Application of a Tsunami Warning Message Metric to refine NOAA NWS Tsunami Warning Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Gregg, C. E.; Johnston, D.; Sorensen, J.; Whitmore, P.

2013-12-01

In 2010, the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) funded a three year project to integrate social science into their Tsunami Program. One of three primary requirements of the grant was to make improvements to tsunami warning messages of the NWS' two Tsunami Warning Centers- the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) in Palmer, Alaska and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. We conducted focus group meetings with a purposive sample of local, state and Federal stakeholders and emergency managers in six states (AK, WA, OR, CA, HI and NC) and two US Territories (US Virgin Islands and American Samoa) to qualitatively asses information needs in tsunami warning messages using WCATWC tsunami messages for the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami event. We also reviewed research literature on behavioral response to warnings to develop a tsunami warning message metric that could be used to guide revisions to tsunami warning messages of both warning centers. The message metric is divided into categories of Message Content, Style, Order and Formatting and Receiver Characteristics. A message is evaluated by cross-referencing the message with the operational definitions of metric factors. Findings are then used to guide revisions of the message until the characteristics of each factor are met. Using findings from this project and findings from a parallel NWS Warning Tiger Team study led by T. Nicolini, the WCATWC implemented the first of two phases of revisions to their warning messages in November 2012. A second phase of additional changes, which will fully implement the redesign of messages based on the metric, is in progress. The resulting messages will reflect current state-of-the-art knowledge on warning message effectiveness. Here we present the message metric; evidence-based rational for message factors; and examples of previous, existing and proposed messages.

Toward tsunami early warning system in Indonesia by using rapid rupture durations estimation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Madlazim

2012-01-01

Indonesia has Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (Ina-TEWS) since 2008. The Ina-TEWS has used automatic processing on hypocenter; Mwp, Mw (mB) and Mj. If earthquake occurred in Ocean, depth 7, then Ina-TEWS announce early warning that the earthquake can generate tsunami. However, the announcement of the Ina-TEWS is still not accuracy. Purposes of this research are to estimate earthquake rupture duration of large Indonesia earthquakes that occurred in Indian Ocean, Java, Timor sea, Banda sea, Arafura sea and Pasific ocean. We analyzed at least 330 vertical seismogram recorded by IRIS-DMC network using a direct procedure for rapid assessment of earthquake tsunami potential using simple measures on P-wave vertical seismograms on the velocity records, and the likelihood that the high-frequency, apparent rupture duration, T dur . T dur can be related to the critical parameters rupture length (L), depth (z), and shear modulus (μ) while T dur may be related to wide (W), slip (D), z or μ. Our analysis shows that the rupture duration has a stronger influence to generate tsunami than Mw and depth. The rupture duration gives more information on tsunami impact, Mo/μ, depth and size than Mw and other currently used discriminants. We show more information which known from the rupture durations. The longer rupture duration, the shallower source of the earthquake. For rupture duration greater than 50 s, the depth less than 50 km, Mw greater than 7, the longer rupture length, because T dur is proportional L and greater Mo/μ. Because Mo/μ is proportional L. So, with rupture duration information can be known information of the four parameters. We also suggest that tsunami potential is not directly related to the faulting type of source and for events that have rupture duration greater than 50 s, the earthquakes generated tsunami. With available real-time seismogram data, rapid calculation, rupture duration discriminant can be completed within 4–5 min after an earthquake

The Indian Ocean disaster: Tsunami physics and early warning dilemmas

Science.gov (United States)

Lomnitz, Cinna; Nilsen-Hofseth, Sara

Understanding the physics of tsunamis may save lives, especially near the epicenter of a large earthquake where the danger is highest and early warning is least likely to be effective.Normal modes of Earth are standing waves of the Love (toroidal) or the Rayleigh (spheroidal) variety. The Indian Ocean tsunami may have been partly or wholly caused by low-order spheroidal modes of the Earth such as 0S2, 0S3, and 0S4, that may have excited a waveguide—a layer that confines and guides a propagating wave—in the ocean.

A tsunami early warning system for the coastal area modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Soebroto, Arief Andy; Sunaryo, Suhartanto, Ery

2015-04-01

The tsunami disaster is a potential disaster in the territory of Indonesia. Indonesia is an archipelago country and close to the ocean deep. The tsunami occurred in Aceh province in 2004. Early prevention efforts have been carried out. One of them is making "tsunami buoy" which has been developed by BPPT. The tool puts sensors on the ocean floor near the coast to detect earthquakes on the ocean floor. Detection results are transmitted via satellite by a transmitter placed floating on the sea surface. The tool will cost billions of dollars for each system. Another constraint was the transmitter theft "tsunami buoy" in the absence of guard. In this study of the system has a transmission system using radio frequency and focused on coastal areas where costs are cheaper, so that it can be applied at many beaches in Indonesia are potentially affected by the tsunami. The monitoring system sends the detection results to the warning system using a radio frequency with a capability within 3 Km. Test results on the sub module sensor monitoring system generates an error of 0.63% was taken 10% showed a good quality sensing. The test results of data transmission from the transceiver of monitoring system to the receiver of warning system produces 100% successful delivery and reception of data. The test results on the whole system to function 100% properly.

Research to Operations: From Point Positions, Earthquake and Tsunami Modeling to GNSS-augmented Tsunami Early Warning

Science.gov (United States)

Stough, T.; Green, D. S.

2017-12-01

This collaborative research to operations demonstration brings together the data and algorithms from NASA research, technology, and applications-funded projects to deliver relevant data streams, algorithms, predictive models, and visualization tools to the NOAA National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC). Using real-time GNSS data and models in an operational environment, we will test and evaluate an augmented capability for tsunami early warning. Each of three research groups collect data from a selected network of real-time GNSS stations, exchange data consisting of independently processed 1 Hz station displacements, and merge the output into a single, more accurate and reliable set. The resulting merged data stream is delivered from three redundant locations to the TWCs with a latency of 5-10 seconds. Data from a number of seismogeodetic stations with collocated GPS and accelerometer instruments are processed for displacements and seismic velocities and also delivered. Algorithms for locating and determining the magnitude of earthquakes as well as algorithms that compute the source function of a potential tsunami using this new data stream are included in the demonstration. The delivered data, algorithms, models and tools are hosted on NOAA-operated machines at both warning centers, and, once tested, the results will be evaluated for utility in improving the speed and accuracy of tsunami warnings. This collaboration has the potential to dramatically improve the speed and accuracy of the TWCs local tsunami information over the current seismometer-only based methods. In our first year of this work, we have established and deployed an architecture for data movement and algorithm installation at the TWC's. We are addressing data quality issues and porting algorithms into the TWCs operating environment. Our initial module deliveries will focus on estimating moment magnitude (Mw) from Peak Ground Displacement (PGD), within 2

The GNSS-based component for the new Indonesian tsunami early warning centre provided by GITEWS

Science.gov (United States)

Falck, C.; Ramatschi, M.; Bartsch, M.; Merx, A.; Hoeberechts, J.; Rothacher, M.

2009-04-01

Introduction Nowadays GNSS technologies are used for a large variety of precise positioning applications. The accuracy can reach the mm level depending on the data analysis methods. GNSS technologies thus offer a high potential to support tsunami early warning systems, e.g., by detection of ground motions due to earthquakes and of tsunami waves on the ocean by GNSS instruments on a buoy. Although GNSS-based precise positioning is a standard method, it is not yet common to apply this technique under tight time constraints and, hence, in the absence of precise satellite orbits and clocks. The new developed GNSS-based component utilises on- and offshore measured GNSS data and is the first system of its kind that was integrated into an operational early warning system. (Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning Centre INATEWS, inaugurated at BMKG, Jakarta on November, 11th 2008) Motivation After the Tsunami event of 26th December 2004 the German government initiated the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System) to develop a tsunami early warning system for Indonesia. The GFZ Potsdam (German Research Centre for Geosciences) as the consortial leader of GITEWS also covers several work packages, most of them related to sensor systems. The geodetic branch (Department 1) of the GFZ was assigned to develop a GNSS-based component. Brief system description The system covers all aspects from sensor stations with new developed hard- and software designs, manufacturing and installation of stations, real-time data transfer issues, a new developed automatic near real-time data processing and a graphical user interface for early warning centre operators including training on the system. GNSS sensors are installed on buoys, at tide gauges and as real-time reference stations (RTR stations), either stand-alone or co-located with seismic sensors. The GNSS data are transmitted to the warning centre where they are processed in a near real-time data processing chain. For

Tsunami Early Warning for the Indian Ocean Region - Status and Outlook

Science.gov (United States)

Lauterjung, Joern; Rudloff, Alexander; Muench, Ute; Gitews Project Team

2010-05-01

The German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) for the Indian Ocean region has gone into operation in Indonesia in November 2008. The system includes a seismological network, together with GPS stations and a network of GPS buoys additionally equipped with ocean bottom pressure sensors and a tide gauge network. The different sensor systems have, for the most part, been installed and now deliver respective data either online or interactively upon request to the Warning Centre in Jakarta. Before 2011, however, the different components requires further optimization and fine tuning, local personnel needs to be trained and eventual problems in the daily operation have to be dealt with. Furthermore a company will be founded in the near future, which will guarantee a sustainable maintenance and operation of the system. This concludes the transfer from a temporarily project into a permanent service. This system established in Indonesia differs from other Tsunami Warning Systems through its application of modern scientific methods and technologies. New procedures for the fast and reliable determination of strong earthquakes, deformation monitoring by GPS, the modeling of tsunamis and the assessment of the situation have been implemented in the Warning System architecture. In particular, the direct incorporation of different sensors provides broad information already at the early stages of Early Warning thus resulting in a stable system and minimizing breakdowns and false alarms. The warning system is designed in an open and modular structure based on the most recent developments and standards of information technology. Therefore, the system can easily integrate additional sensor components to be used for other multi-hazard purposes e.g. meteorological and hydrological events. Up to now the German project group is cooperating in the Indian Ocean region with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Iran, Yemen, Tanzania and Kenya to set up the equipment primarily for

The challenge of installing a tsunami early warning system in the vicinity of the Sunda Arc, Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Lauterjung

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Indonesia is located along the most prominent active continental margin in the Indian Ocean, the so-called Sunda Arc and, therefore, is one of the most threatened regions of the world in terms of natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. On 26 December 2004 the third largest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded (magnitude 9.3, Stein and Okal, 2005 occurred off-shore northern Sumatra and triggered a mega-tsunami affecting the whole Indian Ocean. Almost a quarter of a million people were killed, as the region was not prepared either in terms of early-warning or in terms of disaster response.

In order to be able to provide, in future, a fast and reliable warning procedure for the population, Germany, immediately after the catastrophe, offered during the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Hyogo/Japan in January 2005 technical support for the development and installation of a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean in addition to assistance in capacity building in particular for local communities. This offer was accepted by Indonesia but also by other countries like Sri Lanka, the Maldives and some East-African countries. Anyhow the main focus of our activities has been carried out in Indonesia as the main source of tsunami threat for the entire Indian Ocean. Challenging for the technical concept of this warning system are the extremely short warning times for Indonesia, due to its vicinity to the Sunda Arc. For this reason the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS integrates different modern and new scientific monitoring technologies and analysis methods.

Tsunamis: Detection, monitoring, and early-warning technologies

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Joseph, A.

upon, which are relevant to tsunami warning, include public announcement siren systems and numerical models. Special attention has been paid to the submarine cable-mounted systems. Due importance has been attached to the instrumented era which... of appropriate emergency measures. Whereas satellite-based reporting is one option, a simple and cost-effective methodology for real-time reporting of tsunami from coastal regions and islands is cellular based GPRS technology. From an operational point...

TOWARD INDONESIAN TSUNAMI EARLY WARNING SYSTEM BY USING RAPID RUPTURE DURATIONS CALCULATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Adlazim

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Indonesia has an Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (Ina-TEWS since 2008. The Ina-TEWS has used automatic processing on hypocenter; Mwp, Mw (mB and Mj. If earthquake occurred in Ocean, depth 7, then Ina-TEWS announce early warning that the earthquake can generate tsunami. However, the announcement of the Ina-TEWS is still not accuracy. Purpose of this study is to estimate earthquake rupture duration of large Indonesia earthquakes that occurred in Indian Ocean, Java, Timor Sea, Banda Sea, Arafura Sea and Pacific Ocean using a direct procedure and software developed Lomax and Michelini for rapid assessment of earthquake tsunami potential by deriving two simple measures from vertical component broadband P-wave velocity record. The first is the high-frequency apparent rupture duration, Tdur which may be related to can be related to the critical parameters rupture length (L, depth (z, and shear modulus (μ. The second is a confirmation of the earlier finding by Lomax and Michelini, namely that the rupture duration has a stronger influence to generate tsunami than Mw and Depth. We analyzed at least 510 vertical seismogram recorded by GEOFON-IA and IRIS-DMC networks. Our analysis shows that the seismic potency, LWD, which is more obviously related to capability to generate a tsunami than former. The larger Tdur the larger is the seismic potency LWD because Tdur is proportional to L/vr (with vr – rupture velocity. We also suggest that tsunami potential is not directly related to the faulting type of source and for events that have rupture duration greater than 50 s, the earthquakes generated tsunami. With available real-time seismogram data, rapid calculation, rupture duration discriminant can be completed within 3 to 8 min after the P-onset.

Evolution of tsunami warning systems and products.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernard, Eddie; Titov, Vasily

2015-10-28

Each year, about 60 000 people and $4 billion (US$) in assets are exposed to the global tsunami hazard. Accurate and reliable tsunami warning systems have been shown to provide a significant defence for this flooding hazard. However, the evolution of warning systems has been influenced by two processes: deadly tsunamis and available technology. In this paper, we explore the evolution of science and technology used in tsunami warning systems, the evolution of their products using warning technologies, and offer suggestions for a new generation of warning products, aimed at the flooding nature of the hazard, to reduce future tsunami impacts on society. We conclude that coastal communities would be well served by receiving three standardized, accurate, real-time tsunami warning products, namely (i) tsunami energy estimate, (ii) flooding maps and (iii) tsunami-induced harbour current maps to minimize the impact of tsunamis. Such information would arm communities with vital flooding guidance for evacuations and port operations. The advantage of global standardized flooding products delivered in a common format is efficiency and accuracy, which leads to effectiveness in promoting tsunami resilience at the community level. © 2015 The Authors.

Evolution of tsunami warning systems and products

Science.gov (United States)

Bernard, Eddie; Titov, Vasily

2015-01-01

Each year, about 60 000 people and $4 billion (US$) in assets are exposed to the global tsunami hazard. Accurate and reliable tsunami warning systems have been shown to provide a significant defence for this flooding hazard. However, the evolution of warning systems has been influenced by two processes: deadly tsunamis and available technology. In this paper, we explore the evolution of science and technology used in tsunami warning systems, the evolution of their products using warning technologies, and offer suggestions for a new generation of warning products, aimed at the flooding nature of the hazard, to reduce future tsunami impacts on society. We conclude that coastal communities would be well served by receiving three standardized, accurate, real-time tsunami warning products, namely (i) tsunami energy estimate, (ii) flooding maps and (iii) tsunami-induced harbour current maps to minimize the impact of tsunamis. Such information would arm communities with vital flooding guidance for evacuations and port operations. The advantage of global standardized flooding products delivered in a common format is efficiency and accuracy, which leads to effectiveness in promoting tsunami resilience at the community level. PMID:26392620

A Case Study of Array-based Early Warning System for Tsunami Offshore Ventura, California

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Xie, Y.; Meng, L.

2017-12-01

Extreme scenarios of M 7.5+ earthquakes on the Red Mountain and Pitas Point faults can potentially generate significant local tsunamis in southern California. The maximum water elevation could be as large as 10 m in the nearshore region of Oxnard and Santa Barbara. Recent development in seismic array processing enables rapid tsunami prediction and early warning based on the back-projection approach (BP). The idea is to estimate the rupture size by back-tracing the seismic body waves recorded by stations at local and regional distances. A simplified source model of uniform slip is constructed and used as an input for tsunami simulations that predict the tsunami wave height and arrival time. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach in southern California by implementing it in a simulated real-time environment and applying to a hypothetical M 7.7 Dip-slip earthquake scenario on the Pitas Point fault. Synthetic seismograms are produced using the SCEC broadband platform based on the 3D SoCal community velocity model. We use S-wave instead of P-wave to avoid S-minus-P travel times shorter than rupture duration. Two clusters of strong-motion stations near Bakersfield and Palmdale are selected to determine the back-azimuth of the strongest high-frequency radiations (0.5-1 Hz). The back-azimuths of the two clusters are then intersected to locate the source positions. The rupture area is then approximated by enclosing these BP radiators with an ellipse or a polygon. Our preliminary results show that the extent of 1294 square kilometers rupture area and magnitude of 7.6 obtained by this approach is reasonably close to the 1849 square kilometers and 7.7 of the input model. The average slip of 7.3 m is then estimated according to the scaling relation between slip and rupture area, which is close to the actual average dislocation amount, 8.3 m. Finally, a tsunami simulation is conducted to assess the wave height and arrival time. The errors of -3 to +9 s in arrival time

Sensing the danger. Can tsunami early warning systems benefit from test ban monitoring?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zerbo, L.

2005-01-01

An editorial in the February 2005 edition of the Magazine for European Research pointed to the very issue of responsibility: Improvements are always possible, of course, but the very nature of a 'natural disaster' is that while not entirely absolving humans of responsibility it surpasses our means to deal with and even understand the forces at work. But science can help enhance our knowledge. For if there is one subject that the Asian tragedy has highlighted, it is the importance of putting in place coordinated early warning systems for earthquakes and, in particular, the absence of effective monitoring of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. A concerted effort is now being made to develop a coordinated system of systems - bringing together organizations and initiatives that together can put in place an early warning system. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), set-up to monitor adherence to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, is one organization seen to contribute to a coordinated early warning system

A Walk through TRIDEC's intermediate Tsunami Early Warning System for the Turkish and Portuguese NEAMWave12 exercise tsunami scenarios

Science.gov (United States)

Hammitzsch, Martin; Lendholt, Matthias; Reißland, Sven; Schulz, Jana

2013-04-01

the ICG/NEAMTWS NEAMWave12 exercise for the Turkish and Portuguese tsunami exercise scenarios. Impressions gained with the standards compliant TRIDEC system during the exercise will be reported. The system version presented is based on event-driven architecture (EDA) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) concepts and is making use of relevant standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). In this way the system continuously gathers, processes and displays events and data coming from open sensor platforms to enable operators to quickly decide whether an early warning is necessary and to send personalized warning messages to the authorities and the population at large through a wide range of communication channels. The system integrates OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) compliant sensor systems for the rapid detection of hazardous events, like earthquakes, sea level anomalies, ocean floor occurrences, and ground displacements. Using OGC Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) spatial data are utilized to depict the situation picture. The integration of a simulation system to identify affected areas is considered using the OGC Web Processing Service (WPS). Warning messages are compiled and transmitted in the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) together with addressing information defined via the OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language - Distribution Element (EDXL-DE). This demonstration is linked with the talk 'Experiences with TRIDEC's Crisis Management Demonstrator in the Turkish NEAMWave12 exercise tsunami scenario' (EGU2013-2833) given in the session "Architecture of Future Tsunami Warning Systems" (NH5.6).

Tsunami Warning Center in Turkey : Status Update 2012

Science.gov (United States)

Meral Ozel, N.; Necmioglu, O.; Yalciner, A. C.; Kalafat, D.; Yilmazer, M.; Comoglu, M.; Sanli, U.; Gurbuz, C.; Erdik, M.

2012-04-01

This is an update to EGU2011-3094 informing on the progress of the establishment of a National Tsunami Warning Center in Turkey (NTWC-TR) under the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission - Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System in the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas (IOC-ICG/NEAMTWS) initiative. NTWC-TR is integrated into the 24/7 operational National Earthquake Monitoring Center (NEMC) of KOERI comprising 129 BB and 61 strong motion sensors. Based on an agreement with the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (DEMP), data from 10 BB stations located in the Aegean and Mediterranean Coast is now transmitted in real time to KOERI. Real-time data transmission from 6 primary and 10 auxiliary stations from the International Monitoring System will be in place in the very near future based on an agreement concluded with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in 2011. In an agreement with a major Turkish GSM company, KOERI is enlarging its strong-motion network to promote real-time seismology and to extend Earthquake Early Warning system countrywide. 25 accelerometers (included in the number given above) have been purchased and installed at Base Transceiver Station Sites in coastal regions within the scope of this initiative. Data from 3 tide gauge stations operated by General Command of Mapping (GCM) is being transmitted to KOERI via satellite connection and the aim is to integrate all tide-gauge stations operated by GCM into NTWC-TR. A collaborative agreement has been signed with the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) and MOD1 Tsunami Scenario Database and TAT (Tsunami Analysis Tool) are received by KOERI and user training was provided. The database and the tool are linked to SeisComp3 and currently operational. In addition KOERI is continuing the work towards providing contributions to JRC in order to develop an improved database

Experience from three years of local capacity development for tsunami early warning in Indonesia: challenges, lessons and the way ahead

Science.gov (United States)

Spahn, H.; Hoppe, M.; Vidiarina, H. D.; Usdianto, B.

