Reference · built on requestCommons signalEarth, seismic & volcanic

NOAA NCEI Global Historical Hazard Database

Historical tsunamis, runups, significant earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions from NOAA NCEI, through the HazEL REST service.

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About

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, with the co-located World Data Service for Geophysics, archives tsunami, earthquake, and volcano data. HazEL, the Hazardous Event Lookup, exposes them through a REST service under /hazel/hazard-service/api/v1. The Global Historical Tsunami Database covers 2100 BC to the present with source events, runup locations, deposits, and marigrams. The Significant Earthquake Database runs from 2150 BC and lists earthquakes that caused deaths, moderate damage of about $1 million or more, reached magnitude 7.5 or MMI X, or generated a tsunami. The Significant Volcanic Eruption Database begins at 4360 BC. Each list is paged JSON with up to 200 items per page.

Through Fibric, an operator reads the events near a site over any span and proposes the hazard-history section of a site review, a board slide, or an evidence file for your approval.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from NOAA NCEI Global Historical Hazard Database and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Tsunami source events from /tsunamis/events, with year, cause code, event validity, magnitude, water height, and runup counts
  • Runup observations from /tsunamis/runups, with distance from source, runup height, travel time, and measurement type
  • Tsunami deposits from /tsunamis/deposits and marigram records from /tsunamis/marigrams
  • Significant earthquakes from /earthquakes, with depth, Mw, Ms, mb, MMI intensity, deaths, injuries, damage, and houses destroyed
  • Significant eruptions from /volcanoes with VEI, and volcano locations from /volcanolocs named as the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program lists them
  • Related records per item: /earthquakes/{id}/tsunamis, /tsunamis/events/{id}/runups, /volcanoes/{id}/earthquakes, and /references
  • Descriptor lists for regions, countries, causes, validity, warning statuses, and measurement types under /descriptors

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Add hazard history to a site review

    For each site, the operator lists tsunami events, runups, and significant earthquakes inside the box over the full span and drafts the hazard section with counts and the largest events.

    With Site Benchmark

  • Back a risk slide with recorded events

    Before a board review, the operator pulls the significant earthquakes and eruptions in your regions and proposes a slide with dates, magnitudes, and NCEI's citation.

    With Board Pack

  • Keep an evidence file for insurers and auditors

    The operator files the HazEL records and DOI citation for events near a site in the compliance pack, so the history comes from NCEI rather than from memory.

    With Compliance Evidence

Requirements

  • A bounding box in minLatitude, maxLatitude, minLongitude, and maxLongitude, or a region code, for each site
  • A rule for eventValidity on tsunamis: 4 is definite, 3 probable, 2 questionable, 1 very doubtful, -1 an erroneous entry
  • Paging with page and itemsPerPage, which allows at most 200 items per call
  • The citation NCEI prints on each endpoint, with its DOI and your access date, in anything you publish
Authentication
No key or account. The OpenAPI document declares no security scheme and every list endpoint answers plain GET requests.

Limits

  • These are historical significance databases, not a real-time feed; earthquakes must meet the death, damage, magnitude, intensity, or tsunami criteria
  • Updates are made as needed; NOAA states it cannot assume liability for errors or omissions in the data
  • The OpenAPI document carries no rate limit; itemsPerPage is capped at 200
  • Deaths and damage may be given only as amount-order codes, such as 1 for few or 4 for very many, when exact figures are unknown

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

Request NOAA NCEI Global Historical Hazard Database ↗

Questions and answers

What makes an earthquake significant in the NCEI database?
It must meet at least one criterion: caused deaths, moderate damage of approximately $1 million or more, magnitude 7.5 or greater, Modified Mercalli Intensity X or greater, or generated a tsunami. The database runs from 2150 BC to the present and is updated as needed.
How are tsunami causes and validity coded?
causeCode runs 0 Unknown, 1 Earthquake, 2 Questionable Earthquake, 3 Earthquake and Landslide, 4 Volcano and Earthquake, 5 Volcano, Earthquake, and Landslide, 6 Volcano, 7 Volcano and Landslide, 8 Landslide, 9 Meteorological, 10 Explosion, 11 Astronomical Tide. eventValidity runs from -1 erroneous entry to 4 definite tsunami.
How should HazEL data be cited?
Each list endpoint prints its citation. Tsunami events and runups: NCEI/WDS Global Historical Tsunami Database, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Significant earthquakes: NCEI/WDS Global Significant Earthquake Database, doi:10.7289/V5TD9V7K. Significant eruptions: doi:10.7289/V5JW8BSH. Add your access date. Access is unrestricted and free online.
Ask about NOAA NCEI Global Historical Hazard Database

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, World Data Service for Geophysics (ngdc.noaa.gov). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy