First, the uncertainties in hazard map predictions should be assessed and clearly communicated to potential users. However, because hazard mapping has become widely accepted and used to make major decisions, we suggest two changes to improve current practices. This situation will improve at best slowly, owing to our limited understanding of earthquake processes. When these are incorrect, maps do poorly. As a result, key aspects of hazard maps often depend on poorly constrained parameters, whose values are chosen based on the mapmakers' preconceptions. We use examples from several seismic regions to show that earthquake occurrence is typically more complicated than the models on which hazard maps are based, and that the available history of seismicity is almost always too short to reliably establish the spatiotemporal pattern of large earthquake occurrence. Here, we examine what went wrong for Tohoku, and how this failure illustrates limitations of earthquake hazard mapping. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake is another striking example – after the 2008 Wenchuan and 2010 Haiti earthquakes – of highly destructive earthquakes that occurred in areas predicted by earthquake hazard maps to be relatively safe.
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