2010-07-01

Five years after the 2004 tsunami, a lot has been achieved to make communities in Indonesia better prepared for tsunamis. This achievement is primarily linked to the development of the Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (InaTEWS). However, many challenges remain. This paper describes the experience with local capacity development for tsunami early warning (TEW) in Indonesia, based on the activities of a pilot project. TEW in Indonesia is still new to disaster management institutions and the public, as is the paradigm of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The technology components of InaTEWS will soon be fully operational. The major challenge for the system is the establishment of clear institutional arrangements and capacities at national and local levels that support the development of public and institutional response capability at the local level. Due to a lack of information and national guidance, most local actors have a limited understanding of InaTEWS and DRR, and often show little political will and priority to engage in TEW. The often-limited capacity of local governments is contrasted by strong engagement of civil society organisations that opt for early warning based on natural warning signs rather than technology-based early warning. Bringing together the various actors, developing capacities in a multi-stakeholder cooperation for an effective warning system are key challenges for the end-to-end approach of InaTEWS. The development of local response capability needs to receive the same commitment as the development of the system's technology components. Public understanding of and trust in the system comes with knowledge and awareness on the part of the end users of the system and convincing performance on the part of the public service provider. Both sides need to be strengthened. This requires the integration of TEW into DRR, clear institutional arrangements, national guidance and intensive support for capacity development at local levels as well as

Method to Determine Appropriate Source Models of Large Earthquakes Including Tsunami Earthquakes for Tsunami Early Warning in Central America

Science.gov (United States)

Tanioka, Yuichiro; Miranda, Greyving Jose Arguello; Gusman, Aditya Riadi; Fujii, Yushiro

2017-08-01

Large earthquakes, such as the Mw 7.7 1992 Nicaragua earthquake, have occurred off the Pacific coasts of El Salvador and Nicaragua in Central America and have generated distractive tsunamis along these coasts. It is necessary to determine appropriate fault models before large tsunamis hit the coast. In this study, first, fault parameters were estimated from the W-phase inversion, and then an appropriate fault model was determined from the fault parameters and scaling relationships with a depth dependent rigidity. The method was tested for four large earthquakes, the 1992 Nicaragua tsunami earthquake (Mw7.7), the 2001 El Salvador earthquake (Mw7.7), the 2004 El Astillero earthquake (Mw7.0), and the 2012 El Salvador-Nicaragua earthquake (Mw7.3), which occurred off El Salvador and Nicaragua in Central America. The tsunami numerical simulations were carried out from the determined fault models. We found that the observed tsunami heights, run-up heights, and inundation areas were reasonably well explained by the computed ones. Therefore, our method for tsunami early warning purpose should work to estimate a fault model which reproduces tsunami heights near the coast of El Salvador and Nicaragua due to large earthquakes in the subduction zone.

THE FRENCH TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN AND NORTHEAST ATLANTIC: CENALT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Hébert

2013-01-01

Full Text Available CENALT (CENtre d’ALerte aux Tsunamis is responsible for the French National Tsunami Warning Centre (NTWC. The CENALT is established in the framework of the Unesco/IOC/ICG/NEAMTWS. Its objective is to transmit a warning message in less than fifteen minutes for any events that could trigger a tsunami in the Western Mediterranean Sea and the North- Eastern Atlantic Ocean. The data collected from French installations and from institutions of European and North African countries is processed with software that permits early epicenter location of seismic events and measurements of expected tsunami impacts on the shore. On-duty analysts revise interactively all the generated information and use references of historical tsunami and earthquake databases - as well as computed tsunami scenarios – in order to disseminate the more comprehensive message possible.

The GNSS data processing component within the Indonesian tsunami early warning centre provided by GITEWS

Science.gov (United States)

Bartsch, M.; Merx, A.; Falck, C.; Ramatschi, M.

2010-05-01

Introduction Within the GITEWS (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System) project a near real-time GNSS processing system has been developed, which analizes on- and offshore measured GNSS data. It is the first system of its kind that was integrated into an operational tsunami early warning system. (Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning Centre INATEWS, inaugurated at BMKG Jakarta on November, 11th 2008) Brief system description The GNSS data to be processed are received from sensors (GNSS antenna and receiver) installed on buoys, at tide gauges and as real-time reference stations (RTR stations), either stand-alone or co-located with seismic sensors. The GNSS data are transmitted to the warning centre in real-time as a stream (RTR stations) or file-based and are processed in a near real-time data processing chain. The fully automatized system uses the BERNESE GPS software as processing core. Kinematic coordinate timeseries with a resolution of 1 Hz (landbased stations) and 1/3 Hz (buoys) are estimated every five minutes. In case of a recently occured earthquake the processing interval decreases from five to two minutes. All stations are processed with the relative technique (baseline-technique) using GITEWS-stations and stations available via IGS as reference. The most suitable reference stations are choosen by querying a database where continiously monitored quality data of GNSS observations are stored. In case of an earthquake at least one reference station should be located on a different tectonic plate to ensure that relative movements can be detected. The primary source for satellite orbit information is the IGS IGU product. If this source is not available for any reason, the system switches automatically to other orbit sources like CODE products or broadcast ephemeris data. For sensors on land the kinematic coordinates are used to detect deviations from their normal, mean coordinates. The deviations or so called displacements are indicators for land mass

Tsunami Early Warning System in Italy and involvement of local communities

Science.gov (United States)

Tinti, Stefano; Armigliato, Alberto; Zaniboni, Filippo

2010-05-01

Italy is characterized by a great coastal extension, and by a series of possible tsunamigenic sources: many active faults, onshore and offshore, also near the shoreline and in shallow water, active volcanoes (Etna, Stromboli, Campi Flegrei for example), continental margins where landslides can occur. All these threats justify the establishment of a tsunami early warning system (TEWS), especially in Southern Italy where most of the sources capable of large disastrous tsunamis are located. One of the main characteristics of such sources, that however is common to other countries in not only in the Mediterranean, is their vicinity to the coast, which means that the tsunami lead time for attacking the coastal system is expected to be within 10-15 minutes in several cases. This constraint of time imposes to conceive and adopt specific plans aiming at a quick tsunami detection and alert dissemination for the TEWS, since obviously the TEWS alert must precede and not follow the tsunami first arrival. The need to be quick introduces the specific problem of uncertainty that is though inherent to any forecast system, but it is a very big issue especially when time available is short, since crucial decisions have to be taken in presence of incomplete data and incomplete processing. This is just the big problem that has to be faced by a system like the a TEWS in Italy. Uncertainties can be reduced by increasing the capabilities of the tsunami monitoring system by densifying the traditional instrumental networks (e.g. by empowering seismic and especially coastal and offshore sea-level observation systems) in the identified tsunamigenic source areas. However, uncertainties, though are expected to have a decreasing trend as time passes after the tsunami initiation, cannot be eliminated and have to be appropriately dealt with: uncertainties lead to under- and overestimation of the tsunami size and arrival times, and to missing or to false alerts, or in other terms they degrade the

Towards an Earthquake and Tsunami Early Warning in the Caribbean

Science.gov (United States)

Huerfano Moreno, V. A.; Vanacore, E. A.

2017-12-01

The Caribbean region (CR) has a documented history of large damaging earthquakes and tsunamis that have affected coastal areas, including the events of Jamaica in 1692, Virgin Islands in 1867, Puerto Rico in 1918, the Dominican Republic in 1946 and Haiti in 2010. There is clear evidence that tsunamis have been triggered by large earthquakes that deformed the ocean floor around the Caribbean Plate boundary. The CR is monitored jointly by national/regional/local seismic, geodetic and sea level networks. All monitoring institutions are participating in the UNESCO ICG/Caribe EWS, the purpose of this initiative is to minimize loss of life and destruction of property, and to mitigate against catastrophic economic impacts via promoting local research, real time (RT) earthquake, geodetic and sea level data sharing and improving warning capabilities and enhancing education and outreach strategies. Currently more than, 100 broad-band seismic, 65 sea levels and 50 GPS high rate stations are available in real or near real-time. These real-time streams are used by Local/Regional or Worldwide detection and warning institutions to provide earthquake source parameters in a timely manner. Currently, any Caribbean event detected to have a magnitude greater than 4.5 is evaluated, and sea level is measured, by the TWC for tsumanigenic potential. The regional cooperation is motivated both by research interests as well as geodetic, seismic and tsunami hazard monitoring and warning. It will allow the imaging of the tectonic structure of the Caribbean region to a high resolution which will consequently permit further understanding of the seismic source properties for moderate and large events and the application of this knowledge to procedures of civil protection. To reach its goals, the virtual network has been designed following the highest technical standards: BB sensors, 24 bits A/D converters with 140 dB dynamic range, real-time telemetry. Here we will discuss the state of the PR

Design and challenges for a tsunami early warning system in the Marmara Sea

Science.gov (United States)

Necmioğlu, Öcal

2016-01-01

Since 1900, around 90,000 people have lost their lives in 76 earthquakes in Turkey, with a total affected population of around 7 million and direct losses of around 25 billion USD. Based on a time-dependent model that includes coseismic and post-seismic effects of the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake with moment magnitude Mw = 7.4, Parsons (J Geophys Res. 109, 2004) concluded that the probability of an earthquake with Mw > 7 in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul is 35 to 70 % in the next 30 years. According to a 2011 study, an earthquake with Mw = 7.25 on the Main Marmara Fault is expected to heavily damage or destroy 2 to 4 % of around 1,000,000 buildings in Istanbul with a population around 13 million, with 9 to 15 % of the buildings receiving medium damage and 20 to 34 % of the buildings damaged lightly (Erdik, Science 341:72, 2013). In the absence of adequate post-earthquake assembly areas especially in the heavily urbanized Istanbul, it is evident that after a major earthquake, especially in the coastal parts of the city, citizens would be storming to landfill assembly and recreational areas. Besides earthquakes, around 30 tsunamis have been reported by Altınok et al. (Natural Hazards Earth System Science 11:273-293, 2011) in the Marmara Sea. Among those, catastrophic earthquakes such as 1509, 1766, and 1894 resulted in considerable tsunamis and some damage. The latest tsunami observed in Marmara was due to a triggered submarine landslide of the 1999 Mw = 7.4 Kocaeli earthquake which led to reported run-up heights of 1-3 m in most places (Tinti et al., Marine Geology 225:311-330, 2006). In this study, I propose a design for a tsunami warning system specific for the Marmara region that is strongly coupled with the earthquake early warning system (due to the short arrival times of tsunami) and stakeholders of the tsunami mitigation activities, such as local and regional components of disaster and emergency management and civil protection units, to ensure that the citizens

Communication architecture of an early warning system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Angermann

2010-11-01

Full Text Available This article discusses aspects of communication architecture for early warning systems (EWS in general and gives details of the specific communication architecture of an early warning system against tsunamis. While its sensors are the "eyes and ears" of a warning system and enable the system to sense physical effects, its communication links and terminals are its "nerves and mouth" which transport measurements and estimates within the system and eventually warnings towards the affected population. Designing the communication architecture of an EWS against tsunamis is particularly challenging. Its sensors are typically very heterogeneous and spread several thousand kilometers apart. They are often located in remote areas and belong to different organizations. Similarly, the geographic spread of the potentially affected population is wide. Moreover, a failure to deliver a warning has fatal consequences. Yet, the communication infrastructure is likely to be affected by the disaster itself. Based on an analysis of the criticality, vulnerability and availability of communication means, we describe the design and implementation of a communication system that employs both terrestrial and satellite communication links. We believe that many of the issues we encountered during our work in the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System, Rudloff et al., 2009 on the design and implementation communication architecture are also relevant for other types of warning systems. With this article, we intend to share our insights and lessons learned.

Local Tsunami Warnings using GNSS and Seismic Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirshorn, B. F.

2017-12-01

Tsunami warning Centers (TWC's) must issue warnings based on imperfect and limited data. Uncertainties increase in the near field, where a tsunami reaches the closest coastal populations to the causative earthquake in a half hour or less. In the absence of a warning, the usual advice is "When the ground shakes so severely that it's difficult to stand, move uphill and away from the coast." But, what if the shaking is not severe? If, for example, the earthquake ruptures slowly (producing very little perceived shaking) this advice will fail. Unfortunately these "Tsunami" earthquakes are not rare: tsunamis from slow earthquakes off of Nicaragua in 1992, and Java in 1994 and 2006, killed 179, 250 and 637 people, respectively, even though very few nearby coastal residents felt any strong ground shaking. TWC's must therefore warn the closest coastal populations to the causative earthquake, where over 80% of the Tsunami based casualties typically occur, as soon possible after earthquake rupture begins. The NWS Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs) currently issue local Tsunami Warnings for the US West Coast, Hawaii, and the Puerto Rico - Virgin Island region within 2-4 minutes after origin time. However, our initial short period Magnitude estimates saturate over about Mw 6.5, and Mwp underestimates Mw for events larger than about Mw 7.5 when using data in the 0 to 3 degree epicentral distance range, severely underestimating the danger of a potential Tsunami in the near field. Coastal GNSS networks complement seismic monitoring networks, and enable unsaturated estimates of Mw within 2-3 minutes of earthquake origin time. NASA/JPL, SIO, USGS, CWU, UCB and UW, with funding and guidance from NASA, and leveraging the USGS funded ShakeAlert development, have been working with the National Weather Service TWC's to incorporate real-time GNSS and seismogeodetic data into their operations. These data will soon provide unsaturated estimates of moment magnitude, Centroid Moment Tensor

Building strategies for tsunami scenarios databases to be used in a tsunami early warning decision support system: an application to western Iberia

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Tinti, S.; Armigliato, A.; Pagnoni, G.; Zaniboni, F.

2012-04-01

One of the most challenging goals that the geo-scientific community is facing after the catastrophic tsunami occurred on December 2004 in the Indian Ocean is to develop the so-called "next generation" Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS). Indeed, the meaning of "next generation" does not refer to the aim of a TEWS, which obviously remains to detect whether a tsunami has been generated or not by a given source and, in the first case, to send proper warnings and/or alerts in a suitable time to all the countries and communities that can be affected by the tsunami. Instead, "next generation" identifies with the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) that, in general terms, relies on 1) an integrated set of seismic, geodetic and marine sensors whose objective is to detect and characterise the possible tsunamigenic sources and to monitor instrumentally the time and space evolution of the generated tsunami, 2) databases of pre-computed numerical tsunami scenarios to be suitably combined based on the information coming from the sensor environment and to be used to forecast the degree of exposition of different coastal places both in the near- and in the far-field, 3) a proper overall (software) system architecture. The EU-FP7 TRIDEC Project aims at developing such a DSS and has selected two test areas in the Euro-Mediterranean region, namely the western Iberian margin and the eastern Mediterranean (Turkish coasts). In this study, we discuss the strategies that are being adopted in TRIDEC to build the databases of pre-computed tsunami scenarios and we show some applications to the western Iberian margin. In particular, two different databases are being populated, called "Virtual Scenario Database" (VSDB) and "Matching Scenario Database" (MSDB). The VSDB contains detailed simulations of few selected earthquake-generated tsunamis. The cases provided by the members of the VSDB are computed "real events"; in other words, they represent the unknowns that the TRIDEC

Geoethical issues involved in Tsunami Warning System concepts and operations

Science.gov (United States)

Charalampakis, Marinos; Papadopoulos, Gerassimos A.; Tinti, Stefano

2016-04-01

The main goal of a Tsunami Warning System (TWS) is to mitigate the effect of an incoming tsunami by alerting coastal population early enough to allow people to evacuate safely from inundation zones. Though this representation might seem oversimplified, nonetheless, achieving successfully this goal requires a positive synergy of geoscience, communication, emergency management, technology, education, social sciences, politics. Geoethical issues arise always when there is an interaction between geoscience and society, and TWS is a paradigmatic case where interaction is very strong and is made critical because a) the formulation of the tsunami alert has to be made in a time as short as possible and therefore on uncertain data, and b) any evaluation error (underestimation or overestimation) can lead to serious (and sometimes catastrophic) consequences involving wide areas and a large amount of population. From the geoethical point of view three issues are critical: how to (i) combine forecasts and uncertainties reasonably and usefully, (ii) cope and possibly solve the dilemma whether it is better over-alerting or under-alerting population and (iii) deal with responsibility and liability of geoscientists, TWS operators, emergency operators and coastal population. The discussion will be based on the experience of the Hellenic National Tsunami Warning Center (HL-NTWC, Greece), which operates on 24/7 basis as a special unit of the Institute of Geodynamics, National Observatory of Athens, and acts also as Candidate Tsunami Service Provider (CTSP) in the framework of the North-Eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas Tsunami Warning System (NEAMTWS) of the IOC/UNESCO. Since August 2012, when HL-NTWC was officially declared as operational, 14 tsunami warning messages have been disseminated to a large number of subscribers after strong submarine earthquakes occurring in Greece and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. It is recognized that the alerting process

Rapid Determination of Appropriate Source Models for Tsunami Early Warning using a Depth Dependent Rigidity Curve: Method and Numerical Tests

Science.gov (United States)

Tanioka, Y.; Miranda, G. J. A.; Gusman, A. R.

2017-12-01

Recently, tsunami early warning technique has been improved using tsunami waveforms observed at the ocean bottom pressure gauges such as NOAA DART system or DONET and S-NET systems in Japan. However, for tsunami early warning of near field tsunamis, it is essential to determine appropriate source models using seismological analysis before large tsunamis hit the coast, especially for tsunami earthquakes which generated significantly large tsunamis. In this paper, we develop a technique to determine appropriate source models from which appropriate tsunami inundation along the coast can be numerically computed The technique is tested for four large earthquakes, the 1992 Nicaragua tsunami earthquake (Mw7.7), the 2001 El Salvador earthquake (Mw7.7), the 2004 El Astillero earthquake (Mw7.0), and the 2012 El Salvador-Nicaragua earthquake (Mw7.3), which occurred off Central America. In this study, fault parameters were estimated from the W-phase inversion, then the fault length and width were determined from scaling relationships. At first, the slip amount was calculated from the seismic moment with a constant rigidity of 3.5 x 10**10N/m2. The tsunami numerical simulation was carried out and compared with the observed tsunami. For the 1992 Nicaragua tsunami earthquake, the computed tsunami was much smaller than the observed one. For the 2004 El Astillero earthquake, the computed tsunami was overestimated. In order to solve this problem, we constructed a depth dependent rigidity curve, similar to suggested by Bilek and Lay (1999). The curve with a central depth estimated by the W-phase inversion was used to calculate the slip amount of the fault model. Using those new slip amounts, tsunami numerical simulation was carried out again. Then, the observed tsunami heights, run-up heights, and inundation areas for the 1992 Nicaragua tsunami earthquake were well explained by the computed one. The other tsunamis from the other three earthquakes were also reasonably well explained

Far-field tsunami of 2017 Mw 8.1 Tehuantepec, Mexico earthquake recorded by Chilean tide gauge network: Implications for tsunami warning systems

Science.gov (United States)

González-Carrasco, J. F.; Benavente, R. F.; Zelaya, C.; Núñez, C.; Gonzalez, G.

