Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 106, No. 2, pp. –, April 2016, doi: 10.

1785/0120150214

Uncertainty in V S30-Based Site Response

by Eric M. Thompson and David. J. Wald

Abstract Methods that account for site response range in complexity from simple
linear categorical adjustment factors to sophisticated nonlinear constitutive models.
Seismic-hazard analysis usually relies on ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs);
within this framework site response is modeled statistically with simplified site param-
eters that include the time-averaged shear-wave velocity to 30 m (V S30 ) and basin depth
parameters. Because V S30 is not known in most locations, it must be interpolated or
inferred through secondary information such as geology or topography. In this article,
we analyze a subset of stations for which V S30 has been measured to address effects of
V S30 proxies on the uncertainty in the ground motions as modeled by GMPEs. The
stations we analyze also include multiple recordings, which allow us to compute the
repeatable site effects (or empirical amplification factors [EAFs]) from the ground mo-
tions. Although all methods exhibit similar bias, the proxy methods only reduce the
ground-motion standard deviations at long periods when compared to GMPEs without
a site term, whereas measured V S30 values reduce the standard deviations at all periods.
The standard deviation of the ground motions are much lower when the EAFs are used,
indicating that future refinements of the site term in GMPEs have the potential to sub-
stantially reduce the overall uncertainty in the prediction of ground motions by GMPEs.

Introduction
Recently, we reported on empirical amplification func-
tions (EAFs) from the Ancheta et al. (2014) database (referred
to as the Next Generation Attenuation [NGA]-West2 data-
base) for the purpose of mapping EAFs in California (Thomp-
son and Wald, 2014). However, the resulting suite of EAFs
also provides the opportunity to reflect on the overall accuracy
of V S30 -based site-response models as well as the proxies that
are often used to estimate V S30 , which we present in this ar-
ticle. Because our original goal was to map EAFs in California,
the geographic region under consideration in this article is also
California. The goal of this article is to compare the accuracy
of V S30 -based site models, in which V S30 values are estimated
from a wide range of available methods, including site-spe-
cific measurements and different mapping techniques. In par-
ticular, we make an attempt to quantify the degree to which the
use of V S30 (through direct measurements or proxies) im-
proves our ability to model ground motions and the extent to
which it is possible to improve upon current V S30 -based site-
response models.
Although more detailed models can include the full
resonant response of S waves for a layered velocity model
and the strain dependence of the soil properties as amplitudes
increase (e.g., Hartzell et al., 2004), this study focuses only
on V S30 -based models of site response. These simpler site-
response models are still important because they are widely
available and used in ground-motion prediction equations
(GMPEs; e.g., Boore et al., 2014) that are, in turn, used for
probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis (e.g., Petersen et al.,
2014) and real-time hazard products, such as ShakeMap
(Wald et al., 1999; Worden et al., 2010).
Our previous efforts on the accuracy of V S30 proxies
(e.g., Thompson et al., 2010, 2014) assessed the accuracy of
alternative V S30 estimates in terms of V S30 residuals. However,
from the seismic-hazard perspective, the accuracy of the
resulting ground motions is more important. The pertinent
metric of accuracy should focus on how accurately the ground
motions are represented. Therefore, in this article, we focus on
assessing the accuracy of different V S30 estimates in terms of
ground-motion intensity measures (IMs; i.e., peak accelera-
tion, peak velocity, or spectral acceleration). Thus, we must
employ a V S30 -based model of site response, such as Choi
and Stewart (2005), Walling et al. (2008), Seyhan and Stewart
(2014), and Kamai et al. (2014). We arbitrarily adopt one par-
ticular site-response model for our comparison of V S30 ampli-
fications, because the current generation of V S30 -based site-
response models are based on similar methods and similar
data. We expect that this choice will have little effect on
the results; however, we acknowledge that the small portion
of our results regarding basin depth parameters will be more
sensitive to this choice because there is greater variety in the
proposed models and less data available to constrain and as-
sess those models.
Unlike the equations for relating V S30 to amplification,
the different methods of estimating V S30 vary substantially in

BSSA Early Edition / 1

2 E. M. Thompson and D. J. Wald

(a) (b) 1.0 (c) 1.0

0.4

Data: RJB ≤ 80 km
0.8 0.8
0.2

c (ln units)

φ (ln units)
τ (ln units)
0.6 0.6
0.0
0.4 0.4
−0.2
0.2 0.2
−0.4
0.0 0.0

1.0 1.0
Data: RJB ≤ 400 km

0.4
0.8 0.8
0.2
c (ln units)

φ (ln units)
τ (ln units)
0.6 0.6
0.0
0.4 0.4
−0.2
0.2 0.2
−0.4
0.0 0.0
0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10
Period (s) Period (s) Period (s)
Mean BSSA14: M 4.5, RJB = 80 km
95% CI BSSA14: M 4.5, RJB = 400 km

Figure 1. Mixed-effects regression parameters: (a) fixed effect (c), (b) standard deviation of the interevent residuals (τ), and (c) standard
deviation of the intraevent residuals (ϕ). The solid black lines indicate the maximum likelihood estimate, and the shaded gray areas give the
95% confidence intervals (CI). The top row uses only recordings with Joyner–Boore distance RJB < 80 km; the bottom row uses only
recordings with RJB < 400 km. Note that the there is only one curve for the Boore et al. (2014, or BSSA14) model of τ, because it does
not depend on distance.

