EPS Colloquium – David Wald, USGS

Rapid Earthquake Shaking and Impact Estimation at the U.S. Geological Survey

This lecture features a combined seismological and earthquake engineering view of the status and future rapid earthquake shaking and impact assessments at the USGS. After some background on existing and new USGS rapid shaking and loss-estimation strategies, I discuss ongoing advancements to improve the accuracy, resolution, and timeliness of our earthquake information product suite. These include improved source-finiteness characterization, added engineering-intensity measures, predicting secondary hazards, such as landsliding and liquefaction, and updating our hazard and loss models based on ground-truth observations. New developments in remote sensing, rapid impact reporting, and machine learning enable innovative data-fusion strategies that integrate with existing models and significantly improve the accuracy and spatial resolution of rapid shaking and loss estimates.

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David Wald is a seismologist with the USGS National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) and is an Affiliate Faculty member in Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines. He completed his Ph.D. at Caltech in 1993. Wald leads the development and operations of real-time information systems, including ShakeMap, Did You Feel It?, PAGER, ShakeCast, and Ground Failure. Wald served on the Board of Directors for the Seismological Society of America (SSA) and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and received SSA’s Frank Press Public Service Award and their Distinguished Lecturer. David is the Past Editor-in-Chief of the journal Earthquake Spectra and has been EERI’s Distinguished Lecturer. In 2021, Wald was awarded the EERI-SSA Joyner Lectureship, an AGU Fellow, and received the USGS Shoemaker Lifetime Achievement Award in Communications, an award granted annually to a scientist who creates excitement and enthusiasm for science among non-scientists by using effective communication skills. In 2023, David received the Presidential Rank Award, which recognizes a select group of U.S. Government Senior Executive Service career members for exceptional performance over an extended period. Wald is also the recipient of EERI’s 2025 Alfred E. Alquist Special Recognition Medal, in recognition of “his extraordinary contributions to earthquake hazard and risk reduction in the U.S. and worldwide”.