2017-12-01

The 2017 Mw 8.1, Tehuantepec earthquake generated a moderated tsunami, which was registered in near-field tide gauges network activating a tsunami threat state for Mexico issued by PTWC. In the case of Chile, the forecast of tsunami waves indicate amplitudes less than 0.3 meters above the tide level, advising an informative state of threat, without activation of evacuation procedures. Nevertheless, during sea level monitoring of network we detect wave amplitudes (> 0.3 m) indicating a possible change of threat state. Finally, NTWS maintains informative level of threat based on mathematical filtering analysis of sea level records. After 2010 Mw 8.8, Maule earthquake, the Chilean National Tsunami Warning System (NTWS) has increased its observational capabilities to improve early response. Most important operational efforts have focused on strengthening tide gauge network for national area of responsibility. Furthermore, technological initiatives as Integrated Tsunami Prediction and Warning System (SIPAT) has segmented the area of responsibility in blocks to focus early warning and evacuation procedures on most affected coastal areas, while maintaining an informative state for distant areas of near-field earthquake. In the case of far-field events, NTWS follow the recommendations proposed by Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC), including a comprehensive monitoring of sea level records, such as tide gauges and DART (Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami) buoys, to evaluate the state of tsunami threat in the area of responsibility. The main objective of this work is to analyze the first-order physical processes involved in the far-field propagation and coastal impact of tsunami, including implications for decision-making of NTWS. To explore our main question, we construct a finite-fault model of the 2017, Mw 8.1 Tehuantepec earthquake. We employ the rupture model to simulate a transoceanic tsunami modeled by Neowave2D. We generate synthetic time series at

Database of tsunami scenario simulations for Western Iberia: a tool for the TRIDEC Project Decision Support System for tsunami early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Armigliato, Alberto; Pagnoni, Gianluca; Zaniboni, Filippo; Tinti, Stefano

2013-04-01

TRIDEC is a EU-FP7 Project whose main goal is, in general terms, to develop suitable strategies for the management of crises possibly arising in the Earth management field. The general paradigms adopted by TRIDEC to develop those strategies include intelligent information management, the capability of managing dynamically increasing volumes and dimensionality of information in complex events, and collaborative decision making in systems that are typically very loosely coupled. The two areas where TRIDEC applies and tests its strategies are tsunami early warning and industrial subsurface development. In the field of tsunami early warning, TRIDEC aims at developing a Decision Support System (DSS) that integrates 1) a set of seismic, geodetic and marine sensors devoted to the detection and characterisation of possible tsunamigenic sources and to monitoring the time and space evolution of the generated tsunami, 2) large-volume databases of pre-computed numerical tsunami scenarios, 3) a proper overall system architecture. Two test areas are dealt with in TRIDEC: the western Iberian margin and the eastern Mediterranean. In this study, we focus on the western Iberian margin with special emphasis on the Portuguese coasts. The strategy adopted in TRIDEC plans to populate two different databases, called "Virtual Scenario Database" (VSDB) and "Matching Scenario Database" (MSDB), both of which deal only with earthquake-generated tsunamis. In the VSDB we simulate numerically few large-magnitude events generated by the major known tectonic structures in the study area. Heterogeneous slip distributions on the earthquake faults are introduced to simulate events as "realistically" as possible. The members of the VSDB represent the unknowns that the TRIDEC platform must be able to recognise and match during the early crisis management phase. On the other hand, the MSDB contains a very large number (order of thousands) of tsunami simulations performed starting from many different

NOAA/West coast and Alaska Tsunami warning center Atlantic Ocean response criteria

Science.gov (United States)

Whitmore, P.; Refidaff, C.; Caropolo, M.; Huerfano-Moreno, V.; Knight, W.; Sammler, W.; Sandrik, A.

2009-01-01

West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) response criteria for earthquakesoccurring in the Atlantic and Caribbean basins are presented. Initial warning center decisions are based on an earthquake's location, magnitude, depth, distance from coastal locations, and precomputed threat estimates based on tsunami models computed from similar events. The new criteria will help limit the geographical extent of warnings and advisories to threatened regions, and complement the new operational tsunami product suite. Criteria are set for tsunamis generated by earthquakes, which are by far the main cause of tsunami generation (either directly through sea floor displacement or indirectly by triggering of sub-sea landslides).The new criteria require development of a threat data base which sets warning or advisory zones based on location, magnitude, and pre-computed tsunami models. The models determine coastal tsunami amplitudes based on likely tsunami source parameters for a given event. Based on the computed amplitude, warning and advisory zones are pre-set.

Scientific Animations for Tsunami Hazard Mitigation: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's YouTube Channel

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, N. C.; Wang, D.; Shiro, B.; Ward, B.

2013-12-01

Outreach and education save lives, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) has a new tool--a YouTube Channel--to advance its mission to protect lives and property from dangerous tsunamis. Such outreach and education is critical for coastal populations nearest an earthquake since they may not get an official warning before a tsunami reaches them and will need to know what to do when they feel strong shaking. Those who live far enough away to receive useful official warnings and react to them, however, can also benefit from PTWC's education and outreach efforts. They can better understand a tsunami warning message when they receive one, can better understand the danger facing them, and can better anticipate how events will unfold while the warning is in effect. The same holds true for emergency managers, who have the authority to evacuate the public they serve, and for the news media, critical partners in disseminating tsunami hazard information. PTWC's YouTube channel supplements its formal outreach and education efforts by making its computer animations available 24/7 to anyone with an Internet connection. Though the YouTube channel is only a month old (as of August 2013), it should rapidly develop a large global audience since similar videos on PTWC's Facebook page have reached over 70,000 viewers during organized media events, while PTWC's official web page has received tens of millions of hits during damaging tsunamis. These animations are not mere cartoons but use scientific data and calculations to render graphical depictions of real-world phenomena as accurately as possible. This practice holds true whether the animation is a simple comparison of historic earthquake magnitudes or a complex simulation cycling through thousands of high-resolution data grids to render tsunami waves propagating across an entire ocean basin. PTWC's animations fall into two broad categories. The first group illustrates concepts about seismology and how it is critical to

Tsunami Warning Services for the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic Coasts

Science.gov (United States)

Whitmore, P. M.; Knight, W.

2008-12-01

In January 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a tsunami warning program for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts. Within a year, this program extended further to the Atlantic coast of Canada and the Caribbean Sea. Warning services are provided to U.S. and Canadian coasts (including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) by the NOAA/West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) while the NOAA/Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) provides services for non-U.S. entities in the Caribbean Basin. The Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) is also an active partner in the Caribbean Basin warning system. While the nature of the tsunami threat in the Atlantic Basin is different than in the Pacific, the warning system philosophy is similar. That is, initial messages are based strictly on seismic data so that information is provided to those at greatest risk as fast as possible while supplementary messages are refined with sea level observations and forecasts when possible. The Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs) acquire regional seismic data through many agencies, such as the United States Geological Survey, Earthquakes Canada, regional seismic networks, and the PRSN. Seismic data quantity and quality are generally sufficient throughout most of the Atlantic area-of-responsibility to issue initial information within five minutes of origin time. Sea level data are mainly provided by the NOAA/National Ocean Service. Coastal tide gage coverage is generally denser along the Atlantic coast than in the Pacific. Seven deep ocean pressure sensors (DARTs), operated by the National Weather Service (NWS) National Data Buoy Center, are located in the Atlantic Basin (5 in the Atlantic Ocean, 1 in the Caribbean, and 1 in the Gulf of Mexico). The DARTs provide TWCs with the means to verify tsunami generation in the Atlantic and provide critical data with which to calibrate forecast models. Tsunami warning response criteria in the Atlantic Basin

CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PACIFIC, ATLANTIC AND ARCTIC TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEMS FOR CANADA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T.S. Murty

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Canada has coastlines on three of the four oceans on the globe, namely, the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans are connected to the Arctic Ocean in the north, but still they are three distinct oceans, and need three individual tsunami warning systems. Tsunamis in the Arctic Ocean are not as well documented as in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. From what is known, tsunamis in the Arctic Ocean are rare and probably are small in amplitude. Because of very low population density, around the Canadian Arctic, at present, there is no priority for a tsunami warning system for Arctic Canada. For the Pacific Ocean, a tsunami warning system is in existence since 1948. In at least one sense, the warning aspects of the tsunami warning system for the Pacific coast of Canada, is relatively simple and straight forward, because it involves only the federal government (PSEPC and the provincial government of British Columbia (PEP. For the Atlantic Ocean, A tsunami warning system is now being established. The warning aspects will be some what more complex for eastern Canada, since it not only involves the federal government, but also five provinces, namely, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. The Alaska tsunami warning center (ATWC in Palmer, Alaska, provides tsunami warnings for both Pacific and Atlantic Canada.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's Response to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Weinstein, S. A.; Becker, N. C.; Shiro, B.; Koyanagi, K. K.; Sardina, V.; Walsh, D.; Wang, D.; McCreery, C. S.; Fryer, G. J.; Cessaro, R. K.; Hirshorn, B. F.; Hsu, V.

2011-12-01

The largest Pacific basin earthquake in 47 years, and also the largest magnitude earthquake since the Sumatra 2004 earthquake, struck off of the east coast of the Tohoku region of Honshu, Japan at 5:46 UTC on 11 March 2011. The Tohoku earthquake (Mw 9.0) generated a massive tsunami with runups of up to 40m along the Tohoku coast. The tsunami waves crossed the Pacific Ocean causing significant damage as far away as Hawaii, California, and Chile, thereby becoming the largest, most destructive tsunami in the Pacific Basin since 1960. Triggers on the seismic stations at Erimo, Hokkaido (ERM) and Matsushiro, Honshu (MAJO), alerted Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) scientists 90 seconds after the earthquake began. Four minutes after its origin, and about one minute after the earthquake's rupture ended, PTWC issued an observatory message reporting a preliminary magnitude of 7.5. Eight minutes after origin time, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued its first international tsunami message in its capacity as the Northwest Pacific Tsunami Advisory Center. In accordance with international tsunami warning system protocols, PTWC then followed with its first international tsunami warning message using JMA's earthquake parameters, including an Mw of 7.8. Additional Mwp, mantle wave, and W-phase magnitude estimations based on the analysis of later-arriving seismic data at PTWC revealed that the earthquake magnitude reached at least 8.8, and that a destructive tsunami would likely be crossing the Pacific Ocean. The earthquake damaged the nearest coastal sea-level station located 90 km from the epicenter in Ofunato, Japan. The NOAA DART sensor situated 600 km off the coast of Sendai, Japan, at a depth of 5.6 km recorded a tsunami wave amplitude of nearly two meters, making it by far the largest tsunami wave ever recorded by a DART sensor. Thirty minutes later, a coastal sea-level station at Hanasaki, Japan, 600 km from the epicenter, recorded a tsunami wave amplitude of

How soon is too soon? When to cancel a warning after a damaging tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Fryer, G. J.; Becker, N. C.; Wang, D.; Weinstein, S.; Richards, K.

2012-12-01

Following an earthquake a tsunami warning center (TWC) must determine if a coastal evacuation is necessary and must do so fast enough for the warning to be useful to affected coastlines. Once a damaging tsunami has arrived, the TWC must decide when to cancel its warning, a task often more challenging than the initial hazard assessment. Here we demonstrate the difficulties by investigating the impact of the Tohoku tsunami of 11 March 2011 on the State of Hawaii, which relies on the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) for tsunami hazard guidance. PTWC issued a Tsunami Watch for Hawaii at 10 March 1956 HST (10 minutes after the earthquake) and upgraded to a Tsunami Warning at 2131 HST. The tsunami arrived in Hawaii just before 0300 HST the next day, reached a maximum runup of over 5 m, and did roughly $50 million in damage throughout the state. PTWC downgraded the Warning to an Advisory at 0730 HST, and canceled the Advisory at 1140 HST. The timing of the downgrade was appropriate—by then it was safe for coastal residents to re-enter the evacuation zone but not to enter the water—but in retrospect PTWC cancelled its Advisory too early. By late morning tide gauges throughout the state had all registered maximum wave heights of 30 cm or less for a couple of hours, so PTWC cancelled. The Center was unaware, however, of ocean behavior at locations without instruments. At Ma'alaea Harbor on the Island of Maui, for example, sea level oscillations exposed the harbor bottom every 20 minutes for several hours after the cancellation. At Waikiki on Oahu, lifeguards rescued 25 swimmers (who had either ignored or were unaware of the cancellation message's caution about hazardous currents) in the hours after the cancellation and performed CPR on one near-drowning victim. Fortunately, there were no deaths. Because of dangerous surges, ocean safety officials closed Hanauma Bay, a popular snorkeling spot on Oahu, for a full day after the tsunami hit. They reassessed the bay the

Second international tsunami workshop on the technical aspects of tsunami warning systems, tsunami analysis, preparedness, observation and instrumentation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-01-01

The Second Workshop on the Technical Aspects of Tsunami Warning Systems, Tsunami Analysis, Preparedness, Observation, and Instrumentation, sponsored and convened by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), was held on 1-2 August 1989, in the modern and attractive research town of Academgorodok, which is located 20 km south from downtown Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, USSR. The Program was arranged in eight major areas of interest covering the following: Opening and Introduction; Survey of Existing Tsunami Warning Centers - present status, results of work, plans for future development; Survey of some existing seismic data processing systems and future projects; Methods for fast evaluation of Tsunami potential and perspectives of their implementation; Tsunami data bases; Tsunami instrumentation and observations; Tsunami preparedness; and finally, a general discussion and adoption of recommendations. The Workshop presentations not only addressed the conceptual improvements that have been made, but focused on the inner workings of the Tsunami Warning System, as well, including computer applications, on-line processing and numerical modelling. Furthermore, presentations reported on progress has been made in the last few years on data telemetry, instrumentation and communications. Emphasis was placed on new concepts and their application into operational techniques that can result in improvements in data collection, rapid processing of the data, in analysis and prediction. A Summary Report on the Second International Tsunami Workshop, containing abstracted and annotated proceedings has been published as a separate report. The present Report is a Supplement to the Summary Report and contains the full text of the papers presented at this Workshop. Refs, figs and tabs

Evaluation of earthquake parameters used in the Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System

Science.gov (United States)

Madlazim; Prastowo, Tjipto

2016-02-01

Twenty-two of a total of 30 earthquake events reported by the Indonesian Agency for Geophysics, Climatology and Meteorology during the time period 2007-2010 were falsely issued as tsunamigenic by the Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (Ina-TEWS). These 30 earthquakes were of different magnitudes and occurred in different locations. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of the Ina-TEWS using common earthquake parameters, including the earthquake magnitude, origin time, depth, and epicenter. In total, 298 datasets assessed by the Ina-TEWS and the global centroid moment tensor (CMT) method were assessed. The global CMT method is considered by almost all seismologists to be a reference for the determination of these parameters as they have been proved to be accurate. It was found that the earthquake magnitude, origin time, and depth provided by the Ina-TEWS were significantly different from those given in the global CMT catalog, whereas the latitude and longitude positions of the events provided by both tsunami assessment systems were coincident. The performance of the Ina-TEWS, particularly in terms of accuracy, remains questionable and needs to be improved.

The EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory and allied networks, the makings of nascent Earthquake and Tsunami Early Warning System in Western North America.

Science.gov (United States)

Mattioli, Glen; Mencin, David; Hodgkinson, Kathleen; Meertens, Charles; Phillips, David; Blume, Fredrick; Berglund, Henry; Fox, Otina; Feaux, Karl

2016-04-01

The NSF-funded GAGE Facility, managed by UNAVCO, operates approximately ~1300 GNSS stations distributed across North and Central America and in the circum-Caribbean. Following community input starting in 2011 from several workshops and associated reports,UNAVCO has been exploring ways to increase the capability and utility of the geodetic resources under its management to improve our understanding in diverse areas of geophysics including properties of seismic, volcanic, magmatic and tsunami deformation sources. Networks operated by UNAVCO for the NSF have the potential to profoundly transform our ability to rapidly characterize events, provide rapid characterization and warning, as well as improve hazard mitigation and response. Specific applications currently under development include earthquake early warning, tsunami early warning, and tropospheric modeling with university, commercial, non-profit and government partners on national and international scales. In the case of tsunami early warning, for example, an RT-GNSS network can provide multiple inputs in an operational system starting with rapid assessment of earthquake sources and associated deformation, which leads to the initial model of ocean forcing and tsunami generation. In addition, terrestrial GNSScan provide direct measurements of the tsunami through the associated traveling ionospheric disturbance from several 100's of km away as they approach the shoreline,which can be used to refine tsunami inundation models. Any operational system like this has multiple communities that rely on a pan-Pacific real-time open data set. Other scientific and operational applications for high-rate GPS include glacier and ice sheet motions, tropospheric modeling, and better constraints on the dynamics of space weather. Combining existing data sets and user communities, for example seismic data and tide gauge observations, with GNSS and Met data products has proven complicated because of issues related to metadata

The potential role of real-time geodetic observations in tsunami early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Tinti, Stefano; Armigliato, Alberto

2016-04-01

Tsunami warning systems (TWS) have the final goal to launch a reliable alert of an incoming dangerous tsunami to coastal population early enough to allow people to flee from the shore and coastal areas according to some evacuation plans. In the last decade, especially after the catastrophic 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean, much attention has been given to filling gaps in the existing TWSs (only covering the Pacific Ocean at that time) and to establishing new TWSs in ocean regions that were uncovered. Typically, TWSs operating today work only on earthquake-induced tsunamis. TWSs estimate quickly earthquake location and size by real-time processing seismic signals; on the basis of some pre-defined "static" procedures (either based on decision matrices or on pre-archived tsunami simulations), assess the tsunami alert level on a large regional scale and issue specific bulletins to a pre-selected recipients audience. Not unfrequently these procedures result in generic alert messages with little value. What usually operative TWSs do not do, is to compute earthquake focal mechanism, to calculate the co-seismic sea-floor displacement, to assess the initial tsunami conditions, to input these data into tsunami simulation models and to compute tsunami propagation up to the threatened coastal districts. This series of steps is considered nowadays too time consuming to provide the required timely alert. An equivalent series of steps could start from the same premises (earthquake focal parameters) and reach the same result (tsunami height at target coastal areas) by replacing the intermediate steps of real-time tsunami simulations with proper selection from a large archive of pre-computed tsunami scenarios. The advantage of real-time simulations and of archived scenarios selection is that estimates are tailored to the specific occurring tsunami and alert can be more detailed (less generic) and appropriate for local needs. Both these procedures are still at an

Availability and Reliability of Disaster Early Warning Systems and the IT Infrastructure Library

Science.gov (United States)

Wächter, J.; Loewe, P.

2012-12-01

The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 caused an information catastrophy. Crucial early warning information could not be delivered to the communities under imminent threat, resulting in over 240,000 casualties in 14 countries. This tragedy sparked the development of a new generation of integrated modular Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS). While significant advances were accomplished in the past years, recent events, like the Chile 2010 and the Tohoku 2011 tsunami demonstrate that the key technical challenge for Tsunami Early Warning research on the supranational scale still lies in the timely issuing of status information and reliable early warning messages. A key challenge stems from the main objective of the IOC Tsunami Programme, the integration of national TEWS towards ocean-wide networks: Each of the increasing number of integrated Tsunami Early Warning Centres has to cope with the continuing evolution of sensors, hardware and software while having to maintain reliable inter-center information exchange services. To avoid future information catastrophes, the performance of all components, ranging from sensors to Warning Centers, has to be regularly validated against defined criteria. This task is complicated by the fact that in term of ICT system life cycles tsunami are very rare event resulting in very difficult framing conditions to safeguard the availability and reliability of TWS. Since 2004, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) has built up expertise in the field of TEWS. Within GFZ, the Centre for GeoInformation Technology (CEGIT) has focused its work on the geoinformatics aspects of TEWS in two projects already: The German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Distant Early Warning System (DEWS), a European project funded under the sixth Framework Programme (FP6). These developments are continued in the TRIDEC project (Collaborative, Complex, and Critical

NOAA/WEST COAST AND ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER PACIFIC OCEAN RESPONSE CRITERIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Garry Rogers

2008-01-01

Full Text Available New West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC response criteria for earthquakes occurring in the Pacific basin are presented. Initial warning decisions are based on earthquake location, magnitude, depth, and - dependent on magnitude - either distance from source or pre- computed threat estimates generated from tsunami models. The new criteria will help limit the geographical extent of warnings and advisories to threatened regions, and complement the new operational tsunami product suite.Changes to the previous criteria include: adding hypocentral depth dependence, reducing geographical warning extent for the lower magnitude ranges, setting special criteria for areas not well-connected to the open ocean, basing warning extent on pre-computed threat levels versus tsunami travel time for very large events, including the new advisory product, using the advisory product for far-offshore events in the lower magnitude ranges, and specifying distances from the coast for on-shore events which may be tsunamigenic.This report sets a baseline for response criteria used by the WCATWC considering its processing and observational data capabilities as well as its organizational requirements. Criteria are set for tsunamis generated by earthquakes, which are by far the main cause of tsunami generation (either directly through sea floor displacement or indirectly by triggering of slumps. As further research and development provides better tsunami source definition, observational data streams, and improved analysis tools, the criteria will continue to adjust. Future lines of research and development capable of providing operational tsunami warning centers with better tools are discussed.

REMOTE OPERATION OF THE WEST COAST AND ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER

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Alec H. Medbery

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The remote control of real time derivation of earthquake location and magnitude and the issuance of tsunami and earthquake bulletins was done using off-the-shelf remote control software and hardware. Such remote operation of the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center can decrease the time needed to respond to an earthquake by eliminating travel from the duty standers’ home to the tsunami warning center.

Smartphone-Based Earthquake and Tsunami Early Warning in Chile

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, B. A.; Baez, J. C.; Ericksen, T.; Barrientos, S. E.; Minson, S. E.; Duncan, C.; Guillemot, C.; Smith, D.; Boese, M.; Cochran, E. S.; Murray, J. R.; Langbein, J. O.; Glennie, C. L.; Dueitt, J.; Parra, H.

