Seismic zonation in Albania using a deterministic approach B. Muc ßo a, * , F. Vaccari b,c , G. Panza b,d , N. Kuka a a Seismological Institute, Tirana, Albania b Department of Earth Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy c INGeV, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Roma, Italy d The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, SAND Group, Trieste, Italy Received 10 November 2000; accepted 7 December 2001 Abstract The modal summation method to compute synthetic seismograms is applied to carry out a study of seismic zonation in Albania. From a seismotectonic synthesis and the available earthquake data, eight seismogenic zones are defined and for each of them, a characteristic focal mechanism is selected. A new seismic velocity model is used in the computations and is constructed on the basis of previous studies. Correlation relations between the maximum intensity values observed and the ground motion parameters obtained from this procedure are derived. The distribution of the calculated values of displacement, velocity and acceleration, will contribute to the quality of anti-seismic design practice in Albania and to the mitigation of earthquake consequences. D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Albania; Seismic hazard; Seismic zonation; Synthetic seismograms; Design ground acceleration 1. Introduction Although Albania is a country with mainly mod- erate-size seismicity, many of its towns and rural areas are devastated from time to time by different large and moderate earthquakes. The history of instrumental monitoring of seismic- ity in Albania started in 1968 with the installation of the first seismographic station of Tirana and more effectively, after the beginning of the operation of the Albanian Seismological Network (ASN), in 1976. In 1984, a network consisting of 28 strong motion instru- ments SMA-1 was installed throughout the country. Due to scarcity of spare parts and technical assistance, only the accelerograms of one sole earthquake have been correctly recorded. The absence of strong motion data for a seismic country is a real handicap influenc- ing the anti-seismic design practice. In Albania, the seismic hazard evaluation is carried out on a proba- bilistic way, based on the intensities of strong histor- ical earthquakes, the earthquakes of this century as well as on a seismotectonic synthesis (Sulstarova et al., 1980, 1991). The almost total absence of strong motion data and the time required for their collection, even through the proper operation of strong motion network of Albania in the future, lead us to carry out the seismic zonation of this country following a deterministic approach, based on the computation of synthetic seismograms. 0040-1951/02/$ - see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0040-1951(01)00279-7 * Corresponding author. 13001 Crookston Lane #17, Rockville, MD 20851, USA. E-mail address: betmuco@cs.com (B. Muc ßo). www.elsevier.com/locate/tecto Tectonophysics 344 (2002) 277– 288