scale and applicability. Thus, it is important to consider the Data

accuracy of different V S30 proxies. As discussed by Thomp-
son et al. (2011), we generally expect that the accuracy of a
V S30 mapping approach will be inversely related to its spatial
coverage. The topographic slope method of Wald and Allen
(2007) (updated by Allen and Wald, 2009) and the geomor-
phic terrain method of Yong et al. (2012) give global cover-
age, whereas the Wills et al. (2015) and Thompson et al.
(2014) maps only cover California. Thus, in the same manner
in which we only consider one site-response model, we com-
pare only one method of determining V S30 at each of the fol-
lowing spatial scales: global, regional, and site. We use the
Allen and Wald (2009) method at the global scale and the
Wills et al. (2015) map at the regional scale. In this article,
we refer to the Allen and Wald (2009) method as the topo-
graphic method and the Wills et al. (2015) map as the geol-
ogy method.
For a site-specific investigation, many different methods
of estimating V S30 are available. V S30 is computed from the
shear-wave velocity profile, which is estimated from geo-
physical techniques with varying levels of precision and
depth of penetration (see Boore and Asten, 2008, for a blind
comparison of different techniques). We do not wish to con-
sider the different geophysical techniques as additional var-
iables in our study, and so we simply treat all the V S30 entries
in the NGA-West2 site database that were derived from a
shear-wave velocity profile that extends to a depth of 20 m
or more as site-specific V S30 measurements (see Seyhan et al.,
2014, for more details).
For record selection, we use the same basic screening cri-
teria described by Boore et al. (2014; herein called BSSA14).
One complicating issue is that, although their equations are
applicable up to a maximum Joyner–Boore distance (RJB ; the
horizontal distance to the surface projection of rupture) of
400 km, they exclude records beyond RJB
80 km to deter-
mine some of the terms for the phase 2 regression. So it is
important for us to investigate the influence of the larger dis-
tance records on the residuals. Figure 1 plots the bias (c),
interevent and intraevent residual standard deviations (τ and
ϕ; see the Methods section for additional details), and the
95% confidence limits of these parameters against period for
RJB < 80 km (top row) and for RJB < 400 km (bottom row).
For comparison, we also plot lines to indicate the model
τ and ϕ given by BSSA14. One concern is that the bias
increases at long periods when data beyond RJB of 80 are
included. However, we decided that it is more important to
include these data in our analysis than to try to avoid this
small yet persistent bias.
With multiple recordings at a site, the EAF can be esti-
mated from multiple ground motions at that site (e.g., Joyner
and Boore, 1993; Tinsley et al., 2004; Lin et al., 2011;
Rodriguez-Marek et al., 2011). Because the EAF is estimated
by comparing the recorded IMs with the IMs for a constant
reference condition, they are not limited by the simplicity of
the V S30 proxy or other common site-response modeling as-
sumptions, such as a 1D vertical wave propagation. Thus, the

