THE ASSESSMENT OF STRONG GROUND MOTION: WHAT LIES AHEAD?

This papaer follows on the interest often manifested by Prof. Emilio Rosenblueth regarding the future of strong ground motion and earthquake engineering research. The authors state their views under the light of recent advances on observational and computational capabilities, and the various theoretical interpretations of the main factors that are relevant to quantify strong ground motion, namely source, path and site. The aparent lack of improvements in buildings codes to cope with moderate-to-large size earthquakes is discussed and the achievements of research on this issue are pointed out.