A Multidisciplinary Approach to Earthquake Research: Implementation of a Geochemical Geographic Information System for the Gargano Site, Southern Italy

A priority task for correct environmental planningis to evaluate Natural Hazards, especially inhighly populated areas. In particular, thoroughinvestigations based on different Earth Sciencetechniques must be addressed for the Seismic HazardAssessment (SHA) in tectonically active areas. Notonly the management but also the multidisciplinaryanalysis of all the SHA-related data sets is bestperformed using a Geographic Information System. In this paper we show how a research-oriented GIS isbuilt and used in a practical case. The GeochemicalGeographic Information System (G<Superscript>2</Superscript>IS) wasdeveloped and applied to the Gargano promontory(southern Italy) in the framework of an EC researchproject, the Geochemical Seismic Zonation (GSZ)Project. This multidisciplinary – multiscalingpowerful tool is described in its structure, updatingprocedures and manipulation techniques. Preliminaryresults are presented on the detection of geochemically active fault zones and theircorrelation with remote sensing data and otherevidences of seismogenic structures. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999