A Study of Seismicity and Earthquake Hazard at the Proposed Kalabsha Dam Site, Aswan, Egypt

High and Aswan Dams Authority (HADA) proposed a plan aiming at constructing a rockfill dam in the Kalabsha area, about 60 km south of Aswan High Dam. The aim of this dam is to restrain the overflow of water to the Kalabsha Valley for keeping one billion cubic meters from being lost due to seepage and evaporation. The safety of dams during earthquakes is extremely important because failure of such a structure may have disastrous consequences on life and property. Therefore, different factors were considered as part of a site assessment. Five seismic source zones, close enough to the site to give rise to potentially damaging earthquake ground motions, were identified. Seven active faults that have the potential for producing significant earthquakes and that pass through or near the dam site were also identified. The earthquake loading represented by ground motions at the site was evaluated. Probabilistic seismic hazard procedures were used for assessing the earthquake loading at six individual sites using Area-and Line-Source Models (ASM & LSM). The ASM is based on current observed seismicity, whereas the LSM is based on geological slip rates. The output represents the expected acceleration amplitude with 90 percent probability of not being exceeded in exposure times of 20, 50, and 100 years. The results from the two models appear to be different, the expected ground motions from ASM were twice as high as expected from LSM. This difference is due to the load of the Aswan reservoir (Nasser Lake) triggering earthquakes on those parts of the faults that lie under the lake at Kalabsha area. The hazard at the selected sites is given by “the hazard curve” that is represented by the relationship between the peak ground acceleration and its annual exceedance probability. By comparing the curves for the six individual sites for the same source model, it can be concluded that the potential ground acceleration level for all the sites is almost the same. Considering the mean results from the two models, the annual exceedance probability of the expected ground acceleration from ASM is approximately ten times higher than the annual exceedance probability from LSM. Since ASM is based on current seismicity, it is more appropriate forrepresenting the actual hazard for the dam site. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002