2016-12-01

Many locations around the world face high seismic hazard, but do not have the resources required to establish traditional earthquake and tsunami warning systems (E/TEW) that utilize scientific grade seismological sensors. MEMs accelerometers and GPS chips embedded in, or added inexpensively to, smartphones are sensitive enough to provide robust E/TEW if they are deployed in sufficient numbers. We report on a pilot project in Chile, one of the most productive earthquake regions world-wide. There, magnitude 7.5+ earthquakes occurring roughly every 1.5 years and larger tsunamigenic events pose significant local and trans-Pacific hazard. The smartphone-based network described here is being deployed in parallel to the build-out of a scientific-grade network for E/TEW. Our sensor package comprises a smartphone with internal MEMS and an external GPS chipset that provides satellite-based augmented positioning and phase-smoothing. Each station is independent of local infrastructure, they are solar-powered and rely on cellular SIM cards for communications. An Android app performs initial onboard processing and transmits both accelerometer and GPS data to a server employing the FinDer-BEFORES algorithm to detect earthquakes, producing an acceleration-based line source model for smaller magnitude earthquakes or a joint seismic-geodetic finite-fault distributed slip model for sufficiently large magnitude earthquakes. Either source model provides accurate ground shaking forecasts, while distributed slip models for larger offshore earthquakes can be used to infer seafloor deformation for local tsunami warning. The network will comprise 50 stations by Sept. 2016 and 100 stations by Dec. 2016. Since Nov. 2015, batch processing has detected, located, and estimated the magnitude for Mw>5 earthquakes. Operational since June, 2016, we have successfully detected two earthquakes > M5 (M5.5, M5.1) that occurred within 100km of our network while producing zero false alarms.

Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis Version 4.0 Brings Forecasting Speed, Accuracy, and Capability Improvements to NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers

Science.gov (United States)

Sterling, K.; Denbo, D. W.; Eble, M. C.

2016-12-01

Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis (SIFT) software was developed by NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) for use in tsunami forecasting and has been used by both U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs) since 2012, when SIFTv3.1 was operationally accepted. Since then, advancements in research and modeling have resulted in several new features being incorporated into SIFT forecasting. Following the priorities and needs of the TWCs, upgrades to SIFT forecasting were implemented into SIFTv4.0, scheduled to become operational in October 2016. Because every minute counts in the early warning process, two major time saving features were implemented in SIFT 4.0. To increase processing speeds and generate high-resolution flooding forecasts more quickly, the tsunami propagation and inundation codes were modified to run on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). To reduce time demand on duty scientists during an event, an automated DART inversion (or fitting) process was implemented. To increase forecasting accuracy, the forecasted amplitudes and inundations were adjusted to include dynamic tidal oscillations, thereby reducing the over-estimates of flooding common in SIFTv3.1 due to the static tide stage conservatively set at Mean High Water. Further improvements to forecasts were gained through the assimilation of additional real-time observations. Cabled array measurements from Bottom Pressure Recorders (BPRs) in the Oceans Canada NEPTUNE network are now available to SIFT for use in the inversion process. To better meet the needs of harbor masters and emergency managers, SIFTv4.0 adds a tsunami currents graphical product to the suite of disseminated forecast results. When delivered, these new features in SIFTv4.0 will improve the operational tsunami forecasting speed, accuracy, and capabilities at NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers.

Seismogeodetic monitoring techniques for tsunami and earthquake early warning and rapid assessment of structural damage

Science.gov (United States)

Haase, J. S.; Bock, Y.; Saunders, J. K.; Goldberg, D.; Restrepo, J. I.

2016-12-01

As part of an effort to promote the use of NASA-sponsored Earth science information for disaster risk reduction, real-time high-rate seismogeodetic data are being incorporated into early warning and structural monitoring systems. Seismogeodesy combines seismic acceleration and GPS displacement measurements using a tightly-coupled Kalman filter to provide absolute estimates of seismic acceleration, velocity and displacement. Traditionally, the monitoring of earthquakes and tsunamis has been based on seismic networks for estimating earthquake magnitude and slip, and tide gauges and deep-ocean buoys for direct measurement of tsunami waves. Real-time seismogeodetic observations at subduction zones allow for more robust and rapid magnitude and slip estimation that increase warning time in the near-source region. A NASA-funded effort to utilize GPS and seismogeodesy in NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers in Alaska and Hawaii integrates new modules for picking, locating, and estimating magnitudes and moment tensors for earthquakes into the USGS earthworm environment at the TWCs. In a related project, NASA supports the transition of this research to seismogeodetic tools for disaster preparedness, specifically by implementing GPS and low-cost MEMS accelerometers for structural monitoring in partnership with earthquake engineers. Real-time high-rate seismogeodetic structural monitoring has been implemented on two structures. The first is a parking garage at the Autonomous University of Baja California Faculty of Medicine in Mexicali, not far from the rupture of the 2011 Mw 7.2 El Mayor Cucapah earthquake enabled through a UCMexus collaboration. The second is the 8-story Geisel Library at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The system has also been installed for several proof-of-concept experiments at the UCSD Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table. We present MEMS-based seismogeodetic observations from the 10 June

Bodrum-Kos (Turkey-Greece) Mw 6.6 earthquake and tsunami of 20 July 2017: a test for the Mediterranean tsunami warning system

Science.gov (United States)

Heidarzadeh, Mohammad; Necmioglu, Ocal; Ishibe, Takeo; Yalciner, Ahmet C.

2017-12-01

Various Tsunami Service Providers (TSPs) within the Mediterranean Basin supply tsunami warnings including CAT-INGV (Italy), KOERI-RETMC (Turkey), and NOA/HL-NTWC (Greece). The 20 July 2017 Bodrum-Kos (Turkey-Greece) earthquake (Mw 6.6) and tsunami provided an opportunity to assess the response from these TSPs. Although the Bodrum-Kos tsunami was moderate (e.g., runup of 1.9 m) with little damage to properties, it was the first noticeable tsunami in the Mediterranean Basin since the 21 May 2003 western Mediterranean tsunami. Tsunami waveform analysis revealed that the trough-to-crest height was 34.1 cm at the near-field tide gauge station of Bodrum (Turkey). Tsunami period band was 2-30 min with peak periods at 7-13 min. We proposed a source fault model for this tsunami with the length and width of 25 and 15 km and uniform slip of 0.4 m. Tsunami simulations using both nodal planes produced almost same results in terms of agreement between tsunami observations and simulations. Different TSPs provided tsunami warnings at 10 min (CAT-INGV), 19 min (KOERI-RETMC), and 18 min (NOA/HL-NTWC) after the earthquake origin time. Apart from CAT-INGV, whose initial Mw estimation differed 0.2 units with respect to the final value, the response from the other two TSPs came relatively late compared to the desired warning time of 10 min, given the difficulties for timely and accurate calculation of earthquake magnitude and tsunami impact assessment. It is argued that even if a warning time of 10 min was achieved, it might not have been sufficient for addressing near-field tsunami hazards. Despite considerable progress and achievements made within the upstream components of NEAMTWS (North East Atlantic, Mediterranean and Connected seas Tsunami Warning System), the experience from this moderate tsunami may highlight the need for improving operational capabilities of TSPs, but more importantly for effectively integrating civil protection authorities into NEAMTWS and strengthening

Wavelet analysis of the seismograms for tsunami warning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Chamoli

2010-10-01

Full Text Available The complexity in the tsunami phenomenon makes the available warning systems not much effective in the practical situations. The problem arises due to the time lapsed in the data transfer, processing and modeling. The modeling and simulation needs the input fault geometry and mechanism of the earthquake. The estimation of these parameters and other aprior information increases the utilized time for making any warning. Here, the wavelet analysis is used to identify the tsunamigenesis of an earthquake. The frequency content of the seismogram in time scale domain is examined using wavelet transform. The energy content in high frequencies is calculated and gives a threshold for tsunami warnings. Only first few minutes of the seismograms of the earthquake events are used for quick estimation. The results for the earthquake events of Andaman Sumatra region and other historic events are promising.

Early waning and evacuation from Tsunami, volcano, flood and other hazards

Science.gov (United States)

Sugimoto, M.

2012-12-01

In reconsideration of the great sacrifice among the people, evacuation calls for evacuation through Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), local governments and Medias have been drastically changed after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami in Japan. One of example is that JMA changed from forecasted concrete figure of tsunami height to one of 3 levels of tsunami height. A data shows the border between life and death is just 2 minutes of earlier evacuation in case of the 2011 tsunami. It shows how importance for communities to prompt early evacuation for survivals. However, the 2011 Tohoku tsunami revealed there is no reliable trigger to prompt early evacuation to people in case of blackout under disasters, excluding effective education. The warning call was still complicated situations in Japan in July 2012. The 2012 Northern Kyusyu downpours was at worst around 110 millimeters an hour and casualties 30 in Japan. JMA learned from the last tsunami. In this time JMA informed to local governments as a waning call "Unexpected severe rains" to local governments. However, local governments did not notice the call from JMA in the same as usual informed way. One of the local government said "We were very busy for preparing for staffs. We looked at the necessary information of the water levels of rivers and flood prevention under emergent situation" (NHK 2012). This case shows JMA's evacuation calls from upstream to midstream of local government and downstream of communities started, however upstream calls have not engaged with midstream and communities yet. Calls of early warning from upstream is still a self-centered idea for both midstream and downstream. Finally JMA could not convey a crisis mentality to local government. The head of Oarai town independently decided to use the different warning call "Order townspersons to evacuate immediately" in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan from the other municipalities in 2011 though there was not such a manuals calls in Japan. This risk communication

Test of TEDA, Tsunami Early Detection Algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Bressan, Lidia; Tinti, Stefano

2010-05-01

mainly characterized by the astronomical tide and white noise. TEDA has been tested on specific events recorded by Adak Island tide-gauge, in Alaska, and by DART buoys, located offshore Alaska, thanks to the collaboration with NCTR of PMEL/NOAA (NOAA Centre for Tsunami Research of Pacific and Marine Environmental Laboratory/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Three methods for the characterization of the background signal have been tested and compared with different characterization settings, in order to find the most appropriate calibration. To evaluate the algorithm performance, different indicators have been taken into account, such as the number of false detections, the number of events detected, the delay of detection and the duration of the tsunami alert state. Particular attention has been reserved to the number of false detections, which compromise heavily the reliability of a detection algorithm and undermine the usefulness of the algorithm itself. The method to test TEDA is presented here and is proposed as an example of procedure to evaluate the performance of the tsunami detection algorithms used in the Tsunami Early Warning Systems practice.

An Experimental Seismic Data and Parameter Exchange System for Tsunami Warning Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffmann, T. L.; Hanka, W.; Saul, J.; Weber, B.; Becker, J.; Heinloo, A.; Hoffmann, M.

2009-12-01

For several years GFZ Potsdam is operating a global earthquake monitoring system. Since the beginning of 2008, this system is also used as an experimental seismic background data center for two different regional Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS), the IOTWS (Indian Ocean) and the interim NEAMTWS (NE Atlantic and Mediterranean). The SeisComP3 (SC3) software, developed within the GITEWS (German Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System) project, capable to acquire, archive and process real-time data feeds, was extended for export and import of individual processing results within the two clusters of connected SC3 systems. Therefore not only real-time waveform data are routed to the attached warning centers through GFZ but also processing results. While the current experimental NEAMTWS cluster consists of SC3 systems in six designated national warning centers in Europe, the IOTWS cluster presently includes seven centers, with another three likely to join in 2009/10. For NEAMTWS purposes, the GFZ virtual real-time seismic network (GEOFON Extended Virtual Network -GEVN) in Europe was substantially extended by adding many stations from Western European countries optimizing the station distribution. In parallel to the data collection over the Internet, a GFZ VSAT hub for secured data collection of the EuroMED GEOFON and NEAMTWS backbone network stations became operational and first data links were established through this backbone. For the Southeast Asia region, a VSAT hub has been established in Jakarta already in 2006, with some other partner networks connecting to this backbone via the Internet. Since its establishment, the experimental system has had the opportunity to prove its performance in a number of relevant earthquakes. Reliable solutions derived from a minimum of 25 stations were very promising in terms of speed. For important events, automatic alerts were released and disseminated by emails and SMS. Manually verified solutions are added as soon as they become

An automatic tsunami warning system: TREMORS application in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Reymond, D.; Robert, S.; Thomas, Y.; Schindelé, F.

1996-03-01

An integrated system named TREMORS (Tsunami Risk Evaluation through seismic Moment of a Real-time System) has been installed in EVORA station, in Portugal which has been affected by historical tsunamis. The system is based on a three component long period seismic station linked to a compatible IBM_PC with a specific software. The goals of this system are the followings: detect earthquake, locate them, compute their seismic moment, give a seismic warning. The warnings are based on the seismic moment estimation and all the processing are made automatically. The finality of this study is to check the quality of estimation of the main parameters of interest in a goal of tsunami warning: the location which depends of azimuth and distance, and at last the seismic moment, M 0, which controls the earthquake size. The sine qua non condition for obtaining an automatic location is that the 3 main seismic phases P, S, R must be visible. This study gives satisfying results (automatic analysis): ± 5° errors in azimuth and epicentral distance, and a standard deviation of less than a factor 2 for the seismic moment M 0.

User interface prototype for geospatial early warning systems - a tsunami showcase

Science.gov (United States)

Hammitzsch, M.; Lendholt, M.; Esbrí, M. Á.

2012-03-01

The command and control unit's graphical user interface (GUI) is a central part of early warning systems (EWS) for man-made and natural hazards. The GUI combines and concentrates the relevant information of the system and offers it to human operators. It has to support operators successfully performing their tasks in complex workflows. Most notably in critical situations when operators make important decisions in a limited amount of time, the command and control unit's GUI has to work reliably and stably, providing the relevant information and functionality with the required quality and in time. The design of the GUI application is essential in the development of any EWS to manage hazards effectively. The design and development of such GUI is performed repeatedly for each EWS by various software architects and developers. Implementations differ based on their application in different domains. But similarities designing and equal approaches implementing GUIs of EWS are not quite harmonized enough with related activities and do not exploit possible synergy effects. Thus, the GUI's implementation of an EWS for tsunamis is successively introduced, providing a generic approach to be applied in each EWS for man-made and natural hazards.

Tsunami prevention and mitigation necessities and options derived from tsunami risk assessment in Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Post, J.; Zosseder, K.; Wegscheider, S.; Steinmetz, T.; Mück, M.; Strunz, G.; Riedlinger, T.; Anwar, H. Z.; Birkmann, J.; Gebert, N.

2009-04-01

Risk and vulnerability assessment is an important component of an effective End-to-End Tsunami Early Warning System and therefore contributes significantly to disaster risk reduction. Risk assessment is a key strategy to implement and design adequate disaster prevention and mitigation measures. The knowledge about expected tsunami hazard impacts, exposed elements, their susceptibility, coping and adaptation mechanisms is a precondition for the development of people-centred warning structures, local specific response and recovery policy planning. The developed risk assessment and its components reflect the disaster management cycle (disaster time line) and cover the early warning as well as the emergency response phase. Consequently the components hazard assessment, exposure (e.g. how many people/ critical facilities are affected?), susceptibility (e.g. are the people able to receive a tsunami warning?), coping capacity (are the people able to evacuate in time?) and recovery (are the people able to restore their livelihoods?) are addressed and quantified. Thereby the risk assessment encompasses three steps: (i) identifying the nature, location, intensity and probability of potential tsunami threats (hazard assessment); (ii) determining the existence and degree of exposure and susceptibility to those threats; and (iii) identifying the coping capacities and resources available to address or manage these threats. The paper presents results of the research work, which is conducted in the framework of the GITEWS project and the Joint Indonesian-German Working Group on Risk Modelling and Vulnerability Assessment. The assessment methodology applied follows a people-centred approach to deliver relevant risk and vulnerability information for the purposes of early warning and disaster management. The analyses are considering the entire coastal areas of Sumatra, Java and Bali facing the Sunda trench. Selected results and products like risk maps, guidelines, decision support

Ionospheric detection of tsunami earthquakes: observation, modeling and ideas for future early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Occhipinti, G.; Manta, F.; Rolland, L.; Watada, S.; Makela, J. J.; Hill, E.; Astafieva, E.; Lognonne, P. H.

2017-12-01

.8 Benyak event (2010). In this talk we present all this new tsunami observations in the ionosphere and we discuss, under the light of modelling, the potential role of ionospheric sounding by GNSS-TEC and airglow cameras in oceanic monitoring and future tsunami warning system. All ref. here @ www.ipgp.fr/ ninto

Emergency management response to a warning-level Alaska-source tsunami impacting California: Chapter J in The SAFRR (Science Application for Risk Reduction) Tsunami Scenario

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Kevin M.; Long, Kate

2013-01-01

This chapter is directed towards two audiences: Firstly, it targets nonemergency management readers, providing them with insight on the process and challenges facing emergency managers in responding to tsunami Warning, particularly given this “short fuse” scenario. It is called “short fuse” because there is only a 5.5-hour window following the earthquake before arrival of the tsunami within which to evaluate the threat, disseminate alert and warning messages, and respond. This action initiates a period when crisis communication is of paramount importance. An additional dynamic that is important to note is that within 15 minutes of the earthquake, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS) will issue alert bulletins for the entire Pacific Coast. This is one-half the time actually presented by recent tsunamis from Japan, Chile, and Samoa. Second, the chapter provides emergency managers at all levels with insights into key considerations they may need to address in order to augment their existing plans and effectively respond to tsunami events. We look at emergency management response to the tsunami threat from three perspectives:“Top Down” (Threat analysis and Alert/Warning information from the Federal agency charged with Alert and Warning) “Bottom Up” (Emergency management’s Incident Command approach to responding to emergencies and disasters based on the needs of impacted local jurisdictions) “Across Time” (From the initiating earthquake event through emergency response) We focus on these questions: What are the government roles, relationships, and products that support Tsunami Alert and Warning dissemination? (Emergency Planning and Preparedness.) What roles, relationships, and products support emergency management response to Tsunami Warning and impact? (Engendering prudent public safety response.) What are the key emergency management activities, considerations, and challenges brought

Open Source Seismic Software in NOAA's Next Generation Tsunami Warning System

Science.gov (United States)

Hellman, S. B.; Baker, B. I.; Hagerty, M. T.; Leifer, J. M.; Lisowski, S.; Thies, D. A.; Donnelly, B. K.; Griffith, F. P.

2014-12-01

The Tsunami Information technology Modernization (TIM) is a project spearheaded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to update the United States' Tsunami Warning System software currently employed at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (Eva Beach, Hawaii) and the National Tsunami Warning Center (Palmer, Alaska). This entirely open source software project will integrate various seismic processing utilities with the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office's core software, AWIPS2. For the real-time and near real-time seismic processing aspect of this project, NOAA has elected to integrate the open source portions of GFZ's SeisComP 3 (SC3) processing system into AWIPS2. To provide for better tsunami threat assessments we are developing open source tools for magnitude estimations (e.g., moment magnitude, energy magnitude, surface wave magnitude), detection of slow earthquakes with the Theta discriminant, moment tensor inversions (e.g. W-phase and teleseismic body waves), finite fault inversions, and array processing. With our reliance on common data formats such as QuakeML and seismic community standard messaging systems, all new facilities introduced into AWIPS2 and SC3 will be available as stand-alone tools or could be easily integrated into other real time seismic monitoring systems such as Earthworm, Antelope, etc. Additionally, we have developed a template based design paradigm so that the developer or scientist can efficiently create upgrades, replacements, and/or new metrics to the seismic data processing with only a cursory knowledge of the underlying SC3.

A Distributed Architecture for Tsunami Early Warning and Collaborative Decision-support in Crises

Science.gov (United States)

Moßgraber, J.; Middleton, S.; Hammitzsch, M.; Poslad, S.