BSSA Early Edition

Uncertainty in V S30 -Based Site Response
150
Number of stations
100
50
0 effects. We refer to the recorded IM as y, which is a function
0.01 0.1 1 10
Period (s)
Figure 2. The number of stations that fulfill the data-screening
criteria as a function of period.
EAF is able to capture any repeatable site effects, including
velocity structure that is deeper than 30 m and deviations
from 1D behavior such as horizontally propagating surface
waves (Graves, 1993; Baise et al., 2003) and seismic scatter-
ing (Thompson et al., 2009). The EAF, however, is still sub-
ject to uncertainty because it is estimated from a limited
number of recorded motions. This uncertainty decreases as
the number of recordings at each station increases. There-
fore, we only include stations in our analysis for which we
can compute the EAF from four or more records for which
the BSSA14 nonlinearity term (Fnl ; see the Methods section)
is within 5% of unity to ensure that linear amplification can
be assumed (the records must also be from earthquakes for
which event terms could be computed using the BSSA14 re-
quirement of four records within 80 km). These selection cri-
teria yield 555 stations. Of those 555 stations, 194 have
measured V S30 values. This is the subset of data that we ana-
lyze in this article. The number of stations that fulfill these
criteria, shown in Figure 2, varies with period for two rea-
sons: (1) the longest usable period varies from record to rec-
ord, diminishing the number of available records as period
increases; and (2) nonlinear effects are stronger at shorter
periods, diminishing the number of available records as
period decreases.
Methods
Modern GMPEs typically model site response as a func-
tion of V S30 combined with parameters to approximate basin
depth, such as the depth at which the shear-wave velocity
profile exceeds 1:0 km=s (z1 ). In this article, we use z1 from
the NGA-West2 flatfile, which is compiled from a number of
BSSA Early Edition
3
difference sources (see Ancheta et al., 2014, for details). Fol-
lowing the approach of BSSA14, the site amplification term
FS is expressed as
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df1;313;697 FS
lnFlin   lnFnl   Fδz1 ; 1
in which Flin is the function that represents linear site effects,
Fnl is for the nonlinear site effects, and Fδz1 is for the effects
of basin depth. For convenience, Table 1 provides definitions
of selected variables employed in this article. Note that Fδz1
is centered such that it is relative to the value of z1 expected
for the V S30 at that site.
The first step in computing the EAF relative to a GMPE
reference condition is to compute the event terms, which are
the average of the residuals for each event. They vary with
period and must be subtracted from the data to isolate the site
of oscillator period T. To compute the event terms, we adjust
the recorded data to a consistent reference site condition; for
this, we adopt the BSSA14 equations with a V S30 of 760 m=s
(which means that FS
0). We refer to the V S30
760-
adjusted recorded values as yr
y= expFS  so the unad-
justed and reference-condition-adjusted residuals are
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df2;313;457 R
lny − ln^y; 2
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df3;313;412 Rr
lnyr  − ln^y; 3
respectively, in which y^ is the BSSA14 prediction for
V S30
760 m=s. The event terms are then computed by
separating the total residuals defined in equation (3) into
interevent and intraevent residuals using the mixed-effects
framework:
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df4;313;341 Rr i;j
c  ηi  εi;j ; 4
in which i is the earthquake event index, j is the record index,
c is the mean residual (i.e., the overall bias of the residuals
relative to the BSSA14 predictions), ηi is the mean residual
for the ith event (i.e., event term, interevent residual, or be-
tween-event residual), and εi;j is the intraevent (i.e., within
event) residual. The standard deviation of ηi is τ, and the
standard deviation of εi;j is ϕ. We estimate the residuals
and their standard deviations using the mixed-effects regres-
sion package nlme in R (Pinheiro et al., 2013).
The pertinent residual for defining the EAF is to subtract
the event term from the unadjusted residuals, giving
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df5;313;177 Rec i;j
R − ηi − c; 5
in which the “ec” subscript indicates that this is the event-
corrected residual. Up until this point, we have used the term
EAF qualitatively. Quantitatively, we define the EAF as the
mean Rec i;j at a site:
4 E. M. Thompson and D. J. Wald
Table 1
Definitions of Selected Variables
Variable
IM Ground-motion IM; for example, peak ground
acceleration and spectral acceleration
FS Site amplification based on V S30 ; natural logarithm of
amplification ratio
Flin Linear site amplification
Fnl Nonlinear site amplification
Fδz1 Site amplification due to basin depth
y Recorded ground-motion IM
yr
y=FS V S30
760-adjusted recorded ground-motion IM
R Logarithmic ground-motion residual relative to the
V S30
760 prediction
Rr Logarithmic V S30
760-adjusted ground-motion
residual relative to V S30
760 prediction
c Ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE) bias
τ Interevent residual standard deviation
ϕ Intraevent residual standard deviation
Rr i;j Rr for event i and record j
Rec i;j R adjusted for the interevent residual
EAF Mean Rec i;j at a site
μX Bias of the site term; mean of EAF minus FS ; subscript
indicates how FS is computed
ϕX Standard deviation of EAF minus FS ; subscript
indicates how FS is computed
ϕE , ϕSS Special case of ϕX in which FS equals the EAF;
referred to as single-station σ by Atkinson (2006) and
defined as ϕSS by Al Atik et al. (2010)
δS2SS EAF − FS
ϕS2S Standard deviation of δS2SS
IM, intensity measure; EAF, empirical amplification factor.
1X n
EAF

n j
1 ec i;j
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df6;55;372
in which n is the number of recordings at that site. Thus, the
median amplification factor is expEAF. We have computed
EAF from the analysis of the interevent residuals from a
mixed-effects regression. Stafford (2014) has pointed out
that that this is not optimal because the site terms will affect
the event terms, and so a more formal analysis would
compute the site and the event terms simultaneously.
To quantify the accuracy of the linear components of FS ,
we compute the bias (μ) and standard deviation (ϕ) of the
site-response residual Rec i;j − FS  using different assump-
tions for FS :
• μX and ϕX are the μ and ϕ for which FS
0 and Fδz1
0.
In other words, no site term has been applied.
• μT and ϕT are the μ and ϕ for which FS is computed from
the Allen and Wald (2009) topographic slope-based V S30
and Fδz1
0.
• μG and ϕG are the μ and ϕ for which FS is computed from
the Wills et al. (2015) geology-based V S30 and Fδz1
0.
• μM and ϕM are the μ and ϕ for which FS is computed from
measured V S30 and Fδz1
0.
• μM;Z and ϕM;Z are the μ and ϕ for which FS is computed
from measured V S30 and Fδz1 is computed from z1 (taken
from the 3D velocity models for northern and southern
California). There are 98 stations where z1 is not available,
Definition
and so Fδz1
0 at these stations for the calculation of these
parameters.
• μE and ϕE are the μ and ϕ for which FS is computed as
EAF; thus, μE is uninteresting and equal to zero by def-
inition. Note that ϕE is the same as single-station σ as
defined by Atkinson (2006) and termed ϕSS by Al Atik
et al. (2010).
Example Sites
Comparing the EAF with V S30 -based amplifications at a
few example sites illustrates the different types of uncertain-
ties in modeling the site term. Unless otherwise noted, in this
section we assume Fδz1
0. Figure 3 plots the EAF along
with FS for four different stations. Summary information for
each station is given in Table 2. The proxy-based V S30 values
for both geology and topography result in a good match
between the EAF and FS at the Chino station; in this case,
we expect that a more accurately measured V S30 , or even a
site-specific analysis, could not provide significant improve-
ment to the proxy-based V S30 site-response model.
The EAF at China Lake is not well modeled by the geol-
ogy- and topography-based V S30 estimates: both result in
amplifications greater than one, whereas the EAF indicates
that the site amplification is smaller than that for the refer-
ence V S30 of 760 m=s. Yong et al. (2013) measured the V S
profile at China Lake and also reported that the local geology
is granite, whereas the Wills et al. (2015) map classifies this
location as steep Quaternary alluvium (V S30
351:9 m=s).
R  ; 6
If we remove the classification error that results from the spa-
tial precision of the digitized geology map by using the mean
V S30 for crystalline rock of 710:1 m=s reported by Wills et al.
(2015), we see that the agreement between FS and the EAF is
improved (this corresponds to the FS curve labeled “True”
geology in Fig. 3 for China Lake). However, this value of
V S30 still does not reproduce the deamplification (relative to
V S30
760 m=s) that is observed at China Lake. If we use
the site-specific measured V S30 of 1463 m=s reported by
Yong et al. (2013), then we see that the resulting FS
adequately reproduces the EAF.
Figure 3 also shows that the proxy-based V S30 amplifi-
cations do not accurately match the EAF for the Saticoy site.
At long periods, the measured V S30 value gives better results
than the proxy-based V S30 values but still underpredicts the
EAF. The median EAF at Saticoy reach a maximum value of
about 5–6 at long periods (around 2–10 s) and indicates that
this is a deep-soil site. Adding the Fδz1 term to the FS
calculation improves the fit further by increasing the long-
period amplification to about a factor of 4. The formulation
of the Fδz1 term in BSSA14 only affects periods greater than
0.65 s, and so the shorter periods remain unaffected. The z1
parameter helps because it accounts for the fact that the
soil at this site is deeper than the average site with the same
V S30 value.
BSSA Early Edition
Uncertainty in V S30 -Based Site Response 5

