categories of EEEs and validated through an in-depth case study of the Mw 7.5 Noto Peninsula earthquake (Japan, 1 January 2024). The integration of field data, remote sensing, and social-media reports enables a multi-source reconstruction of the environmental impact, while grid-based maps provide consistent and spatially explicit representations of intensity, in agreement with traditional ESI-07 isoseismals. The results confirm that EEEs constitute a robust and scalable foundation for quantitative macroseismic characterization, bridging geology, engineering seismology, and risk management. The harmonized datasets and the grid-based workflow together lay the groundwork for reproducible, FAIR-compliant, and operational tools for rapid post-event assessment. Finally, the research outlines perspectives for future developments, including the re-evaluation of historical datasets, participatory data collection, and integration of ESI-07 grids with seismological models and shakemaps.