2012-04-01

The presentation will describe work on the system architecture that is being developed in the EU FP7 project TRIDEC on "Collaborative, Complex and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises". The challenges for a Tsunami Early Warning System (TEWS) are manifold and the success of a system depends crucially on the system's architecture. A modern warning system following a system-of-systems approach has to integrate various components and sub-systems such as different information sources, services and simulation systems. Furthermore, it has to take into account the distributed and collaborative nature of warning systems. In order to create an architecture that supports the whole spectrum of a modern, distributed and collaborative warning system one must deal with multiple challenges. Obviously, one cannot expect to tackle these challenges adequately with a monolithic system or with a single technology. Therefore, a system architecture providing the blueprints to implement the system-of-systems approach has to combine multiple technologies and architectural styles. At the bottom layer it has to reliably integrate a large set of conventional sensors, such as seismic sensors and sensor networks, buoys and tide gauges, and also innovative and unconventional sensors, such as streams of messages from social media services. At the top layer it has to support collaboration on high-level decision processes and facilitates information sharing between organizations. In between, the system has to process all data and integrate information on a semantic level in a timely manner. This complex communication follows an event-driven mechanism allowing events to be published, detected and consumed by various applications within the architecture. Therefore, at the upper layer the event-driven architecture (EDA) aspects are combined with principles of service-oriented architectures (SOA) using standards for communication and data exchange. The most prominent challenges on this layer

Tsunami early warning in the Mediterranean: role, structure and tricks of pre-computed tsunami simulation databases and matching/forecasting algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Armigliato, Alberto; Pagnoni, Gianluca; Tinti, Stefano

2014-05-01

The general idea that pre-computed simulated scenario databases can play a key role in conceiving tsunami early warning systems is commonly accepted by now. But it was only in the last decade that it started to be applied to the Mediterranean region, taking special impulse from initiatives like the GDACS and from recently concluded EU-funded projects such as TRIDEC and NearToWarn. With reference to these two projects and with the possibility of further developing this research line in the frame of the FP7 ASTARTE project, we discuss some results we obtained regarding two major topics, namely the strategies applicable to the tsunami scenario database building and the design and performance assessment of a timely and "reliable" elementary-scenario combination algorithm to be run in real-time. As for the first theme, we take advantage of the experience gained in the test areas of Western Iberia, Rhodes (Greece) and Cyprus to illustrate the criteria with which a "Matching Scenario Database" (MSDB) can be built. These involve 1) the choice of the main tectonic tsunamigenic sources (or areas), 2) their tessellation with matrices of elementary faults whose dimension heavily depend on the particular studied area and must be a compromise between the needs to represent the tsunamigenic area in sufficient detail and of limiting the number of scenarios to be simulated, 3) the computation of the scenarios themselves, 4) the choice of the relevant simulation outputs and the standardisation of their formats. Regarding the matching/forecast algorithm, we want it to select and combine the MSDB elements based on the initial earthquake magnitude and location estimate, and to produce a forecast of (at least) the tsunami arrival time, amplitude and period at the closest tide-level sensors and in all needed forecast points. We discuss the performance of the algorithm in terms of the time needed to produce the forecast after the earthquake is detected. In particular, we analyse the

User interface prototype for geospatial early warning systems – a tsunami showcase

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Hammitzsch

2012-03-01

Full Text Available The command and control unit's graphical user interface (GUI is a central part of early warning systems (EWS for man-made and natural hazards. The GUI combines and concentrates the relevant information of the system and offers it to human operators. It has to support operators successfully performing their tasks in complex workflows. Most notably in critical situations when operators make important decisions in a limited amount of time, the command and control unit's GUI has to work reliably and stably, providing the relevant information and functionality with the required quality and in time.

The design of the GUI application is essential in the development of any EWS to manage hazards effectively. The design and development of such GUI is performed repeatedly for each EWS by various software architects and developers. Implementations differ based on their application in different domains. But similarities designing and equal approaches implementing GUIs of EWS are not quite harmonized enough with related activities and do not exploit possible synergy effects. Thus, the GUI's implementation of an EWS for tsunamis is successively introduced, providing a generic approach to be applied in each EWS for man-made and natural hazards.

Crowdsourced earthquake early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Minson, Sarah E.; Brooks, Benjamin A.; Glennie, Craig L.; Murray, Jessica R.; Langbein, John O.; Owen, Susan E.; Heaton, Thomas H.; Iannucci, Robert A.; Hauser, Darren L.

2015-01-01

Earthquake early warning (EEW) can reduce harm to people and infrastructure from earthquakes and tsunamis, but it has not been implemented in most high earthquake-risk regions because of prohibitive cost. Common consumer devices such as smartphones contain low-cost versions of the sensors used in EEW. Although less accurate than scientific-grade instruments, these sensors are globally ubiquitous. Through controlled tests of consumer devices, simulation of an Mw (moment magnitude) 7 earthquake on California’s Hayward fault, and real data from the Mw 9 Tohoku-oki earthquake, we demonstrate that EEW could be achieved via crowdsourcing.

The UNESCO-IOC framework – establishing an international early warning infrastructure in the Indian Ocean region

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Lauterjung

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake with a magnitude of 9.3, and the subsequent destructive tsunami which caused more than 225 000 fatalities in the region of the Indian Ocean, happened on 26 December 2004. Less than one month later, the United Nations (UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction took place in Kobe, Japan to commemorate the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The importance of preparedness and awareness on regional, national and community levels with respect to natural disasters was discussed during this meeting, and resulted in the approval of the Hyogo Declaration on Disaster Reduction. Based on this declaration the UN mandated the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC of UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization, taking note of its over 40 years of successful coordination of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (PTWC, to take on the international coordination of national early-warning efforts for the Indian Ocean and to guide the process of setting up a Regional Tsunami Early Warning System for the Indian Ocean.

Large magnitude (M > 7.5) offshore earthquakes in 2012: few examples of absent or little tsunamigenesis, with implications for tsunami early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Pagnoni, Gianluca; Armigliato, Alberto; Tinti, Stefano

2013-04-01

We take into account some examples of offshore earthquakes occurred worldwide in year 2012 that were characterised by a "large" magnitude (Mw equal or larger than 7.5) but which produced no or little tsunami effects. Here, "little" is intended as "lower than expected on the basis of the parent earthquake magnitude". The examples we analyse include three earthquakes occurred along the Pacific coasts of Central America (20 March, Mw=7.8, Mexico; 5 September, Mw=7.6, Costa Rica; 7 November, Mw=7.5, Mexico), the Mw=7.6 and Mw=7.7 earthquakes occurred respectively on 31 August and 28 October offshore Philippines and offshore Alaska, and the two Indian Ocean earthquakes registered on a single day (11 April) and characterised by Mw=8.6 and Mw=8.2. For each event, we try to face the problem related to its tsunamigenic potential from two different perspectives. The first can be considered purely scientific and coincides with the question: why was the ensuing tsunami so weak? The answer can be related partly to the particular tectonic setting in the source area, partly to the particular position of the source with respect to the coastline, and finally to the focal mechanism of the earthquake and to the slip distribution on the ruptured fault. The first two pieces of information are available soon after the earthquake occurrence, while the third requires time periods in the order of tens of minutes. The second perspective is more "operational" and coincides with the tsunami early warning perspective, for which the question is: will the earthquake generate a significant tsunami and if so, where will it strike? The Indian Ocean events of 11 April 2012 are perfect examples of the fact that the information on the earthquake magnitude and position alone may not be sufficient to produce reliable tsunami warnings. We emphasise that it is of utmost importance that the focal mechanism determination is obtained in the future much more quickly than it is at present and that this

POTENTIAL DEFICIENCIES IN EDUCATION, INSTRUMENTATION, AND WARNINGS FOR LOCALLY GENERATED TSUNAMIS

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Daniel A. Walker

2010-01-01

Full Text Available A review of historical data for Hawaii reveals that significant tsunamis have been reported for only four of twenty-six potentially tsunamigenic earthquakes from 1868 through 2009 with magnitudes of 6.0 or greater. During the same time period, three significant tsunamis have been reported for substantially smaller earthquakes. This historical perspective, the fact that the last significant local tsunami occurred in 1975, and an understandable preoccupation with tsunamis generated around the margins of the Pacific, all combine to suggest apparent deficiencies in: (1 personal awareness of what to do in the event of a possible local tsunami; (2 the distribution of instrumentation capable of providing rapid confirmation that a local tsunami has been generated; and (3 the subsequent issuance of timely warnings for local tsunamis. With these deficiencies, far more lives may be lost in Hawaii due to local tsunamis than will result from tsunamis that have originated along the margins of the Pacific. Similar deficiencies may exist in other areas of the world threatened by local tsunamis.

Evidence-Based Support for the Characteristics of Tsunami Warning Messages for Local, Regional and Distant Sources

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Gregg, C. E.; Johnston, D. M.; Sorensen, J. H.; Vogt Sorensen, B.; Whitmore, P.

2014-12-01

Many studies since 2004 have documented the dissemination and receipt of risk information for local to distant tsunamis and factors influencing people's responses. A few earlier tsunami studies and numerous studies of other hazards provide additional support for developing effective tsunami messages. This study explores evidence-based approaches to developing such messages for the Pacific and National Tsunami Warning Centers in the US. It extends a message metric developed for the NWS Tsunami Program. People at risk to tsunamis receive information from multiple sources through multiple channels. Sources are official and informal and environmental and social cues. Traditionally, official tsunami messages followed a linear dissemination path through relatively few channels from warning center to emergency management to public and media. However, the digital age has brought about a fundamental change in the dissemination and receipt of official and informal communications. Information is now disseminated in very non-linear paths and all end-user groups may receive the same message simultaneously. Research has demonstrated a range of factors that influence rapid respond to an initial real or perceived threat. Immediate response is less common than one involving delayed protective actions where people first engage in "milling behavior" to exchange information and confirm the warning before taking protective action. The most important message factors to achieve rapid response focus on the content and style of the message and the frequency of dissemination. Previously we developed a tsunami message metric consisting of 21 factors divided into message content and style and receiver characteristics. Initially, each factor was equally weighted to identify gaps, but here we extend the work by weighting specific factors. This utilizes recent research that identifies the most important determinants of protective action. We then discuss the prioritization of message information

Coastal Amplification Laws for the French Tsunami Warning Center: Numerical Modeling and Fast Estimate of Tsunami Wave Heights Along the French Riviera

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Gailler, A.; Hébert, H.; Schindelé, F.; Reymond, D.

2018-04-01

Tsunami modeling tools in the French tsunami Warning Center operational context provide rapidly derived warning levels with a dimensionless variable at basin scale. A new forecast method based on coastal amplification laws has been tested to estimate the tsunami onshore height, with a focus on the French Riviera test-site (Nice area). This fast prediction tool provides a coastal tsunami height distribution, calculated from the numerical simulation of the deep ocean tsunami amplitude and using a transfer function derived from the Green's law. Due to a lack of tsunami observations in the western Mediterranean basin, coastal amplification parameters are here defined regarding high resolution nested grids simulations. The preliminary results for the Nice test site on the basis of nine historical and synthetic sources show a good agreement with the time-consuming high resolution modeling: the linear approximation is obtained within 1 min in general and provides estimates within a factor of two in amplitude, although the resonance effects in harbors and bays are not reproduced. In Nice harbor especially, variation in tsunami amplitude is something that cannot be really assessed because of the magnitude range and maximum energy azimuth of possible events to account for. However, this method is well suited for a fast first estimate of the coastal tsunami threat forecast.

Tsunami Ionospheric warning and Ionospheric seismology

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Lognonne, Philippe; Rolland, Lucie; Rakoto, Virgile; Coisson, Pierdavide; Occhipinti, Giovanni; Larmat, Carene; Walwer, Damien; Astafyeva, Elvira; Hebert, Helene; Okal, Emile; Makela, Jonathan

2014-05-01

The last decade demonstrated that seismic waves and tsunamis are coupled to the ionosphere. Observations of Total Electron Content (TEC) and airglow perturbations of unique quality and amplitude were made during the Tohoku, 2011 giant Japan quake, and observations of much lower tsunamis down to a few cm in sea uplift are now routinely done, including for the Kuril 2006, Samoa 2009, Chili 2010, Haida Gwai 2012 tsunamis. This new branch of seismology is now mature enough to tackle the new challenge associated to the inversion of these data, with either the goal to provide from these data maps or profile of the earth surface vertical displacement (and therefore crucial information for tsunami warning system) or inversion, with ground and ionospheric data set, of the various parameters (atmospheric sound speed, viscosity, collision frequencies) controlling the coupling between the surface, lower atmosphere and the ionosphere. We first present the state of the art in the modeling of the tsunami-atmospheric coupling, including in terms of slight perturbation in the tsunami phase and group velocity and dependance of the coupling strength with local time, ocean depth and season. We then show the confrontation of modelled signals with observations. For tsunami, this is made with the different type of measurement having proven ionospheric tsunami detection over the last 5 years (ground and space GPS, Airglow), while we focus on GPS and GOCE observation for seismic waves. These observation systems allowed to track the propagation of the signal from the ground (with GPS and seismometers) to the neutral atmosphere (with infrasound sensors and GOCE drag measurement) to the ionosphere (with GPS TEC and airglow among other ionospheric sounding techniques). Modelling with different techniques (normal modes, spectral element methods, finite differences) are used and shown. While the fits of the waveform are generally very good, we analyse the differences and draw direction of future

Meteotsunamis, destructive tsunami-like waves: from observations and simulations towards a warning system (MESSI)

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Sepic, Jadranka; Vilibic, Ivica

2016-04-01

Atmospherically-generated tsunami-like waves, also known as meteotsunamis, pose a severe threat for exposed coastlines. Although not as destructive as ordinary tsunamis, several meters high meteotsunami waves can bring destruction, cause loss of human lives and raise panic. For that reason, MESSI, an integrative meteotsunami research & warning project, has been developed and will be presented herein. The project has a threefold base: (1) research of atmosphere-ocean interaction with focus on (i) source processes in the atmosphere, (ii) energy transfer to the ocean and (iii) along-propagation growth of meteotsunami waves; (2) estimation of meteotsunami occurrence rates in past, present and future climate, and mapping of meteotsunami hazard; (3) construction of a meteotsunami warning system prototype, with the latter being the main objective of the project. Due to a great frequency of meteotsunamis and its complex bathymetry which varies from the shallow shelf in the north towards deep pits in the south, with a number of funnel-shaped bays and harbours substantially amplifying incoming tsunami-like waves, the Adriatic, northernmost of the Mediterranean seas, has been chosen as an ideal area for realization of the MESSI project and implementation of the warning system. This warning system will however be designed to allow for a wider applicability and easy-to-accomplish transfer to other endangered locations. The architecture of the warning system will integrate several components: (1) real-time measurements of key oceanographic and atmospheric parameters, (2) coupled atmospheric-ocean models run in real time (warning) mode, and (3) semi-automatic procedures and protocols for warning of civil protection, local authorities and public. The effectiveness of the warning system will be tested over the historic events.

EARLY DETECTION OF NEAR-FIELD TSUNAMIS USING UNDERWATER SENSOR NETWORKS

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L. E. Freitag

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We propose a novel approach for near-field tsunami detection, specifically for the area near the city of Padang, Indonesia. Padang is located on the western shore of Sumatra, directly across from the Mentawai segment of the Sunda Trench, where accumulated strain has not been released since the great earthquake of 1797. Consequently, the risk of a major tsunamigenic earthquake on this segment is high. Currently, no ocean-bottom pressure sensors are deployed in the Mentawai basin to provide a definitive tsunami warning for Padang. Timely warnings are essential to initiate evacuation procedures and minimize loss of human life. Our approach augments existing technology with a network of underwater sensors to detect tsunamis generated by an earthquake or landslide fast enough to provide at least 15 minutes of warning. Data from the underwater sensor network would feed into existing decision support systems that accept input from land and sea-based sensors and provide warning information to city and regional authorities.

Global early warning systems for natural hazards: systematic and people-centred.

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Basher, Reid

2006-08-15

To be effective, early warning systems for natural hazards need to have not only a sound scientific and technical basis, but also a strong focus on the people exposed to risk, and with a systems approach that incorporates all of the relevant factors in that risk, whether arising from the natural hazards or social vulnerabilities, and from short-term or long-term processes. Disasters are increasing in number and severity and international institutional frameworks to reduce disasters are being strengthened under United Nations oversight. Since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, there has been a surge of interest in developing early warning systems to cater to the needs of all countries and all hazards.

Earthquake Early Warning Management based on Client-Server using Primary Wave data from Vibrating Sensor

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Laumal, F. E.; Nope, K. B. N.; Peli, Y. S.

2018-01-01

Early warning is a warning mechanism before an actual incident occurs, can be implemented on natural events such as tsunamis or earthquakes. Earthquakes are classified in tectonic and volcanic types depend on the source and nature. The tremor in the form of energy propagates in all directions as Primary and Secondary waves. Primary wave as initial earthquake vibrations propagates longitudinally, while the secondary wave propagates like as a sinusoidal wave after Primary, destructive and as a real earthquake. To process the primary vibration data captured by the earthquake sensor, a network management required client computer to receives primary data from sensors, authenticate and forward to a server computer to set up an early warning system. With the water propagation concept, a method of early warning system has been determined in which some sensors are located on the same line, sending initial vibrations as primary data on the same scale and the server recommended to the alarm sound as an early warning.

Tsunami.gov: NOAA's Tsunami Information Portal

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Shiro, B.; Carrick, J.; Hellman, S. B.; Bernard, M.; Dildine, W. P.

2014-12-01

We present the new Tsunami.gov website, which delivers a single authoritative source of tsunami information for the public and emergency management communities. The site efficiently merges information from NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers (TWC's) by way of a comprehensive XML feed called Tsunami Event XML (TEX). The resulting unified view allows users to quickly see the latest tsunami alert status in geographic context without having to understand complex TWC areas of responsibility. The new site provides for the creation of a wide range of products beyond the traditional ASCII-based tsunami messages. The publication of modern formats such as Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) can drive geographically aware emergency alert systems like FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). Supported are other popular information delivery systems, including email, text messaging, and social media updates. The Tsunami.gov portal allows NOAA staff to easily edit content and provides the facility for users to customize their viewing experience. In addition to access by the public, emergency managers and government officials may be offered the capability to log into the portal for special access rights to decision-making and administrative resources relevant to their respective tsunami warning systems. The site follows modern HTML5 responsive design practices for optimized use on mobile as well as non-mobile platforms. It meets all federal security and accessibility standards. Moving forward, we hope to expand Tsunami.gov to encompass tsunami-related content currently offered on separate websites, including the NOAA Tsunami Website, National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, NOAA Center for Tsunami Research, National Geophysical Data Center's Tsunami Database, and National Data Buoy Center's DART Program. This project is part of the larger Tsunami Information Technology Modernization Project, which is consolidating the software architectures of NOAA's existing TWC's into

Development of an expert system for tsunami warning: a unit source approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roshan, A.D.; Pisharady, Ajai S.; Bishnoi, L.R.; Shah, Meet

2015-01-01

Coastal region of India has been experiencing tsunamis since historical times. Many nuclear facilities including nuclear power plants (NPPs), located along the coast are thus exposed to the hazards of tsunami. For the safety of these facilities as well as the safety of the citizens it is necessary to predict the possibility of occurrence of tsunamis for a recorded earthquake event and evaluate the tsunami hazard posed by the earthquake. To address these concerns, this work aims to design an expert system for Tsunami Warning for the Indian Coast with emphasis on evaluation of tsunami heights and arrival times at various nuclear facility sites. The expert system identifies possibility or otherwise of a tsunamigenic event based on earthquake data inputs. Rupture parameters are worked out for the event and unit tsunami source estimations which are available as precomputed database are combined appropriately to estimate the wave heights and time of arrivals at desired locations along the coast. The system also predicts tsunami wave heights at some pre-defined locations such as Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and other nuclear facility sites. Time of arrivals of first wave along Indian coast is also evaluated

CubeSat for Natural-Hazard Estimation With Ionospheric Sciences (CNEWS): A Concept Development to Aid Tsunami Early Warning Systems

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Komjathy, A.; Romero-Wolf, A.; Yang, Y. M.; Langley, R. B.; Foster, J. H.

2014-12-01

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University New Brunswick (Canada) and the University of Hawaii have developed a concept to provide open ocean tsunami wave height estimates using very accurate measurements of absolute total electron content (TEC) perturbations. Ionosphere-derived tsunami wave height estimates from our CubeSat for Natural-Hazard Estimation With Ionospheric Sciences (CNEWS) mission will refine the tsunami source energy calculation and improve the tsunami scale calculation for a localized region. As a secondary science objective, transmitting impulsive HF/VHF (10-40 MHz) transmissions through the ionosphere will provide in-situ geomagnetic disturbance measurements, which allow for discrimination between tsunami-induced signatures and space-weather-related fluctuations. NASA has invested several millions of dollars in the development of a tsunami warning system based on geodetic measurements from ground-based GPS stations. Leveraging this investment by simultaneously using ionospheric measurement from this GPS network for the detection of tsunamis represents a significant step forward. GPS ionospheric imaging is limited, however, by the slowly changing satellite geometry and its weak absolute TEC resolution (about 3 TECU). It has also been shown that GPS ionospheric imaging alone cannot distinguish between space weather fluctuations and those due to natural hazards. The very precise ionospheric measurements generated by CNEWS are expected to provide a quasi-static image of tsunami ionospheric signatures that we will use in an advanced model inversion technique to estimate tsunami wave heights at 10 cm (one sigma) uncertainty. The geomagnetic field strength resolution is also a key constraint for discriminating between natural hazards and space weather effects. HF/VHF impulses can resolve absolute TEC measurements at the 0.02 TECU level and geomagnetic field strength may be measured at 50 nT resolution.