10
Chino China Lake

Amplification: exp(FS), exp(EAF)

1

0.1

10
Saticoy Barrett
Amplification: exp(FS), exp(EAF)

0.1
0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10
Period (s) Period (s)

EAF FS
exp(EAF) Geology VS30 Measured VS30
95% CI Topography VS30 Measured VS30, with Fδz1
"True" Geology VS30

Figure 3. Four example sites comparing the empirical amplification factor (EAF) to V S30 -based amplifications (FS ) for different estimates
of V S30 . In all cases Fnl
0 and Fδz1
0 unless otherwise noted. The shaded gray areas indicate the 95% CI for the EAF. Geology V S30 is
from Wills et al. (2015), and topography V S30 is from Allen and Wald (2009). The color version of this figure is available only in the
electronic edition.

The EAF at Barrett shows amplifications factors of about
2–3 at short periods (0.01–0.3 s) and slight deamplification at
mid-to-long periods (> 0:6 s). This is a site where no V S30
value will be able to model the shape of the observed am-
plification, simply because FS does not produce a peak at
these shorter periods for any V S30 –z1 combination. The mea-
sured V S30 value here is 511 m=s, indicating that it is a stiff-
soil–soft-rock site. Although the FS does not match the EAF,
the shape of the EAF is consistent with this interpretation of
the site conditions associated with the value of V S30 in the
sense that we expect stiff sites to resonate at shorter periods.
The z1 taken from the velocity profile at this site (from Yong

Table 2
Site Parameters for Stations in Figure 2
V S30 m=s
Station Name Longitude (°) Latitude (°) Measured Geology Topography z1 (km)

Chino −117.68 33.999 292 293.5 319 0.320

China Lake −117.597 35.81574 1464 351.9 538 0.003
Saticoy −119.1646 34.293 249 351.9 433 0.740
Barrett −116.6722 32.68005 511 710.1 539 —

