About the AME Format This is taken from one of the ERN.

Modules available from the wiki page at ecapra.org The AME formats are simultaneously two things: A standard way of representing the natural phenomena threats. A computational interface to create models which describe natural threats. The AME are constituted by a collection of possible scenarios of occurrence of a natural event. It is considered that those scenarios are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. The first characteristic considers that a natural event -an earthquake occurrence for instance- may occur as indicated in scenario 1 or 2 but can not occur as indicated by both at the same time. In other word, this condition means that two scenarios from the collection can not occur at the same time. The second characteristic, being collectively exhaustive, means that the scenarios collection is complete in the sense that the natural event can not occur in a different way than those depicted in the collection scenarios. The AME files describe certain characteristics of the scenarios which are relevant for the probabilistic hazard analysis. These characteristics are: Its annual frequency of occurrence The intensities spatial distribution produced during the scenario occurrence. The intensities produced are local measurements of the natural event severity. For instance, an earthquake intensity could be measured in soil maximum acceleration means, and the hurricane wind intensity could be measured with the maximum velocity of wind. It is possible that a scenario severity may not be correctly described with just one intensity measurement. In an earthquake case for example, just the soil maximum acceleration is not relevant. Since the movement frequency content is taken into account, it is necessary to describe the intensity with more than one measurement. AME format allows then that a scenario severity is defined with more than one intensity measurement. In the hazard probabilistic analysis context, intensities during an event are not accurate figures, indeed, there is some uncertainties regarding its

values. Those should be seen and treated as random variables. So to describe each one of the intensities produced during an scenario it would be necessary to define the necessary statistical momentums to define the intensity probability distribution, given that the scenario. Today, AMES admits 4 distribution of probabilities, all of them defined by two statistical momentums. It is necessary then to define two statistical momentums for each intensity measurement which arose during an event. In summary, an AME describes a natural hazard by means of a certain number of occurrence scenarios, each associated to an annual frequency and to a spatial distribution of several intensity measures; these measures are described with two statistical moments of a probability distribution.