Preliminary results of very fast computation of Moment Magnitude and focal mechanism in the context of tsunami warning

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Schindelé, François; Roch, Julien; Rivera, Luis

2015-04-01

Various methodologies were recently developed to compute the moment magnitude and the focal mechanism, thanks to the real time access to numerous broad-band seismic data. Several methods were implemented at the CENALT, in particular the W-Phase method developed by H. Kanamori and L. Rivera. For earthquakes of magnitudes in the range 6.5-9.0, this method provides accurate results in less than 40 minutes. The context of the tsunami warning in Mediterranean, a small basin impacted in less than one hour, and with small sources but some with high tsunami potential (Boumerdes 2003), a comprehensive tsunami warning system in that region should include very fast computation of the seismic parameters. The results of the values of Mw, the focal depth and the type of fault (reverse, normal, strike-slip) are the most relevant parameters expected for the tsunami warning. Preliminary results will be presented using data in the North-eastern and Mediterranean region for the recent period 2010-2014. This work is funded by project ASTARTE - - Assessment, Strategy And Risk Reduction for Tsunamis in Europe - FP7-ENV2013 6.4-3, Grant 603839

Tsunami disaster risk management capabilities in Greece

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Marios Karagiannis, Georgios; Synolakis, Costas

2015-04-01

Greece is vulnerable to tsunamis, due to the length of the coastline, its islands and its geographical proximity to the Hellenic Arc, an active subduction zone. Historically, about 10% of all world tsunamis occur in the Mediterranean region. Here we review existing tsunami disaster risk management capabilities in Greece. We analyze capabilities across the disaster management continuum, including prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Specifically, we focus on issues like legal requirements, stakeholders, hazard mitigation practices, emergency operations plans, public awareness and education, community-based approaches and early-warning systems. Our research is based on a review of existing literature and official documentation, on previous projects, as well as on interviews with civil protection officials in Greece. In terms of tsunami disaster prevention and hazard mitigation, the lack of tsunami inundation maps, except for some areas in Crete, makes it quite difficult to get public support for hazard mitigation practices. Urban and spatial planning tools in Greece allow the planner to take into account hazards and establish buffer zones near hazard areas. However, the application of such ordinances at the local and regional levels is often difficult. Eminent domain is not supported by law and there are no regulatory provisions regarding tax abatement as a disaster prevention tool. Building codes require buildings and other structures to withstand lateral dynamic earthquake loads, but there are no provisions for resistance to impact loading from water born debris Public education about tsunamis has increased during the last half-decade but remains sporadic. In terms of disaster preparedness, Greece does have a National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) and is a Member of UNESCO's Tsunami Program for North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas (NEAM) region. Several exercises have been organized in the framework of the NEAM Tsunami Warning

NOAA's Integrated Tsunami Database: Data for improved forecasts, warnings, research, and risk assessments

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Stroker, Kelly; Dunbar, Paula; Mungov, George; Sweeney, Aaron; McCullough, Heather; Carignan, Kelly

2015-04-01

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has primary responsibility in the United States for tsunami forecast, warning, research, and supports community resiliency. NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and co-located World Data Service for Geophysics provide a unique collection of data enabling communities to ensure preparedness and resilience to tsunami hazards. Immediately following a damaging or fatal tsunami event there is a need for authoritative data and information. The NGDC Global Historical Tsunami Database (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/) includes all tsunami events, regardless of intensity, as well as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that caused fatalities, moderate damage, or generated a tsunami. The long-term data from these events, including photographs of damage, provide clues to what might happen in the future. NGDC catalogs the information on global historical tsunamis and uses these data to produce qualitative tsunami hazard assessments at regional levels. In addition to the socioeconomic effects of a tsunami, NGDC also obtains water level data from the coasts and the deep-ocean at stations operated by the NOAA/NOS Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers, and the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and produces research-quality data to isolate seismic waves (in the case of the deep-ocean sites) and the tsunami signal. These water-level data provide evidence of sea-level fluctuation and possible inundation events. NGDC is also building high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) to support real-time forecasts, implemented at 75 US coastal communities. After a damaging or fatal event NGDC begins to collect and integrate data and information from many organizations into the hazards databases. Sources of data include our NOAA partners, the U.S. Geological Survey, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and International Tsunami Information Center

OBSERVATION OF TSUNAMI RADIATION AT TOHOKU BY REMOTE SENSING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frank C. Lin

2011-01-01

Full Text Available We present prima facie evidence that upon the onset of the Tohoku tsunami of Mar. 11, 2011 infrared radiation was emitted by the tsunami and was detected by the Japanese satellite MTSAT-IR1, in agreement with our earlier findings for the Great Sumatra Tsunami of 2004. Implications for a worldwide Tsunami Early Warning System are discussed.

Concerns over modeling and warning capabilities in wake of Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Showstack, Randy

2011-04-01

Improved earthquake models, better tsunami modeling and warning capabilities, and a review of nuclear power plant safety are all greatly needed following the 11 March Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, according to scientists at the European Geosciences Union's (EGU) General Assembly, held 3-8 April in Vienna, Austria. EGU quickly organized a morning session of oral presentations and an afternoon panel discussion less than 1 month after the earthquake and the tsunami and the resulting crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, which has now been identified as having reached the same level of severity as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Many of the scientists at the EGU sessions expressed concern about the inability to have anticipated the size of the earthquake and the resulting tsunami, which appears likely to have caused most of the fatalities and damage, including damage to the nuclear plant.

The Hellenic National Tsunami Warning Centre (HL-NTWC): Recent updates and future developments

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Melis, Nikolaos S.; Charalampakis, Marinos

2014-05-01

The Hellenic NTWC (HL-NTWC) was established officially by Greek Law in September 2010. HL-NTWC is hosted at the National Observatory of Athens, Institute of Geodynamics (NOA-IG), which also operates a 24/7 earthquake monitoring service in Greece and coordinates the newly established Hellenic Unified National Seismic Network. NOA-IG and HL-NTWC Operational Centre is linked to the Civil Protection Operational Centre and serves as the official alerting agency to the General Secretariat for Civil Protection in Greece, regarding earthquake events and tsunami watch. Since August 2012, HL-NTWC acts as Candidate Tsunami Watch Provider (CTWP) under the UNESCO IOC - ICG NEAMTWS tsunami warning system (NEAM: North-Eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas) and offers its services to the NEAMTWS system. HL-NTWC has participated in all Communication Test Exercises (CTE) under NEAMTWS and also it has provided tsunami scenarios for extended system testing exercises such as NEAMWAVE12. Some of the recent developments at HL-NTWC in Greece include: deployment of new tide gauge stations for tsunami watch purposes, computation of tsunami scenarios and extending the database in use, improving alerting response times, earthquake magnitude estimation and testing newly established software modules for tsunami and earthquake alerting (i.e. Early-Est, SeisComP3 etc.) in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. Although funding today is limited, an advantage of the participation in important EC funded research projects, i.e. NERIES, NERA, TRANSFER, NEAMTIC and ASTARTE, demonstrates that collaboration of top class Research Institutions that care to produce important and useful results in the research front in Europe, can facilitate towards developing and operating top class Operational Centers, useful for Civil Protection purposes in regions in need. Last, it is demonstrated that HL-NTWC collaboration with important key role Research Centers in the Security and Safety issues (e

Tsunami Hockey

Science.gov (United States)

Weinstein, S.; Becker, N. C.; Wang, D.; Fryer, G. J.

2013-12-01

An important issue that vexes tsunami warning centers (TWCs) is when to cancel a tsunami warning once it is in effect. Emergency managers often face a variety of pressures to allow the public to resume their normal activities, but allowing coastal populations to return too quickly can put them at risk. A TWC must, therefore, exercise caution when cancelling a warning. Kim and Whitmore (2013) show that in many cases a TWC can use the decay of tsunami oscillations in a harbor to forecast when its amplitudes will fall to safe levels. This technique should prove reasonably robust for local tsunamis (those that are potentially dangerous within only 100 km of their source region) and for regional tsunamis (whose danger is limited to within 1000km of the source region) as well. For ocean-crossing destructive tsunamis such as the 11 March 2011 Tohoku tsunami, however, this technique may be inadequate. When a tsunami propagates across the ocean basin, it will encounter topographic obstacles such as seamount chains or coastlines, resulting in coherent reflections that can propagate great distances. When these reflections reach previously-impacted coastlines, they can recharge decaying tsunami oscillations and make them hazardous again. Warning center scientists should forecast sea-level records for 24 hours beyond the initial tsunami arrival in order to observe any potential reflections that may pose a hazard. Animations are a convenient way to visualize reflections and gain a broad geographic overview of their impacts. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has developed tools based on tsunami simulations using the RIFT tsunami forecast model. RIFT is a linear, parallelized numerical tsunami propagation model that runs very efficiently on a multi-CPU system (Wang et al, 2012). It can simulate 30-hours of tsunami wave propagation in the Pacific Ocean at 4 arc minute resolution in approximately 6 minutes of real time on a 12-CPU system. Constructing a 30-hour animation using 1

Seismogeodesy for rapid earthquake and tsunami characterization

Science.gov (United States)

Bock, Y.

2016-12-01

Rapid estimation of earthquake magnitude and fault mechanism is critical for earthquake and tsunami warning systems. Traditionally, the monitoring of earthquakes and tsunamis has been based on seismic networks for estimating earthquake magnitude and slip, and tide gauges and deep-ocean buoys for direct measurement of tsunami waves. These methods are well developed for ocean basin-wide warnings but are not timely enough to protect vulnerable populations and infrastructure from the effects of local tsunamis, where waves may arrive within 15-30 minutes of earthquake onset time. Direct measurements of displacements by GPS networks at subduction zones allow for rapid magnitude and slip estimation in the near-source region, that are not affected by instrumental limitations and magnitude saturation experienced by local seismic networks. However, GPS displacements by themselves are too noisy for strict earthquake early warning (P-wave detection). Optimally combining high-rate GPS and seismic data (in particular, accelerometers that do not clip), referred to as seismogeodesy, provides a broadband instrument that does not clip in the near field, is impervious to magnitude saturation, and provides accurate real-time static and dynamic displacements and velocities in real time. Here we describe a NASA-funded effort to integrate GPS and seismogeodetic observations as part of NOAA's Tsunami Warning Centers in Alaska and Hawaii. It consists of a series of plug-in modules that allow for a hierarchy of rapid seismogeodetic products, including automatic P-wave picking, hypocenter estimation, S-wave prediction, magnitude scaling relationships based on P-wave amplitude (Pd) and peak ground displacement (PGD), finite-source CMT solutions and fault slip models as input for tsunami warnings and models. For the NOAA/NASA project, the modules are being integrated into an existing USGS Earthworm environment, currently limited to traditional seismic data. We are focused on a network of

On the Development of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Networks: Practical experiences from North and Central America.

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Mencin, David; Hodgkinson, Kathleen; Braun, John; Meertens, Charles; Mattioli, Glen; Phillips, David; Blume, Fredrick; Berglund, Henry; Fox, Otina; Feaux, Karl

2015-04-01

The GAGE facility, managed by UNAVCO, maintains and operates about 1300 GNSS stations distributed across North and Central America as part of the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) and the Continuously Operating Caribbean GPS Observational Network (COCONet). UNAVCO has upgraded about 450 stations in these networks to real-time and high-rate (RT-GNSS) and included surface meteorological instruments. The majority of these streaming stations are part of the PBO but also include approximately 50 RT-GNSS stations in the Caribbean and Central American region as part of the COCONet and TLALOCNet projects. Based on community input UNAVCO has been exploring ways to increase the capability and utility of these resources to improve our understanding in diverse areas of geophysics including seismic, volcanic, magmatic and tsunami deformation sources, extreme weather events such as hurricanes and storms, and space weather. The RT-GNSS networks also have the potential to profoundly transform our ability to rapidly characterize geophysical events, provide early warning, as well as improve hazard mitigation and response. Specific applications currently under development with university, commercial, non-profit and government collaboration on national and international scales include earthquake and tsunami early warning systems and near real-time tropospheric modeling of hurricanes and precipitable water vapor estimate assimilation. Using tsunami early warning as an example, an RT-GNSS network can provide multiple inputs in an operational system starting with rapid assessment of earthquake sources and associated deformation which informs the initial modeled tsunami. The networks can then can also provide direct measurements of the tsunami wave heights and propagation by tracking the associated ionospheric disturbance from several 100's of km away as the waves approaches the shoreline. These GNSS based constraints can refine the tsunami and inundation models and potentially

Tsunami forecast by joint inversion of real-time tsunami waveforms and seismic of GPS data: application to the Tohoku 2011 tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Yong, Wei; Newman, Andrew V.; Hayes, Gavin P.; Titov, Vasily V.; Tang, Liujuan

2014-01-01

Correctly characterizing tsunami source generation is the most critical component of modern tsunami forecasting. Although difficult to quantify directly, a tsunami source can be modeled via different methods using a variety of measurements from deep-ocean tsunameters, seismometers, GPS, and other advanced instruments, some of which in or near real time. Here we assess the performance of different source models for the destructive 11 March 2011 Japan tsunami using model–data comparison for the generation, propagation, and inundation in the near field of Japan. This comparative study of tsunami source models addresses the advantages and limitations of different real-time measurements with potential use in early tsunami warning in the near and far field. The study highlights the critical role of deep-ocean tsunami measurements and rapid validation of the approximate tsunami source for high-quality forecasting. We show that these tsunami measurements are compatible with other real-time geodetic data, and may provide more insightful understanding of tsunami generation from earthquakes, as well as from nonseismic processes such as submarine landslide failures.

Appraising the Early-est earthquake monitoring system for tsunami alerting at the Italian Candidate Tsunami Service Provider

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardi, F.; Lomax, A.; Michelini, A.; Lauciani, V.; Piatanesi, A.; Lorito, S.

2015-09-01

In this paper we present and discuss the performance of the procedure for earthquake location and characterization implemented in the Italian Candidate Tsunami Service Provider at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Rome. Following the ICG/NEAMTWS guidelines, the first tsunami warning messages are based only on seismic information, i.e., epicenter location, hypocenter depth, and magnitude, which are automatically computed by the software Early-est. Early-est is a package for rapid location and seismic/tsunamigenic characterization of earthquakes. The Early-est software package operates using offline-event or continuous-real-time seismic waveform data to perform trace processing and picking, and, at a regular report interval, phase association, event detection, hypocenter location, and event characterization. Early-est also provides mb, Mwp, and Mwpd magnitude estimations. mb magnitudes are preferred for events with Mwp ≲ 5.8, while Mwpd estimations are valid for events with Mwp ≳ 7.2. In this paper we present the earthquake parameters computed by Early-est between the beginning of March 2012 and the end of December 2014 on a global scale for events with magnitude M ≥ 5.5, and we also present the detection timeline. We compare the earthquake parameters automatically computed by Early-est with the same parameters listed in reference catalogs. Such reference catalogs are manually revised/verified by scientists. The goal of this work is to test the accuracy and reliability of the fully automatic locations provided by Early-est. In our analysis, the epicenter location, hypocenter depth and magnitude parameters do not differ significantly from the values in the reference catalogs. Both mb and Mwp magnitudes show differences to the reference catalogs. We thus derived correction functions in order to minimize the differences and correct biases between our values and the ones from the reference catalogs. Correction of the Mwp

Web-based Tsunami Early Warning System: a case study of the 2010 Kepulaunan Mentawai Earthquake and Tsunami

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Ulutas

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study analyzes the response of the Global Disasters Alerts and Coordination System (GDACS in relation to a case study: the Kepulaunan Mentawai earthquake and related tsunami, which occurred on 25 October 2010. The GDACS, developed by the European Commission Joint Research Center, combines existing web-based disaster information management systems with the aim to alert the international community in case of major disasters. The tsunami simulation system is an integral part of the GDACS. In more detail, the study aims to assess the tsunami hazard on the Mentawai and Sumatra coasts: the tsunami heights and arrival times have been estimated employing three propagation models based on the long wave theory. The analysis was performed in three stages: (1 pre-calculated simulations by using the tsunami scenario database for that region, used by the GDACS system to estimate the alert level; (2 near-real-time simulated tsunami forecasts, automatically performed by the GDACS system whenever a new earthquake is detected by the seismological data providers; and (3 post-event tsunami calculations using GCMT (Global Centroid Moment Tensor fault mechanism solutions proposed by US Geological Survey (USGS for this event. The GDACS system estimates the alert level based on the first type of calculations and on that basis sends alert messages to its users; the second type of calculations is available within 30–40 min after the notification of the event but does not change the estimated alert level. The third type of calculations is performed to improve the initial estimations and to have a better understanding of the extent of the possible damage. The automatic alert level for the earthquake was given between Green and Orange Alert, which, in the logic of GDACS, means no need or moderate need of international humanitarian assistance; however, the earthquake generated 3 to 9 m tsunami run-up along southwestern coasts of the Pagai Islands where 431 people died

Integrating TWES and Satellite-based remote sensing: Lessons learned from the Honshu 2011 Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Löwe, Peter; Wächter, Joachim

2013-04-01

The Boxing Day Tsunami killed 240,000 people and inundated the affected shorelines with waves reaching heights up to 30m. Tsunami Early Warning Capabilities have improved in the meantime by continuing development of modular Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS). However, recent tsunami events, like the Chile 2010 and the Honshu 2011 tsunami demonstrate that the key challenge for TEWS research still lies in the timely issuing of reliable early warning messages to areas at risk, but also to other stakeholders professionally involved in the unfolding event. Until now remote sensing products for Tsunami events, including crisis maps and change detection products, are exclusively linked to those phases of the disaster life cycle, which follow after the early warning stage: Response, recovery and mitigation. The International Charter for Space and Major Disasters has been initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in 1999. It coordinates a voluntary group of governmental space agencies and industry partners, to provide rapid crisis imaging and mapping to disaster and relief organisations to mitigate the effects of disasters on human life, property and the environment. The efficiency of this approach has been demonstrated in the field of Tsunami early warning by Charter activations following the Boxing Day Tsunami 2004, the Chile Tsunami 2010 and the Honshu Tsunami 2011. Traditional single-satellite operations allow at best bimonthly repeat rates over a given Area of Interest (AOI). This allows a lot of time for image acquisition campaign planning between imaging windows for the same AOI. The advent of constellations of identical remote sensing satellites in the early 21st century resulted both in daily AOI revisit capabilities and drastically reduced time frames for acquisition planning. However, the image acquisition planning for optical remote sensing satellite constellations is constrained by orbital and communication

Predicting natural catastrophes tsunamis

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2005-01-01

1. Tsunamis - Introduction - Definition of phenomenon - basic properties of the waves Propagation and dispersion Interaction with coasts - Geological and societal effects Origin of tsunamis - natural sources Scientific activities in connection with tsunamis. Ideas about simulations 2. Tsunami generation - The earthquake source - conventional theory The earthquake source - normal mode theory The landslide source Near-field observation - The Plafker index Far-field observation - Directivity 3. Tsunami warning - General ideas - History of efforts Mantle magnitudes and TREMOR algorithms The challenge of "tsunami earthquakes" Energy-moment ratios and slow earthquakes Implementation and the components of warning centers 4. Tsunami surveys - Principles and methodologies Fifteen years of field surveys and related milestones. Reconstructing historical tsunamis: eyewitnesses and geological evidence 5. Lessons from the 2004 Indonesian tsunami - Lessons in seismology Lessons in Geology The new technologies Lessons in civ...

Numerical modelling and evacuation strategies for tsunami awareness: lessons from the 2012 Haida Gwaii Tsunami

OpenAIRE

Santos, Angela; Tavares, Alexandre Oliveira; Queirós, Margarida

2016-01-01

On October 28, 2012, an earthquake occurred offshore Canada, with a magnitude Mw of 7.8, triggering a tsunami that propagated through the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami numerical model results show it would not be expected to generate widespread inundation on Hawaii. Yet, two hours after the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) issued a tsunami warning to the state of Hawaii. Since the state was hit by several tsunamis in the past, regular siren exercises, tsuna...

A review of tsunami simulation activities for NPPs safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharma, Pavan K.

2011-01-01

The tsunami generated on December 26, 2004 due to Sumatra earthquake of magnitude 9.3 resulted in inundation at the various coastal sites of India. The site selection and design of Indian nuclear power plants demand the evaluation of run up and the structural barriers for the coastal plants: Besides it is also desirable to evaluate the early warning system for tsunamigenic earthquakes. The tsunamis originate from submarine faults, underwater volcanic activities, sub-aerial landslides impinging on the sea and submarine landslides. In case of a submarine earthquake-induced tsunami the wave is generated in the fluid domain due to displacement of the seabed. There are three phases of tsunami: generation, propagation, and run-up. Reactor Safety Division (RSD) of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay has initiated computational simulation for all the three phases of tsunami source generation, its propagation and finally run up evaluation for the protection of public life, property and various industrial infrastructures located on the coastal regions of India. These studies could be effectively utilized for design and implementation of early warning system for coastal region of the country apart from catering to the needs of Indian nuclear installations. This paper presents some results of tsunami waves based on finite difference numerical approaches with shallow water wave theory. The present paper evaluate the results of various simulation i.e. Single fault Sumatra model, four and five fault Sumatra Model, Nias insignificant tsunami and also some parametric studies results for tsunami waring system scenario generation. A study is carried for the tsunami due to Sumatra earthquake in 2004 with TUNAMI-N2 software. Bathymetry data available from the National Geophysical Data Center was used for this study. The single fault and detailed four and five fault data were used to calculate sea surface deformations which were subsequently used as initial conditions for

Physical Observations of the Tsunami during the September 8th 2017 Tehuantepec, Mexico Earthquake

Science.gov (United States)

Ramirez-Herrera, M. T.; Corona, N.; Ruiz-Angulo, A.; Melgar, D.; Zavala-Hidalgo, J.