BSSA Early Edition

6 E. M. Thompson and D. J. Wald
4
FS = 0
(Rec)i,j − FS 0
−2
μX = 0.433 φX = 0.754
−4
4
Measured VS30
2
(Rec)i,j − FS
−2
μM = −0.028 φM = 0.591
−4
100 1000
VS30 (m/s)
Figure 4. Plots of the site-response residual Rec i;j − FS with V S30 for T
1 s and for different assumptions for the site term (FS ). In
each plot, the abscissa is the measured V S30 value, even in panels for which FS is computed without the use of measured V S30 . The black dots
and vertical bars give the binned means and 1 standard deviations.
et al., 2013) is 25 m, and Figure 3 shows that this gives a
slight improvement in fit between FS and the EAF at long
periods but is unable to meaningfully improve the site-re-
sponse model at this location. For a stiff site such as this,
the z1 parameter would ideally increase FS at short periods
and decrease FS at longer periods to reflect the shift in res-
onance frequency to shorter periods as the ground becomes
stiffer.
These examples illustrate that the EAF may be accu-
rately modeled with simple V S30 proxies or that it can be lim-
ited by the uncertainty of the proxy. The Saticoy and Barrett
sites further demonstrate that, even when the V S30 is known
with precision and even when the Fδz1 term is included and
z1 is known accurately, the EAF may be impossible to rep-
licate with existing V S30 models. The four example sites in
Figure 3, however, cannot give an indication of the preva-
lence of these different types of errors; in other words, it
is important to know whether sites like Barrett or Chino
are more common. We address this issue in the next section,
where we compute summary statistics for all of the sites
within the NGA-West2 database for which we can estimate
the EAF and for which the V S30 has been measured.
Uncertainty in Site-Response Models
To visualize the data across all sites, we plot the site-re-
sponse residuals Rec i;j − FS  for each of the different FS
estimates against V S30 for T
1 s in Figure 4; the bias and
Topography−based VS30 Geology−based VS30
μT = −0.023 φT = 0.720 μG = −0.008 φG = 0.711
Measured VS30 with Fδz1 FS = FEAF
μM,Z = −0.032 φM,Z = 0.596 μE = 0.000 φE = 0.448
100 1000 100 1000
VS30 (m/s) VS30 (m/s)
standard deviation for each case is labeled in the figure. Be-
cause we are plotting Rec i;j − FS in Figure 4, it contains
two components of variability, as discussed by Al Atik et al.
(2010): the deviation of the EAF (i.e., mean Rec ) at each site
from FS (δS2SS ; i.e., EAF − FS ), and the remaining record-
to-record residual Rec i;j − EAF. Although the variability
of Rec i;j is useful, because it is analogous to ϕ reported in
GMPEs, δS2SS (given in Fig. 5) is useful because it does not
include the record-to-record component of variability at each
site. Another benefit of δS2SS is that it gives equal weight to
each site, whereas Rec i;j places more weight on sites with
more recordings. The standard deviation of δS2SS is defined
as ϕS2S by Al Atik et al. (2010), and we report ϕS2S for differ-
ent estimates of V S30 in Figure 5. There are only five panels
in Figure 5 because we did not include the plot of δS2SS for
FS
EAF, which is zero by definition.
The outlier in Figure 5 at low V S30 values is the Salton
Sea Wildlife Refuge (SSWR) station. The negative residual
indicates that the EAF is overpredicted by FS for T
1 s
spectral acceleration, which is based on a measured V S30
of 191 m=s. Although it is beyond the scope of this article
to analyze this individual site in detail, we note that this sta-
tion is located on Imperial Valley alluvium and that there is
no reason to suspect that the V S profile or V S30 is inaccurate.
However, the station is located about 300 m southeast of
Rock Hill, which rises about 25 m above the alluvium. Rock
Hill is one of a series of rhyolite domes that form a nearly
linear northeast–southwest-trending transect in the Salton
BSSA Early Edition
Uncertainty in V S30 -Based Site Response
4
FS = 0 Topography−based VS30
δS2Ss 0
−2
φS2S = 0.625
−4
100 1000 100
VS30 (m/s)
4
Measured VS30
2
δS2Ss
−2
φS2S = 0.419
−4
100 1000
VS30 (m/s)
Figure 5. Plots of δS2SS with V S30 for T
1 s and for different assumptions for the site term (FS ). In each plot, the abscissa is the
measured V S30 value, even in panels for which FS is computed without the use of measured V S30 . The black dots and vertical bars give the
binned means and 1 standard deviations. The Salton Sea Wildlife Refuge station (SSWR) is labeled because it is an outlier and is discussed
in the text.
Sea geothermal field (Robinson et al., 1976). Thus, we sus-
pect that velocity structure in the vicinity of this station ex-
hibits complex 3D variability, which is the source of the
anomalous linear site-response behavior.
All of the V S30 estimates substantially reduce the bias
and standard deviation for T
1 s (Figs. 4 and 5). To see
the trends across a broad range of periods, we plot the bias
and standard deviations of the site-response residuals for
periods from 0.01 to 10 s in Figure 6; the analogous figure
for δS2SS is given in Figure 7. We include both bias and stan-
dard deviations in these plots to provide a complete descrip-
tion of accuracy. That said, the standard deviation is much
more important, because the bias can be small even in the
presence of large scatter in the residuals. In Figure 6, we also
include the Rodriguez-Marek et al. (2013) model of ϕSS
(which is the same as ϕE ). Their model is a function of mag-
nitude and rupture distance (RRUP ); and, for the comparison,
we select RRUP
84 km (the median RRUP from our data
set) and M 5 (the median in our data is 4.2, but their equa-
tions are constant for M < 5). The comparison between the
Rodriguez-Marek et al. (2013) model of ϕSS to our estimates
of ϕE shows very good agreement at long periods, but we
obtained consistently larger values than their model as period
decreases.
The large positive bias seen in Figures 6 and 7 for the
curves that assume FS
0 is because linear site effects tend
BSSA Early Edition
7
Geology−based VS30
φS2S = 0.593 φS2S = 0.568
1000 100 1000
VS30 (m/s) VS30 (m/s)
Measured VS30 with Fδz1
SSWR
φS2S = 0.423
100 1000
VS30 (m/s)
to amplify the ground motion; the GMPE without the site-
term results in underprediction (positive bias). When the site
term is added, all the different methods decrease the bias dra-
matically. The standard deviations give a different trend: the
FS from proxy-based V S30 values do not reduce the standard
deviations at short periods (T < ∼1 s) but do provide minor
reductions at longer periods. The measured V S30 reduces the
standard deviations further. We do not see much improve-
ment with the addition of the z1 parameter, but this is likely
because this parameter is unavailable at more than half of the
sites in our analysis.
Discussion
The reduction in the bias, relative to FS
0, is arbitrar-
ily determined by the assumed reference V S30 . For example,
the bias of the “no site” curve in Figures 6 and 7 will be
reduced if we assume a reference site condition of
V S30
373 m=s (the median V S30 for the sites in our analy-
sis). Therefore, it is important not to attribute all of this re-
duction in bias to the use of V S30 . The bias plots in Figures 6
and 7, however, do demonstrate that, on average, measured
V S30 values do not reduce the bias relative to the use of
proxy-based V S30 estimates.
To further illustrate the reduction in ϕ and ϕS2S for the
different site-term methods, we compute the percentage
change in standard deviation relative to the standard devia-
8 E. M. Thompson and D. J. Wald

(a) 0.8 (b) 1.0

μX μM Rodriguez−Marek et al. (2013)

μT μM,Z φSS(M=5, RRUP=84 km)
0.6 μG μE 0.8

Standard deviation (ln units)

Bias (ln units)
0.4 0.6

0.2 0.4

0.0 0.2 φX φM
φT φM,Z
φG φE

−0.2 0.0
0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10
Period (s) Period (s)

Figure 6. (a) Bias and (b) standard deviation of Rec i;j as a function of period for different assumptions for the site term (FS ). The
Rodriguez-Marek et al. (2013) model of ϕSS is included to compare with our estimate (labeled ϕE ).

