Abstract
Minimization of fatalities, material damage, and socio-economic destruction due to earthquakes depends on reliable estimates of seismic hazard. The paper presents the methodological foundations of seismic hazard assessment developed for Kazakhstan, the basic requirements and the list of work required to carry out seismic zoning of territories at different scale levels – general, detailed and microzoning. They were tested during the creation of Maps of General Seismic Zoning of the Territory of Kazakhstan, which were included in regulatory documents in 2017 and Maps of Seismic Microzoning of Almaty on a new methodological basis. A new approach to seismic hazard assessment is based on a methodology that complies with the main provisions of Eurocode 8 “Design of structures for earthquake resistance”, meets the needs of earthquake-resistant design and construction, is probabilistic and allows to assess seismic hazard not only in seismic intensity according to MSK-64(K) scale common for Kazakhstan, but also in quantitative parameters – peak ground accelerations. For each type of seismic zoning, general objectives are defined that can be solved with consideration of the scale of developed maps.