2017-12-01

The September 8th 2017, Mw8.2 earthquake offshore Chiapas, Mexico, is the largest earthquake recorded history in Chiapas since 1902. It caused damage in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco; it had more than 100 fatalities, over 1.5 million people were affected, and 41,000 homes were damaged in the state of Chiapas alone. This earthquake, a deep intraplate event on a normal fault on the oceanic subducting plate, generated a tsunami recorded at several tide gauge stations in Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean. Here we report the physical effects of the tsunami on the Chiapas coast and analyze the societal implications of this tsunami on the basis of our field observations. Tide gauge data indicate 11.3 and 8.2 cm of coastal subsidence at Salina Cruz and Puerto Chiapas stations. The associated tsunami waves were recorded first at Salina Cruz tide gauge station at 5:13 (GMT). We covered ground observations along 41 km of the coast of Chiapas, encompassing the sites with the highest projected wave heights based on the preliminary tsunami model (maximum tsunami amplitudes between -94.5 and -93.0 W). Runup and inundation distances were measured with an RTK GPS and using a Sokkia B40 level along 8 sites. We corrected runup data with estimated astronomical tide levels at the time of the tsunami. The tsunami occurred at low tide. The maximum runup was 3 m at Boca del Cielo, and maximum inundation distance was 190 m in Puerto Arista, corresponding to the coast directly opposite the epicenter and in the central sector of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. In general, our field data agree with the predicted results from the preliminary tsunami model. Tsunami scour and erosion was evident on the Chiapas coast. Tsunami deposits, mainly sand, reached up to 32 cm thickness thinning landwards up to 172 m distance. Even though the Mexican tsunami early warning system (CAT) issued several warnings, the tsunami arrival struck the Chiapas coast prior to the arrival of official warnings to the

Crowd-Sourced Global Earthquake Early Warning

Science.gov (United States)

Minson, S. E.; Brooks, B. A.; Glennie, C. L.; Murray, J. R.; Langbein, J. O.; Owen, S. E.; Iannucci, B. A.; Hauser, D. L.

2014-12-01

Although earthquake early warning (EEW) has shown great promise for reducing loss of life and property, it has only been implemented in a few regions due, in part, to the prohibitive cost of building the required dense seismic and geodetic networks. However, many cars and consumer smartphones, tablets, laptops, and similar devices contain low-cost versions of the same sensors used for earthquake monitoring. If a workable EEW system could be implemented based on either crowd-sourced observations from consumer devices or very inexpensive networks of instruments built from consumer-quality sensors, EEW coverage could potentially be expanded worldwide. Controlled tests of several accelerometers and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers typically found in consumer devices show that, while they are significantly noisier than scientific-grade instruments, they are still accurate enough to capture displacements from moderate and large magnitude earthquakes. The accuracy of these sensors varies greatly depending on the type of data collected. Raw coarse acquisition (C/A) code GPS data are relatively noisy. These observations have a surface displacement detection threshold approaching ~1 m and would thus only be useful in large Mw 8+ earthquakes. However, incorporating either satellite-based differential corrections or using a Kalman filter to combine the raw GNSS data with low-cost acceleration data (such as from a smartphone) decreases the noise dramatically. These approaches allow detection thresholds as low as 5 cm, potentially enabling accurate warnings for earthquakes as small as Mw 6.5. Simulated performance tests show that, with data contributed from only a very small fraction of the population, a crowd-sourced EEW system would be capable of warning San Francisco and San Jose of a Mw 7 rupture on California's Hayward fault and could have accurately issued both earthquake and tsunami warnings for the 2011 Mw 9 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake.

Fast characterization of moment magnitude and focal mechanism in the context of tsunami warning in the NEAM region : W-phase and PDFM2 algorithms.

Science.gov (United States)

Schindelé, François; Roch, Julien; Duperray, Pierre; Reymond, Dominique

2016-04-01

Over past centuries, several large earthquakes (Mw ≥ 7.5) have been reported in the North East Atlantic and Mediterranenan sea (NEAM) region. Most of the tsunami potential seismic sources in the NEAM region, however, are in a magnitude range of 6.5 ≤ Mw ≤ 7.5 (e.g. tsunami triggered by the earthquake of Boumerdes in 2003 of Mw = 6.9). The CENALT (CENtre d'ALerte aux Tsunamis) in operation since 2012 as the French National Tsunami Warning Centre (NTWC) and Candidate Tsunami Service Provider (CTSP) has to issue warning messages within 15 minutes of the earthquake origin time. The warning level is currently based on a decision matrix depending on the magnitude, and the location of the hypocenter. Two seismic source inversion methods are implemented at CENALT: the W-phase algorithm, based on the so-called W-phase and PDFM2 algorithm , based on the surface waves and first P wave motions. They both give accurate moment magnitude and focal magnitude respectively in 10 min and 20 min. The results of the Mw magnitude, focal depth and type of fault (reverse, normal, strike-slip) are the most relevant parameters used to issue tsunami warnings. In this context, we assess the W-phase and PDFM2 methods with 29 events of magnitude Mw ≥ 5.8 for the period 2010-2015 in the NEAM region. Results with 10 and 20 min for the W-phase algorithm and with 20 and 30 min for the PDFM2 algorithm are compared to the Global Centroid Moment Tensor catalog. The W-phase and PDFM2 methods gives accurate results respectively in 10 min and 20 min. This work is funded by project ASTARTE -- Assessment, Strategy And Risk Reduction for Tsunamis in Europe - FP7-ENV2013 6.4-3, Grant 603839

Evaluation and Numerical Simulation of Tsunami for Coastal Nuclear Power Plants of India

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharma, Pavan K.; Singh, R.K.; Ghosh, A.K.; Kushwaha, H.S.

2006-01-01

Recent tsunami generated on December 26, 2004 due to Sumatra earthquake of magnitude 9.3 resulted in inundation at the various coastal sites of India. The site selection and design of Indian nuclear power plants demand the evaluation of run up and the structural barriers for the coastal plants: Besides it is also desirable to evaluate the early warning system for tsunami-genic earthquakes. The tsunamis originate from submarine faults, underwater volcanic activities, sub-aerial landslides impinging on the sea and submarine landslides. In case of a submarine earthquake-induced tsunami the wave is generated in the fluid domain due to displacement of the seabed. There are three phases of tsunami: generation, propagation, and run-up. Reactor Safety Division (RSD) of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay has initiated computational simulation for all the three phases of tsunami source generation, its propagation and finally run up evaluation for the protection of public life, property and various industrial infrastructures located on the coastal regions of India. These studies could be effectively utilized for design and implementation of early warning system for coastal region of the country apart from catering to the needs of Indian nuclear installations. This paper presents some results of tsunami waves based on different analytical/numerical approaches with shallow water wave theory. (authors)

Educating and Preparing for Tsunamis in the Caribbean

Science.gov (United States)

von Hillebrandt-Andrade, C.; Aliaga, B.; Edwards, S.

2013-12-01

The Caribbean and Adjacent Regions has a long history of tsunamis and earthquakes. Over the past 500 years, more than 75 tsunamis have been documented in the region by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. Just since 1842, 3446 lives have been lost to tsunamis; this is more than in the Northeastern Pacific for the same time period. With a population of almost 160 million, over 40 million visitors a year and a heavy concentration of residents, tourists, businesses and critical infrastructure along its shores (especially in the northern and eastern Caribbean), the risk to lives and livelihoods is greater than ever before. The only way to survive a tsunami is to get out of harm's way before the waves strike. In the Caribbean given the relatively short distances from faults, potential submarine landslides and volcanoes to some of the coastlines, the tsunamis are likely to be short fused, so it is imperative that tsunami warnings be issued extremely quickly and people be educated on how to recognize and respond. Nevertheless, given that tsunamis occur infrequently as compared with hurricanes, it is a challenge for them to receive the priority they require in order to save lives when the next one strikes the region. Close cooperation among countries and territories is required for warning, but also for education and public awareness. Geographical vicinity and spoken languages need to be factored in when developing tsunami preparedness in the Caribbean, to make sure citizens receive a clear, reliable and sound science based message about the hazard and the risk. In 2006, in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami and after advocating without success for a Caribbean Tsunami Warning System since the mid 90's, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO established the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (CARIBE EWS). Its purpose is to advance an end to end tsunami

Incorporating Geodectic Processing Modules into a Real-Time Earthworm Environment to Enhance NOAA's Tsunami Warning Capability

Science.gov (United States)

Macpherson, K. A.

2017-12-01

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's National and Pacific Tsunami Warning Centers currently rely on traditional seismic data in order to detect and evaluate potential tsunamigenic earthquakes anywhere on the globe. The first information products disseminated by the centers following a significant seismic event are based solely on seismically-derived earthquake locations and magnitudes, and are issued within minutes of the earthquake origin time. Thus, the rapid and reliable determination of the earthquake magnitude is a critical piece of information needed by the centers to generate the appropriate alert levels. However, seismically-derived magnitudes of large events are plagued by well-known problems, particularly during the first few minutes following the origin time; near-source broad-band instruments may go off scale, and magnitudes tend to saturate until sufficient teleseismic data arrive to represent the long-period signal that characterizes large events. However, geodetic data such as high-rate Global Positioning System (hGPS) displacements and seismogeodetic data that is a combination of collocated hGPS and accelerometer data do not suffer from these limitations. These sensors stay on scale, even for large events, and they record both dynamic and static displacements that may be used to estimate magnitude without saturation. Therefore, there is an ongoing effort to incorporate these data streams into the operations of the tsunami warning centers to enhance current magnitude determination capabilities, and eventually, to invert the geodetic displacements for mechanism and finite-fault information. These later quantities will be useful for tsunami modeling and forecasting. The tsunami warning centers rely on the Earthworm system for real-time data acquisition, so we have developed Earthworm modules for the Magnitude from Peak Ground Displacement (MPGD) algorithm, developed at the University of Washington and the University of California

"Last-Mile" preparation for a potential disaster – Interdisciplinary approach towards tsunami early warning and an evacuation information system for the coastal city of Padang, Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Taubenböck

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Extreme natural events, like e.g. tsunamis or earthquakes, regularly lead to catastrophes with dramatic consequences. In recent years natural disasters caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, destruction of infrastructure, disruption of economic activity and loss of billions of dollars worth of property and thus revealed considerable deficits hindering their effective management: Needs for stakeholders, decision-makers as well as for persons concerned include systematic risk identification and evaluation, a way to assess countermeasures, awareness raising and decision support systems to be employed before, during and after crisis situations. The overall goal of this study focuses on interdisciplinary integration of various scientific disciplines to contribute to a tsunami early warning information system. In comparison to most studies our focus is on high-end geometric and thematic analysis to meet the requirements of small-scale, heterogeneous and complex coastal urban systems. Data, methods and results from engineering, remote sensing and social sciences are interlinked and provide comprehensive information for disaster risk assessment, management and reduction. In detail, we combine inundation modeling, urban morphology analysis, population assessment, socio-economic analysis of the population and evacuation modeling. The interdisciplinary results eventually lead to recommendations for mitigation strategies in the fields of spatial planning or coping capacity.

ASTARTE: Assessment Strategy and Risk Reduction for Tsunamis in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Baptista, M. A.; Yalciner, A. C.; Canals, M.

2014-12-01

enhancement of the Tsunami Warning System in the NEAM region in terms of monitoring, early warning and forecast, governance and resilience. This work is funded by project ASTARTE - Assessment, STrategy And Risk Reduction for Tsunamis in Europe. Grant 603839, 7th FP (ENV.2013.6.4-3 ENV.2013.6.4-3)

THE SAMOA TSUNAMI OF 29 SEPTEMBER 2009 Early Warning and Inundation Assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giovanni Franchello

2012-01-01

Full Text Available On 29 September 2009 at 17:48:11 UTC, a large earthquake of magnitude 8 struck off-shore of the Samoa Islands and generated a large tsunami that destroyed several villages and caused more than 160 fatalities. This report first presents the characteristics of the earthquake and discusses the best estimations for the fault parameters, which are the necessary input data for the hydrodynamic tsunami calculations. Then, the assessment of the near-real time systems invoked by the Global Disasters Alert and Coordination System (GDACS1 and the post-event calculations are performed, making comparisons with the observed tidal measurements and post-event survey. It was found that the most severely damaged locations are the Southern section of the Western Samoa Islands, Tutuila Isl in American Samoa and Niuatoputapu Isle in Tonga. This is in agreement with the locations indicated by the Red Cross as the most affected and with the results of the post-tsunami surveys. Furthermore, an attempt was made to map the inundation events using more detailed digital elevation models (DEM and hydrodynamic modelling with good results. The flooded areas for which we had satellite images and post-tsunami surveys confirm the inundated areas identified correctly by the hydrodynamic model. Indications are given on the DEM grid size needed for the different simulations.

CO-OPS 1-minute Raw Tsunami Water Level Data

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — CO-OPS has been involved with tsunami warning and mitigation since the Coast and Geodetic Survey started the Tsunami Warning System in 1948 to provide warnings to...

Quantifying human response capabilities towards tsunami threats at community level

Science.gov (United States)

Post, J.; Mück, M.; Zosseder, K.; Wegscheider, S.; Taubenböck, H.; Strunz, G.; Muhari, A.; Anwar, H. Z.; Birkmann, J.; Gebert, N.

2009-04-01

Decision makers at the community level need detailed information on tsunami risks in their area. Knowledge on potential hazard impact, exposed elements such as people, critical facilities and lifelines, people's coping capacity and recovery potential are crucial to plan precautionary measures for adaptation and to mitigate potential impacts of tsunamis on society and the environment. A crucial point within a people-centred tsunami risk assessment is to quantify the human response capabilities towards tsunami threats. Based on this quantification and spatial representation in maps tsunami affected and safe areas, difficult-to-evacuate areas, evacuation target points and evacuation routes can be assigned and used as an important contribution to e.g. community level evacuation planning. Major component in the quantification of human response capabilities towards tsunami impacts is the factor time. The human response capabilities depend on the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of a tsunami, the time until technical or natural warning signs (ToNW) can be received, the reaction time (RT) of the population (human understanding of a tsunami warning and the decision to take appropriate action), the evacuation time (ET, time people need to reach a safe area) and the actual available response time (RsT = ETA - ToNW - RT). If RsT is larger than ET, people in the respective areas are able to reach a safe area and rescue themselves. Critical areas possess RsT values equal or even smaller ET and hence people whin these areas will be directly affected by a tsunami. Quantifying the factor time is challenging and an attempt to this is presented here. The ETA can be derived by analyzing pre-computed tsunami scenarios for a respective area. For ToNW we assume that the early warning center is able to fulfil the Indonesian presidential decree to issue a warning within 5 minutes. RT is difficult as here human intrinsic factors as educational level, believe, tsunami knowledge and experience

Tsunami evacuation mathematical model for the city of Padang

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kusdiantara, R.; Hadianti, R.; Badri Kusuma, M. S.; Soewono, E.

2012-01-01

Tsunami is a series of wave trains which travels with high speed on the sea surface. This traveling wave is caused by the displacement of a large volume of water after the occurrence of an underwater earthquake or volcano eruptions. The speed of tsunami decreases when it reaches the sea shore along with the increase of its amplitudes. Two large tsunamis had occurred in the last decades in Indonesia with huge casualties and large damages. Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System has been installed along the west coast of Sumatra. This early warning system will give about 10-15 minutes to evacuate people from high risk regions to the safe areas. Here in this paper, a mathematical model for Tsunami evacuation is presented with the city of Padang as a study case. In the model, the safe areas are chosen from the existing and selected high rise buildings, low risk region with relatively high altitude and (proposed to be built) a flyover ring road. Each gathering points are located in the radius of approximately 1 km from the ring road. The model is formulated as an optimization problem with the total normalized evacuation time as the objective function. The constraints consist of maximum allowable evacuation time in each route, maximum capacity of each safe area, and the number of people to be evacuated. The optimization problem is solved numerically using linear programming method with Matlab. Numerical results are shown for various evacuation scenarios for the city of Padang.

Tsunami evacuation mathematical model for the city of Padang

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kusdiantara, R.; Hadianti, R.; Badri Kusuma, M. S.; Soewono, E. [Department of Mathematics Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung 40132 (Indonesia); Department of Civil Engineering Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung 40132 (Indonesia); Department of Mathematics Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung 40132 (Indonesia)

2012-05-22

Tsunami is a series of wave trains which travels with high speed on the sea surface. This traveling wave is caused by the displacement of a large volume of water after the occurrence of an underwater earthquake or volcano eruptions. The speed of tsunami decreases when it reaches the sea shore along with the increase of its amplitudes. Two large tsunamis had occurred in the last decades in Indonesia with huge casualties and large damages. Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System has been installed along the west coast of Sumatra. This early warning system will give about 10-15 minutes to evacuate people from high risk regions to the safe areas. Here in this paper, a mathematical model for Tsunami evacuation is presented with the city of Padang as a study case. In the model, the safe areas are chosen from the existing and selected high rise buildings, low risk region with relatively high altitude and (proposed to be built) a flyover ring road. Each gathering points are located in the radius of approximately 1 km from the ring road. The model is formulated as an optimization problem with the total normalized evacuation time as the objective function. The constraints consist of maximum allowable evacuation time in each route, maximum capacity of each safe area, and the number of people to be evacuated. The optimization problem is solved numerically using linear programming method with Matlab. Numerical results are shown for various evacuation scenarios for the city of Padang.

Signals in the ionosphere generated by tsunami earthquakes: observations and modeling suppor

Science.gov (United States)

Rolland, L.; Sladen, A.; Mikesell, D.; Larmat, C. S.; Rakoto, V.; Remillieux, M.; Lee, R.; Khelfi, K.; Lognonne, P. H.; Astafyeva, E.

2017-12-01

Forecasting systems failed to predict the magnitude of the 2011 great tsunami in Japan due to the difficulty and cost of instrumenting the ocean with high-quality and dense networks. Melgar et al. (2013) show that using all of the conventional data (inland seismic, geodetic, and tsunami gauges) with the best inversion method still fails to predict the correct height of the tsunami before it breaks onto a coast near the epicenter (Even though typical tsunami waves are only a few centimeters high, they are powerful enough to create atmospheric vibrations extending all the way to the ionosphere, 300 kilometers up in the atmosphere. Therefore, we are proposing to incorporate the ionospheric signals into tsunami early-warning systems. We anticipate that the method could be decisive for mitigating "tsunami earthquakes" which trigger tsunamis larger than expected from their short-period magnitude. These events are challenging to characterize as they rupture the near-trench subduction interface, in a distant region less constrained by onshore data. As a couple of devastating tsunami earthquakes happens per decade, they represent a real threat for onshore populations and a challenge for tsunami early-warning systems. We will present the TEC observations of the recent Java 2006 and Mentawaii 2010 tsunami earthquakes and base our analysis on acoustic ray tracing, normal modes summation and the simulation code SPECFEM, which solves the wave equation in coupled acoustic (ocean, atmosphere) and elastic (solid earth) domains. Rupture histories are entered as finite source models, which will allow us to evaluate the effect of a relatively slow rupture on the surrounding ocean and atmosphere.

The First Real-Time Tsunami Animation

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, N. C.; Wang, D.; McCreery, C.; Weinstein, S.; Ward, B.