(a) 0.8 (b) 1.0

0.6 0.8
Standard deviation (ln units)
Bias (ln units)

0.4 0.6

0.2 0.4

0.0 0.2

−0.2 0.0
0.01 0.1 1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10
Period (s) Period (s)

No site Topography Geology Measured Measured, z1

Figure 7. (a) Bias and (b) standard deviations of δS2SS (i.e., ϕS2S ) as a function of period for different assumptions for the site term (FS ).

tions obtained with no site term in Figure 8. Surprisingly, the
proxy values provide no reduction in ϕ and ϕS2S at short peri-
ods (T < 1 s). The proxy values reduce ϕ by 5%–12% and
ϕS2S by 8%–22% at longer periods (T > 1 s). Measured V S30
(with or without z1 ) reduces ϕ by 3%–9% and ϕS2S by
5%–18% for shorter periods (<∼0:2 s) and reduces ϕ by
15%–24% and ϕS2S by 26%–40% at periods longer than
0.5 s. It is important to remember that the reduction of ϕ
is always less than that of ϕS2S , because the latter does
not include the record-to-record variability that remains after
adjusting for the repeatable site effects (i.e., the standard
deviation of Rec i;j − EAF, or ϕE ). As a percentage of
the total variability, ϕE is represented in Figure 8 by the curve
for the percentage change in ϕ for the EAF. It is also possible
that, if the GMPE developers had regressed their models
against a particular proxy-based V S30 , then that method
might have performed slightly better in our comparisons.
That said, we expect this effect to be minimal, particularly
since the developers used a mixture of inferred and measured
V S30 values in their regression.
It has long been recognized that, besides V S30 , basin
depth is an important factor (e.g., Campbell, 1997; Field,
2000). For the site term in BSSA14, basin depth is modeled
with the z1 parameter. At present, although this parameter
can provide improvement over V S30 alone for individual sites
(such as Saticoy in Fig. 3), our results indicate that on

