EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION - A POLITICAL PROBLEM

Earthquake prediction is an area of research of great scientific and p ublic fascination. The reason for this is not only that earthquakes ca n cause extremely large numbers of fatalities in a short time, but als o because earthquakes call have a large social and economic impact on society. Earthquake prediction in the sense of malting deterministic p redictions about the place, time, and magnitude of earthquakes may ver y well be fundamentally impossible. However, based on a variety of dat a, earth scientists can make statements about the probability that ear thquakes with a certain size will occur in a certain region over a spe cified time period. In this context one speaks of ''earthquake forecas ting.'' A number of methods to achieve this are presented. However, it is not obvious how society should respond to these forecasts. It is s hown that there is a fundamental dilemma for decision makers that stat ements of scientists concerning earthquake occurrence either contain v ery specific information but are very uncertain, or contain very gener al information but are very certain. Earthquake hazard can to a large extent be reduced by formulating and enforcing appropriate building co des. However, given the fact that the majority of the population that is threatened by earthquakes is living in the third world, it is clear that this cannot easily be realized. For these reasons, earthquake pr ediction is not only a scientific problem: it also has a complex polit ical dimension.