The workshop aims to provide attendees from Nepal, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China with some of the modern tools and techniques needed to estimate seismic hazard, and to turn these into estimates of seismic risk.

UNESCO: ICTP seismology workshop in Nepal focuses on Himalayan hazards | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

But if the hazard information provided as input is inadequate, estimates of risk will be inaccurate, " said workshop director Abdelkrim Aoudia of ICTP's Earth System Physics section, adding, "Therefore, this workshop will focus specifically on issues that can lead to erroneous estimates of seismic hazard.

UNESCO: ICTP seismology workshop in Nepal focuses on Himalayan hazards | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The problem seismic-hazard practitioners face, however, is that the instrumental record of earthquakes is too short and the historical record too incomplete.

UNESCO: Tales set in Stone: learning from ancient earthquakes

The international geosciences programme (IGCP) project 567 on earthquake archaeology is intended to demonstrate that archaeological evidence can make a valuable contribution to long-term seismic-hazard assessments in earthquake-prone regions where there is a long and lasting cultural heritage.

UNESCO: Tales set in Stone: learning from ancient earthquakes