A Preliminary Study on the Zone of Faulting: Application to Nuclear Facility Sites

This paper presents some results from a research project, started in early 2007, to develop nuclear siting and site evaluation criteria regarding the zone of surface faulting and covers currently-used evaluating methods and activity monitoring techniques for the zone of surface faulting, introducing and reviewing fault monitoring systems installed and operated around world's active fault zones for the first half of the contents and the siting criteria and evaluation methods applied to nuclear facilities around the world for the second half. Preliminary results from this study, summarizing the current status of the faulting hazard assessment and monitoring applied to active fault zones and nuclear facility sites, suggest some principles and key factors to be concerned when developing nuclear siting and site evaluation criteria with respect to the faulting hazard assessment and activity monitoring.