BSSA Early Edition

Uncertainty in V S30 -Based Site Response
(a) 10 Percentage change in φ
0
−10
Percentage change
−20
−30
−40
−50
−60
0.01 0.1
Period (s)
Topography
Figure 8. (a) Percentage change of ϕ and (b) ϕS2S relative to using no site term.
average it does not provide a significant benefit across all
sites. However, this is primarily because z1 is not known
for more than half of the sites. It is important to obtain es-
timates of z1 at more sites, and this is particularly true for
stiff-soil sites where the current basin depth terms are not
able to reflect the increased amplifications at high frequen-
cies (such as Barrett in Fig. 3). Fundamental frequency (f 0 )
has also been proposed as a viable parameter to augment
V S30 (e.g., Cadet et al., 2012; Di Alessandro et al., 2012),
which could fulfill a similar role as z1 . An important benefit
to augmenting V S30 with f 0 is that it is relatively easy to ob-
tain estimates of f0 in locations where a deep site investiga-
tion is not feasible and a 3D velocity model is unavailable.
Regardless of which parameter is used, it is important that
the site term be able to reflect the shift in site period to short
periods for stiff sites, as seen at the Barrett station (Fig. 3).
Our analysis has some similarities to the analyses pre-
sented by both Rodriguez-Marek et al. (2013) and Boore
(2004; section 4.1.2). The reduction in the interevent stan-
dard deviations that we observe in Figure 8 (from ϕM to ϕE )
is analogous to the change from the use of ergodic interevent
standard deviations to partially nonergodic interevent stan-
dard deviations (i.e., single-station ϕ) as discussed in Rodri-
guez-Marek et al. (2013). Although Rodriguez-Marek et al.
(2013) developed models of single-station ϕ (i.e., ϕSS ) for
use in partially nonergodic probabilistic seismic-hazard
analysis (PSHA), our purpose in computing ϕE is to assess
the relative accuracy of the site terms in GMPEs. Within this
context, ϕE represents an unobtainable minimum standard
deviation for the site term. For PSHA applications, it is better
to directly use models of single-station ϕ than to compute it
from models of ergodic ϕ paired with modification terms
such as those in Figure 8.
Boore (2004) plotted T
2 s response spectral resid-
uals as a function of V S30 for a subset of sites with measured
9
(b) Percentage change in φ S2S
1 10 0.01 0.1 1 10
Period (s)
Geology Measured Measured, z1 EAF
values and compared the standard deviations for different
formulations of the site term. The focus of the analysis, how-
ever, was to assess the value of using V S30 as the site-term
versus site-class categories (e.g., soil versus rock). The re-
sults for T
2 s yielded (base 10) logarithmic standard de-
viations of 0.25 for no site class, 0.25 for a binary soil–rock
site classification, 0.21 for National Earthquake Hazards Re-
duction Program site classes, and 0.20 for V S30 as a continu-
ous random variable; the corresponding percentage change is
−20%, which is similar to the value that we report at T
2 s
in Figure 8 (∼23%). This difference is not surprising, given
the differences in the data and GMPE in the analysis.
Differences between our analysis and that of Boore (2004)
include the following:
• We focus on the performance of alternative V S30 proxies
rather than categorical versus continuous site terms. The
use of V S30 in GMPEs is much more pervasive (although
still not without controversy) than at the time Boore (2004)
was published.
• We show the period dependence of the effects on standard
deviation.
• The use of the EAF provides an estimate of the lower bound
on standard deviation that we can hope to attain with future
refinements to the site term in GMPEs.
Conclusions
In this article, we compute and analyze EAFs from the
NGA-West2 database to quantify the difference in the
ground-motion standard deviations for different methods
of computing the site-response term. We consider different
estimates of V S30 , as well as the use of z1 , as a proxy for
basin depth. We find almost no difference in bias for all
of these methods of computing the site term. In terms of
BSSA Early Edition
10
the standard deviation of the site-response residual, we find
the following:
• Geology- and topography-based V S30 values do not reduce
the standard deviation at short periods but do reduce the
standard deviation by 8%–22% for periods longer than 1 s.
• Measured V S30 (with or without z1 ) reduce the standard
deviation by 3%–9% for periods less than 0.2 s and by
26%–40% for periods longer than 0.5 s.
• Applying the EAFs reduces the intraevent standard devia-
tion by about 25% for periods shorter than 0.1 s and by
more than 40% for periods longer than 1 s.
Data and Resources
The ground-motion data used in this article were com-
piled, processed, and combined with metadata as part of the
Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Next Gen-
eration Attenuation (NGA)-West2 project (http://peer.
berkeley.edu/ngawest2/; last accessed July 2015). Detailed
site characterizations for selected sites were provided by Alan
Yong; the detailed reports are available at http://pubs.usgs.
gov/of/2013/1102/ (last accessed July 2015). We used the nlme
package (Pinheiro et al., 2013) in R to compute the mixed-
effects regression.
Acknowledgments
We thank David Boore, Ronnie Kamai, Dino Bindi, and an anonymous
reviewer for providing detailed reviews this article. Discussions with Albert
Kottke and Kenneth Campbell have also improved this article. We thank
Chris Wills for providing the preprint and data files for his latest V S30 map
of California and Alan Yong for providing detailed profile information.
References
Al Atik, L., N. Abrahamson, J. J. Bommer, F. Scherbaum, F. Cotton, and N.
Kuehn (2010). The variability of ground-motion prediction models and
its components, Seismol. Res. Lett. 81, 794–801.
Allen, T. I., and D. J. Wald (2009). On the use of high-resolution topographic
data as a proxy for seismic site conditions (V S30 ), Bull. Seismol. Soc.
Am. 99, 935–943.
Ancheta, T. D., R. B. Darragh, J. P. Stewart, E. Seyhan, W. J. Silva, B. S. J.
Chiou, K. E. Wooddell, R. W. Graves, A. R. Kottke, D. M. Boore, et al.
(2014). NGA-West2 database, Earthq. Spectra 30, 989–1005.
Atkinson, G. M. (2006). Single-station sigma, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 96,
446–455.
Baise, L. G., S. D. Glaser, and D. Dreger (2003). Site response at Treasure
and Yerba Buena Islands, California, J. Geotech. Geoenvir. Eng. 129,
415–426.
Boore, D. M. (2004). Can site response be predicted? J. Earthq. Eng. 8,
1–41.
Boore, D. M., and M. W. Asten (2008). Comparisons of shear-wave slow-
ness in the Santa Clara Valley, California, using blind interpretations of
data from invasive and non-invasive methods, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am.
98, 1983–2003.
Boore, D. M., J. P. Stewart, E. Seyhan, and G. M. Atkinson (2014). NGA-
West 2 equations for predicting PGA, PGV, and 5%-damped PSA for
shallow crustal earthquakes, Earthq. Spectra 30, 1057–1085.
Cadet, H., P.-Y. Bard, A.-M. Duval, and E. Bertand (2012). Site effect as-
sessment using KiK-net data: Part 2–site amplification prediction
equation based on f0 and Vsz, Bull. Earthq. Eng. 10, 451–489.
BSSA Early Edition
E. M. Thompson and D. J. Wald
Campbell, K. W. (1997). Empirical near-source attenuation relationships for
horizontal and vertical components of peak ground acceleration, peak
ground velocity, and pseudo-absolute acceleration response spectra,
Seismol. Res. Lett. 68, 154–179.
Choi, Y., and J. P. Stewart (2005). Nonlinear site amplification as function of
30 m shear wave velocity, Earthq. Spectra 21, 1–30.
Di Alessandro, C., L. F. Bonilla, D. M. Boore, A. Rovelli, and O. Scotti
(2012). Predominant-period site classification for response spectra
prediction equations in Italy, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 102, 680–695.
Field, E. H. (2000). A modified ground-motion attenuation relationship for
southern California that accounts for detailed site classification and a
basin-depth effect, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 90, S209–S221.
Graves, R. W. (1993). Modeling three-dimensional site response effects in
the Marina District basin, San Francisco, California, Bull. Seismol.
Soc. Am. 83, 1042–1063.
Hartzell, S., L. F. Bonilla, and R. A. Williams (2004). Prediction of nonlinear
soil effects, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 94, 1609–1629.
Joyner, W. B., and D. M. Boore (1993). Methods for regression analysis of
strong-motion data, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 83, 469–487.
Kamai, R., N. A. Abrahamson, and W. J. Silva (2014). Nonlinear horizontal
site amplification for constraining the NGA-West2 GMPEs, Earthq.
Spectra 30, 1223–1240.
Lin, P.-S., B. Chiou, N. Abrahamson, M. Walling, C.-T. Lee, and C.-T.
Cheng (2011). Repeatable source, site, and path effects on the standard
deviation for ground-motion prediction, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 101,
2281–2295.
Petersen, M. D., M. P. Moschetti, P. M. Powers, C. S. Mueller, K. M. Haller,
A. D. Frankel, Z. Yuehua, S. Rezaeian, S. C. Harmsen, O. S. Boyd,
et al. (2014). Documentation for the 2014 update of the United States
national seismic hazard maps, U.S. Geol. Surv. Open-File Rept. 2014–
1091, 243 pp., doi: 10.3133/ofr20141091.
Pinheiro, J., D. Bates, S. DebRoy, D. Sarkar, and Development Core Team
(2013). nlme: Linear and nonlinear mixed effects models, R package
v.3., 1–113.
Robinson, P. T., W. A. Elders, and L. J. P. Muffler (1976). Quaternary vol-
canism in the Salton Sea geothermal field, Imperial Valley, California,
Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 87, 347–360.
Rodriguez-Marek, A., F. Cotton, N. A. Abrahamson, S. Akkar, L. Al Atik,
B. Edwards, G. A. Montalva, and H. M. Dawood (2013). A model for
single-station standard deviation using data from various tectonic re-
gions, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 103, 3149–3163.
Rodriguez-Marek, A., G. A. Montalva, F. Cotton, and F. Bonilla (2011).
Analysis of single-station standard deviation using the KiK-net data,
Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 101, 1242–1258.
Seyhan, E., and J. P. Stewart (2014). Semi-empirical nonlinear site ampli-
fication from NGA-West 2 data and simulations, Earthq. Spectra 30,
1241–1256.
Seyhan, E., J. P. Stewart, T. D. Ancheta, R. B. Darragh, and R. W. Graves
(2014). NGA-West 2 site database, Earthq. Spectra 30, 1007–1024.
Stafford, P. J. (2014). Crossed and nested mixed-effects approaches for en-
hanced model development and removal of the ergodic assumption in
empirical ground-motion models, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 104, 702–719.
Tinsley, J, S. E. Hough, A. Yong, H. Kanamori, E. Yu, V. Appel, and C. Wills
(2004). Geotechnical characterization of TriNet sites: A status report,
Seismol. Res. Lett. 75, 505–514.
Thompson, E. M., and D. J. Wald (2014). Site response mapping with one
less proxy: Collaborative research with SDSU and the USGS, Final
Technical Rept. USGS Award Number G13AP00070.
Thompson, E. M., L. G. Baise, R. E. Kayen, and B. B. Guzina (2009). Imped-
iments to predicting site response: Seismic property estimation and mod-
eling simplifications, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 99, 2927–2949.
Thompson, E. M., L. G. Baise, R. E. Kayen, E. C. Morgan, and J. Kakla-
manos (2011). Multiscale site-response mapping: A case study of
Parkfield, California, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 101, 1081–1100.
Thompson, E. M., L. G. Baise, R. E. Kayen, Y. Tanaka, and H. Tanaka
(2010). A geostatistical approach to mapping site response spectral
amplifications, Eng. Geol. 114, 330–342.
Uncertainty in V S30 -Based Site Response 11

