Using the value of information to decide when to collect additional data on near-surface site conditions

When funding or conducting a seismic hazard assessment, facility owners and seismic hazard analysts need to estimate the possible added value that could be obtained by collecting additional data to inform the assessment. This added value needs to be balanced against the budget and time available for the collection of the data. In other words, they need to answer the question “Is it worth paying to obtain this information?”. Conducting a Value of Information (VoI) analysis before any data collection would help to answer this question and to optimise the data collection process.