Over the last decade induced seismicity became an important topic of discussion both at scientific and societal level. Industrial activities altering the state of stress or the pore pressure of the shallow crust may, in fact, generate seismicity which can be felt by the population, reducing the public acceptance of such activities. The physical connection between operational parameters such as injected (or extracted) volume and the induced seismicity is complex and not yet fully understood. A better understanding of the influence of fluid injection/extraction parameters on the potential failure of pre-existing faults nearby the reservoir is furthermore a fundamental step towards the management of the hazard posed by induced earthquakes. The project MEPHISTO aims to a get insights into the physical processes governing induced seismicity, strengthening the link between seismological observations and geomechanical models. To pursue this scope the project is organized in two complementary activities. The first activity consists in the development/improvent of innovative seismological methods for microseimicity characterization, allowing to obtain larger and more reliable seismic catalogues. High-resolution seismicity locations allow to infer the geometry of active faults nearby the reservoir. These informations are fundamental for the both a-priori and near-real-time risk assessment operations. The second activity consists in the implementation and testing (with field data and in real-time) of risk mitigation tools based on seismicity modeling techniques. The comparison of the obeserved seismicity with the simulated one will be then used to calibrate the seismicity forecasting model, to investigate the influence of underground industrial activities on the generation of induced seismicity and most important to update the risk model in real time, in order to ensure the safety of the related underground industrial operations.
