Open Hazards is a group of scientists, technologists, and business people dedicated to the proposition that, through advances in forecasting and sensor technology, as well as an open, web-based approach to public information availability and sharing, we can enable a more sustainable human society in the face of severe, recurring natural disasters.

The objective of this web site is to inform and educate the public worldwide.  We provide a free, open, and independent assessment of hazard and risk due to major earthquakes, using a self-consistent, global, validated methodology. The information displayed on our web site is based on the best available science and technology as determined by the professional, peer-reviewed literature, as well as our own judgments, informed by many years of professional practice at the highest levels of academia and government. Our forecasts and risk estimates allow members of the public world-wide to understand and address, for the first time, their space- and time-dependent risk from major damaging earthquakes.

Recent trends and rising costs for coping with natural catastrophes lead to the conclusion that the public will bear an increasingly larger role, and will absorb an increasingly larger share of the costs for great natural disasters. These conclusions were reinforced by the aftermath(s) of Hurricane Katrina (2005); the great Magnitude 9.3 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004; the recent tsunami of September 30, 2009 at American Somoa following a Magnitude 8.0 earthquake; and US mainland earthquakes such as the January 17, 1994 Magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, and the October 17, 1989 Magnitude 7.0 Loma Prieta earthquakes.

Our goal is to provide members of the public with the information and tools to make informed judgments about the general nature and magnitude of the risks that they face. Together with modern social networking tools, we enable members of the public to build self-organized, disaster-resilient communities.

Site visitors can use the Hazard Viewer to make and view earthquake forecasts world-wide, to evaluate the success (retrospectively) of the forecast methodology, and to compute estimates of ground shaking. Visitors can also analyze temporal records of earthquake occurrence, and compare these with 15 day, 3 month, and 1 year moving averages, similar to financial data. Visitors can also use the Home Response tool to compute the expected damage to a residence anywhere in the world, given user-provided information on residential construction.

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