Thompson, E. M., D. J. Wald, and C. B. Worden (2014). A V S30 map for Yong, A., S. E. Hough, J. Iwahashi, and A. Braverman (2012). A terrain-
California with geologic and topographic constraints, Bull. Seismol. based site-conditions map of California with implications for the con-
Soc. Am. 104, 2313–2321. tiguous United States, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 102, 114–128.
Wald, D. J., and T. I. Allen (2007). Topographic slope as a proxy for seismic Yong, A., A. Martin, K. Stokoe, and J. Diehl (2013). ARRA-funded V S30
site conditions and amplification, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 97, no. 5, measurements using multi-technique approach at strong-motion sta-
1379–1395. tions in California and central-eastern United States, U.S. Geol. Surv.
Wald, D. J., V. Quitoriano, T. H. Heaton, H. Kanamori, C. W. Scrivner, and Open-File Rept. 2013–1102, 60 pp.
C. B. Worden (1999). “Trinet ShakeMaps”: Rapid generation of instru-
mental ground motion and intensity maps for earthquakes in southern
California, Earthq. Spectra 15, 537–556.
Walling, M., W. J. Silva, and N. A. Abrahamson (2008). Non-linear site U.S. Geological Survey
amplification factors for constraining the NGA models, Earthq. Spec- Denver Federal Center
tra 24, 243–255. P.O. Box 25046, Mail Stop 966
Wills, C. J., C. I. Gutierrez, F. G. Perez, and D. M. Branum (2015). A next- Lakewood, Colorado 80225
generation V S30 map for California based on geology and topography, emthompson@usgs.gov
Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 105, 3083–3091, doi: 10.1785/0120150105.
Worden, C. B., D. J. Wald, T. I. Allen, K. Lin, D. Garcia, and G. Cua (2010).
A revised ground-motion and intensity interpolation scheme for Manuscript received 15 January 2016;
ShakeMap, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 100, no. 6, 3083–3096. Published Online 01 March 2016

BSSA Early Edition