Portrait

The Swiss Seismological Service (SED) at ETH Zurich is the federal agency responsible for monitoring earthquakes in Switzerland and its neighboring regions and for assessing Switzerland’s seismic hazard and risk. When an earthquake happens, the SED informs the public, authorities, and the media about the earthquake’s location, magnitude, and possible consequences. The activities of the SED are integrated in the federal action plan for earthquake mitigation adopted by the Federal Council.

The SED is a nondepartmental unit of ETH Zurich and reports to the Vice President for Research. It works in close collaboration with the Institute of Geophysics and the Department of Earth Sciences. The director of the SED, Stefan Wiemer is also a professor of seismology at the Department of Earth Sciences.

There are currently approximately 80 people employed by the SED in various capacities, among them around 15 to 20 doctoral students. The majority of these employees are financed by third-party funded projects.