On modeling seismicity in seismic hazard assessment problems

Seismicity modeling is an important part of creating General Seismic Zoning maps within the framework of a probabilistic approach. We consider the main disadvantages of individual elements of the recent seismicity models. A variant of the methodology is proposed, which, due to the improvements of those elements, should provide more accurate estimates of the future seismicity. For the first time, a stochastic seismicity model has been proposed in the form of a synthetic earthquake catalog, generated for an arbitrary conditional period and reproducing the properties of the catalog of actual earthquakes, including spatiotemporal grouping. A methodology for verifying seismicity models is proposed to check the compliance of the models with the initial data, to assess the predictive efficiency of the models, and to compare efficiency of different models.