2014-12-01

For the first time a U.S. tsunami warning center created and issued a tsunami forecast model animation while the tsunami was still crossing an ocean. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) scientists had predicted they would have this ability (Becker et al., 2012) with their RIFT forecast model (Wang et al., 2009) by using rapidly-determined W-phase centroid-moment tensor earthquake focal mechanisms as tsunami sources in the RIFT model (Wang et al., 2012). PTWC then acquired its own YouTube channel in 2013 for its outreach efforts that showed animations of historic tsunamis (Becker et al., 2013), but could also be a platform for sharing future tsunami animations. The 8.2 Mw earthquake of 1 April 2014 prompted PTWC to issue official warnings for a dangerous tsunami in Chile, Peru and Ecuador. PTWC ended these warnings five hours later, then issued its new tsunami marine hazard product (i.e., no coastal evacuations) for the State of Hawaii. With the international warning canceled but with a domestic hazard still present PTWC generated a forecast model animation and uploaded it to its YouTube channel six hours before the arrival of the first waves in Hawaii. PTWC also gave copies of this animation to television reporters who in turn passed it on to their national broadcast networks. PTWC then created a version for NOAA's Science on a Sphere system so it could be shown on these exhibits as the tsunami was still crossing the Pacific Ocean. While it is difficult to determine how many people saw this animation since local, national, and international news networks showed it in their broadcasts, PTWC's YouTube channel provides some statistics. As of 1 August 2014 this animation has garnered more than 650,000 views. Previous animations, typically released during significant anniversaries, rarely get more than 10,000 views, and even then only when external websites share them. Clearly there is a high demand for a tsunami graphic that shows both the speed and the severity of a

Warning and prevention based on estimates with large uncertainties: the case of low-frequency and large-impact events like tsunamis

Science.gov (United States)

Tinti, Stefano; Armigliato, Alberto; Pagnoni, Gianluca; Zaniboni, Filippo

2013-04-01

Geoscientists deal often with hazardous processes like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc., and their research is aimed not only to a better understanding of the physical processes, but also to provide assessment of the space and temporal evolution of a given individual event (i.e. to provide short-term prediction) and of the expected evolution of a group of events (i.e. to provide statistical estimates referred to a given return period, and a given geographical area). One of the main issues of any scientific method is how to cope with measurement errors, a topic which in case of forecast of ongoing or of future events translates into how to deal with forecast uncertainties. In general, the more data are available and processed to make a prediction, the more accurate the prediction is expected to be if the scientific approach is sound, and the smaller the associated uncertainties are. However, there are several important cases where assessment is to be made with insufficient data or insufficient time for processing, which leads to large uncertainties. Two examples can be given taken from tsunami science, since tsunamis are rare events that may have destructive power and very large impact. One example is the case of warning for a tsunami generated by a near-coast earthquake, which is an issue at the focus of the European funded project NearToWarn. Warning has to be launched before tsunami hits the coast, that is in a few minutes after its generation. This may imply that data collected in such a short time are not yet enough for an accurate evaluation, also because the implemented monitoring system (if any) could be inadequate (f.i. one reason of inadequacy could be that implementing a dense instrumental network could be judged too expensive for rare events) The second case is the long term prevention from tsunami strikes. Tsunami infrequency may imply that the historical record for a given piece of coast is too short to capture a statistical

Tsunamis: bridging science, engineering and society.

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Kânoğlu, U; Titov, V; Bernard, E; Synolakis, C

2015-10-28

Tsunamis are high-impact, long-duration disasters that in most cases allow for only minutes of warning before impact. Since the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, there have been significant advancements in warning methodology, pre-disaster preparedness and basic understanding of related phenomena. Yet, the trail of destruction of the 2011 Japan tsunami, broadcast live to a stunned world audience, underscored the difficulties of implementing advances in applied hazard mitigation. We describe state of the art methodologies, standards for warnings and summarize recent advances in basic understanding, and identify cross-disciplinary challenges. The stage is set to bridge science, engineering and society to help build up coastal resilience and reduce losses. © 2015 The Author(s).

Performances of the New Real Time Tsunami Detection Algorithm applied to tide gauges data

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Chierici, F.; Embriaco, D.; Morucci, S.

2017-12-01

Real-time tsunami detection algorithms play a key role in any Tsunami Early Warning System. We have developed a new algorithm for tsunami detection (TDA) based on the real-time tide removal and real-time band-pass filtering of seabed pressure time series acquired by Bottom Pressure Recorders. The TDA algorithm greatly increases the tsunami detection probability, shortens the detection delay and enhances detection reliability with respect to the most widely used tsunami detection algorithm, while containing the computational cost. The algorithm is designed to be used also in autonomous early warning systems with a set of input parameters and procedures which can be reconfigured in real time. We have also developed a methodology based on Monte Carlo simulations to test the tsunami detection algorithms. The algorithm performance is estimated by defining and evaluating statistical parameters, namely the detection probability, the detection delay, which are functions of the tsunami amplitude and wavelength, and the occurring rate of false alarms. In this work we present the performance of the TDA algorithm applied to tide gauge data. We have adapted the new tsunami detection algorithm and the Monte Carlo test methodology to tide gauges. Sea level data acquired by coastal tide gauges in different locations and environmental conditions have been used in order to consider real working scenarios in the test. We also present an application of the algorithm to the tsunami event generated by Tohoku earthquake on March 11th 2011, using data recorded by several tide gauges scattered all over the Pacific area.

Numerical modelling and evacuation strategies for tsunami awareness: lessons from the 2012 Haida Gwaii Tsunami

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Angela Santos

2016-07-01

Full Text Available On October 28, 2012, an earthquake occurred offshore Canada, with a magnitude Mw of 7.8, triggering a tsunami that propagated through the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami numerical model results show it would not be expected to generate widespread inundation on Hawaii. Yet, two hours after the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC issued a tsunami warning to the state of Hawaii. Since the state was hit by several tsunamis in the past, regular siren exercises, tsunami hazard maps and other prevention measures are available for public use, revealing that residents are well prepared regarding tsunami evacuation procedures. Nevertheless, residents and tourists evacuated mostly by car, and because of that, heavy traffic was reported, showing that it was a non-viable option for evacuation. The tsunami caused minor damages on the coastline, and several car accidents were reported, with one fatality. In recent years, there has been a remarkable interest in tsunami impacts. However, if risk planners seem to be very knowledgeable about how to avoid or mitigate their potential harmful effects, they seem to disregard its integration with other sectors of human activity and other social factors.

Tsunami risk mapping simulation for Malaysia

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Teh, S.Y.; Koh, H. L.; Moh, Y.T.; De Angelis, D. L.; Jiang, J.

2011-01-01

The 26 December 2004 Andaman mega tsunami killed about a quarter of a million people worldwide. Since then several significant tsunamis have recurred in this region, including the most recent 25 October 2010 Mentawai tsunami. These tsunamis grimly remind us of the devastating destruction that a tsunami might inflict on the affected coastal communities. There is evidence that tsunamis of similar or higher magnitudes might occur again in the near future in this region. Of particular concern to Malaysia are tsunamigenic earthquakes occurring along the northern part of the Sunda Trench. Further, the Manila Trench in the South China Sea has been identified as another source of potential tsunamigenic earthquakes that might trigger large tsunamis. To protect coastal communities that might be affected by future tsunamis, an effective early warning system must be properly installed and maintained to provide adequate time for residents to be evacuated from risk zones. Affected communities must be prepared and educated in advance regarding tsunami risk zones, evacuation routes as well as an effective evacuation procedure that must be taken during a tsunami occurrence. For these purposes, tsunami risk zones must be identified and classified according to the levels of risk simulated. This paper presents an analysis of tsunami simulations for the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea for the purpose of developing a tsunami risk zone classification map for Malaysia based upon simulated maximum wave heights. ?? 2011 WIT Press.

Method to Determine Appropriate Source Models of Large Earthquakes Including Tsunami Earthquakes for Tsunami Early Warning in Central America

OpenAIRE

Tanioka, Yuichiro; Miranda, Greyving Jose Arguello; Gusman, Aditya Riadi; Fujii, Yushiro

2017-01-01

Large earthquakes, such as the Mw 7.7 1992 Nicaragua earthquake, have occurred off the Pacific coasts of El Salvador and Nicaragua in Central America and have generated distractive tsunamis along these coasts. It is necessary to determine appropriate fault models before large tsunamis hit the coast. In this study, first, fault parameters were estimated from the W-phase inversion, and then an appropriate fault model was determined from the fault parameters and scaling relationships with a dept...

Tsunami Amplitude Estimation from Real-Time GNSS.

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Jeffries, C.; MacInnes, B. T.; Melbourne, T. I.

2017-12-01

Tsunami early warning systems currently comprise modeling of observations from the global seismic network, deep-ocean DART buoys, and a global distribution of tide gauges. While these tools work well for tsunamis traveling teleseismic distances, saturation of seismic magnitude estimation in the near field can result in significant underestimation of tsunami excitation for local warning. Moreover, DART buoy and tide gauge observations cannot be used to rectify the underestimation in the available time, typically 10-20 minutes, before local runup occurs. Real-time GNSS measurements of coseismic offsets may be used to estimate finite faulting within 1-2 minutes and, in turn, tsunami excitation for local warning purposes. We describe here a tsunami amplitude estimation algorithm; implemented for the Cascadia subduction zone, that uses continuous GNSS position streams to estimate finite faulting. The system is based on a time-domain convolution of fault slip that uses a pre-computed catalog of hydrodynamic Green's functions generated with the GeoClaw shallow-water wave simulation software and maps seismic slip along each section of the fault to points located off the Cascadia coast in 20m of water depth and relies on the principle of the linearity in tsunami wave propagation. The system draws continuous slip estimates from a message broker, convolves the slip with appropriate Green's functions which are then superimposed to produce wave amplitude at each coastal location. The maximum amplitude and its arrival time are then passed into a database for subsequent monitoring and display. We plan on testing this system using a suite of synthetic earthquakes calculated for Cascadia whose ground motions are simulated at 500 existing Cascadia GPS sites, as well as real earthquakes for which we have continuous GNSS time series and surveyed runup heights, including Maule, Chile 2010 and Tohoku, Japan 2011. This system has been implemented in the CWU Geodesy Lab for the Cascadia

Challenges in Defining Tsunami Wave Height

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Stroker, K. J.; Dunbar, P. K.; Mungov, G.; Sweeney, A.; Arcos, N. P.

2017-12-01

The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and co-located World Data Service for Geophysics maintain the global tsunami archive consisting of the historical tsunami database, imagery, and raw and processed water level data. The historical tsunami database incorporates, where available, maximum wave heights for each coastal tide gauge and deep-ocean buoy that recorded a tsunami signal. These data are important because they are used for tsunami hazard assessment, model calibration, validation, and forecast and warning. There have been ongoing discussions in the tsunami community about the correct way to measure and report these wave heights. It is important to understand how these measurements might vary depending on how the data were processed and the definition of maximum wave height. On September 16, 2015, an 8.3 Mw earthquake located 48 km west of Illapel, Chile generated a tsunami that was observed all over the Pacific region. We processed the time-series water level data for 57 tide gauges that recorded this tsunami and compared the maximum wave heights determined from different definitions. We also compared the maximum wave heights from the NCEI-processed data with the heights reported by the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers. We found that in the near field different methods of determining the maximum tsunami wave heights could result in large differences due to possible instrumental clipping. We also found that the maximum peak is usually larger than the maximum amplitude (½ peak-to-trough), but the differences for the majority of the stations were Warning Centers. Since there is currently only one field in the NCEI historical tsunami database to store the maximum tsunami wave height, NCEI will consider adding an additional field for the maximum peak measurement.

THE TSUNAMI SERVICE BUS, AN INTEGRATION PLATFORM FOR HETEROGENEOUS SENSOR SYSTEMS

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Fleischer, J.; Häner, R.; Herrnkind, S.; Kriegel, U.; Schwarting, H.; Wächter, J.

2009-12-01

The Tsunami Service Bus (TSB) is the sensor integration platform of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) [1]. The primary goal of GITEWS is to deliver reliable tsunami warnings as fast as possible. This is achieved on basis of various sensor systems like seismometers, ocean instrumentation, and GPS stations, all providing fundamental data to support prediction of tsunami wave propagation by the GITEWS warning center. However, all these sensors come with their own proprietary data formats and specific behavior. Also new sensor types might be added, old sensors will be replaced. To keep GITEWS flexible the TSB was developed in order to access and control sensors in a uniform way. To meet these requirements the TSB follows the architectural blueprint of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The integration platform implements dedicated services communicating via a service infrastructure. The functionality required for early warnings is provided by loosely coupled services replacing the "hard-wired" coupling at data level. Changes in the sensor specification are confined to the data level without affecting the warning center. Great emphasis was laid on following the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standard [2], specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) [3]. As a result the full functionality needed in GITEWS could be achieved by implementing the four SWE services: The Sensor Observation Service for retrieving sensor measurements, the Sensor Alert Service in order to deliver sensor alerts, the Sensor Planning Service for tasking sensors, and the Web Notification Service for conduction messages to various media channels. Beyond these services the TSB also follows SWE Observation & Measurements specifications (O&M) for data encoding and Sensor Model Language (SensorML) for meta information. Moreover, accessing sensors via the TSB is not restricted to GITEWS. Multiple instances of the TSB can be composed to realize federate warning system

Real-time correction of tsunami site effect by frequency-dependent tsunami-amplification factor

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Tsushima, H.

2017-12-01

For tsunami early warning, I developed frequency-dependent tsunami-amplification factor and used it to design a recursive digital filter that can be applicable for real-time correction of tsunami site response. In this study, I assumed that a tsunami waveform at an observing point could be modeled by convolution of source, path and site effects in time domain. Under this assumption, spectral ratio between offshore and the nearby coast can be regarded as site response (i.e. frequency-dependent amplification factor). If the amplification factor can be prepared before tsunamigenic earthquakes, its temporal convolution to offshore tsunami waveform provides tsunami prediction at coast in real time. In this study, tsunami waveforms calculated by tsunami numerical simulations were used to develop frequency-dependent tsunami-amplification factor. Firstly, I performed numerical tsunami simulations based on nonlinear shallow-water theory from many tsuanmigenic earthquake scenarios by varying the seismic magnitudes and locations. The resultant tsunami waveforms at offshore and the nearby coastal observing points were then used in spectral-ratio analysis. An average of the resulted spectral ratios from the tsunamigenic-earthquake scenarios is regarded as frequency-dependent amplification factor. Finally, the estimated amplification factor is used in design of a recursive digital filter that can be applicable in time domain. The above procedure is applied to Miyako bay at the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan. The averaged tsunami-height spectral ratio (i.e. amplification factor) between the location at the center of the bay and the outside show a peak at wave-period of 20 min. A recursive digital filter based on the estimated amplification factor shows good performance in real-time correction of tsunami-height amplification due to the site effect. This study is supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant 15K16309.

Variations in sea surface roughness induced by the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami

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O. A. Godin

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Observations of tsunamis away from shore are critically important for improving early warning systems and understanding of tsunami generation and propagation. Tsunamis are difficult to detect and measure in the open ocean because the wave amplitude there is much smaller than it is close to shore. Currently, tsunami observations in deep water rely on measurements of variations in the sea surface height or bottom pressure. Here we demonstrate that there exists a different observable, specifically, ocean surface roughness, which can be used to reveal tsunamis away from shore. The first detailed measurements of the tsunami effect on sea surface height and radar backscattering strength in the open ocean were obtained from satellite altimeters during passage of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami. Through statistical analyses of satellite altimeter observations, we show that the Sumatra-Andaman tsunami effected distinct, detectable changes in sea surface roughness. The magnitude and spatial structure of the observed variations in radar backscattering strength are consistent with hydrodynamic models predicting variations in the near-surface wind across the tsunami wave front. Tsunami-induced changes in sea surface roughness can be potentially used for early tsunami detection by orbiting microwave radars and radiometers, which have broad surface coverage across the satellite ground track.

Tsunami Simulation Method Assimilating Ocean Bottom Pressure Data Near a Tsunami Source Region

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Tanioka, Yuichiro

2018-02-01

A new method was developed to reproduce the tsunami height distribution in and around the source area, at a certain time, from a large number of ocean bottom pressure sensors, without information on an earthquake source. A dense cabled observation network called S-NET, which consists of 150 ocean bottom pressure sensors, was installed recently along a wide portion of the seafloor off Kanto, Tohoku, and Hokkaido in Japan. However, in the source area, the ocean bottom pressure sensors cannot observe directly an initial ocean surface displacement. Therefore, we developed the new method. The method was tested and functioned well for a synthetic tsunami from a simple rectangular fault with an ocean bottom pressure sensor network using 10 arc-min, or 20 km, intervals. For a test case that is more realistic, ocean bottom pressure sensors with 15 arc-min intervals along the north-south direction and sensors with 30 arc-min intervals along the east-west direction were used. In the test case, the method also functioned well enough to reproduce the tsunami height field in general. These results indicated that the method could be used for tsunami early warning by estimating the tsunami height field just after a great earthquake without the need for earthquake source information.

Tsunami evacuation buildings and evacuation planning in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

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Yuzal, Hendri; Kim, Karl; Pant, Pradip; Yamashita, Eric

Indonesia, a country of more than 17,000 islands, is exposed to many hazards. A magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on December 26, 2004. It triggered a series of tsunami waves that spread across the Indian Ocean causing damage in 11 countries. Banda Aceh, the capital city of Aceh Province, was among the most damaged. More than 31,000 people were killed. At the time, there were no early warning systems nor evacuation buildings that could provide safe refuge for residents. Since then, four tsunami evacuation buildings (TEBs) have been constructed in the Meuraxa subdistrict of Banda Aceh. Based on analysis of evacuation routes and travel times, the capacity of existing TEBs is examined. Existing TEBs would not be able to shelter all of the at-risk population. In this study, additional buildings and locations for TEBs are proposed and residents are assigned to the closest TEBs. While TEBs may be part of a larger system of tsunami mitigation efforts, other strategies and approaches need to be considered. In addition to TEBs, robust detection, warning and alert systems, land use planning, training, exercises, and other preparedness strategies are essential to tsunami risk reduction.

Design Principles for resilient cyber-physical Early Warning Systems - Challenges, Experiences, Design Patterns, and Best Practices

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Gensch, S.; Wächter, J.; Schnor, B.

2014-12-01

Early warning systems (EWS) are safety-critical IT-infrastructures that serve the purpose of potentially saving lives or assets by observing real-world phenomena and issuing timely warning products to authorities and communities. An EWS consists of sensors, communication networks, data centers, simulation platforms, and dissemination channels. The components of this cyber-physical system may all be affected by both natural hazards and malfunctions of components alike. Resilience engineering so far has mostly been applied to safety-critical systems and processes in transportation (aviation, automobile), construction and medicine. Early warning systems need equivalent techniques to compensate for failures, and furthermore means to adapt to changing threats, emerging technology and research findings. We present threats and pitfalls from our experiences with the German and Indonesian tsunami early warning system, as well as architectural, technological and organizational concepts employed that can enhance an EWS' resilience. The current EWS is comprised of a multi-type sensor data upstream part, different processing and analysis engines, a decision support system, and various warning dissemination channels. Each subsystem requires a set of approaches towards ensuring stable functionality across system layer boundaries, including also institutional borders. Not only must services be available, but also produce correct results. Most sensors are distributed components with restricted resources, communication channels and power supply. An example for successful resilience engineering is the power capacity based functional management for buoy and tide gauge stations. We discuss various fault-models like cause and effect models on linear pathways, interaction of multiple events, complex and non-linear interaction of assumedly reliable subsystems and fault tolerance means implemented to tackle these threats.

2006 - 2016: Ten Years Of Tsunami In French Polynesia

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Reymond, D.; Jamelot, A.; Hyvernaud, O.

2016-12-01

Located in South central Pacific and despite of its far field situation, the French Polynesia is very much concerned by the tsunamis generated along the major subduction zones located around the Pacific. At the time of writing, 10 tsunamis have been generated in the Pacific Ocean since 2006; all these events recorded in French Polynesia, produced different levels of warning, starting from a simple seismic warning with an information bulletin, up to an effective tsunami warning with evacuation of the coastal zone. These tsunamigenic events represent an invaluable opportunity of evolutions and tests of the tsunami warning system developed in French Polynesia: during the last ten years, the warning rules had evolved from a simple criterion of magnitudes up to the computation of the main seismic source parameters (location, slowness determinant (Newman & Okal, 1998) and focal geometry) using two independent methods: the first one uses an inversion of W-phases (Kanamori & Rivera, 2012) and the second one performs an inversion of long period surface waves (Clément & Reymond, 2014); the source parameters such estimated allow to compute in near real time the expected distributions of tsunami heights (with the help of a super-computer and parallelized codes of numerical simulations). Furthermore, two kinds of numerical modeling are used: the first one, very rapid (performed in about 5minutes of computation time) is based on the Green's law (Jamelot & Reymond, 2015), and a more detailed and precise one that uses classical numerical simulations through nested grids (about 45 minutes of computation time). Consequently, the criteria of tsunami warning are presently based on the expected tsunami heights in the different archipelagos and islands of French Polynesia. This major evolution allows to differentiate and use different levels of warning for the different archipelagos,working in tandem with the Civil Defense. We present the comparison of the historical observed tsunami

Famines in Africa: is early warning early enough?

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Jeeyon Janet Kim

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Following the second Sahelian famine in 1984–1985, major investments were made to establish Early Warning Systems. These systems help to ensure that timely warnings and vulnerability information are available to decision makers to anticipate and avert food crises. In the recent crisis in the Horn of Africa, alarming levels of acute malnutrition were documented from March 2010, and by August 2010, an impending food crisis was forecast. Despite these measures, the situation remained unrecognised, and further deteriorated causing malnutrition levels to grow in severity and scope. By the time the United Nations officially declared famine on 20 July 2011, and the humanitarian community sluggishly went into response mode, levels of malnutrition and mortality exceeded catastrophic levels. At this time, an estimated 11 million people were in desperate and immediate need for food. With warnings of food crises in the Sahel, South Sudan, and forecast of the drought returning to the Horn, there is an immediate need to institutionalize change in the health response during humanitarian emergencies. Early warning systems are only effective if they trigger an early response.

Role of Compressibility on Tsunami Propagation

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Abdolali, Ali; Kirby, James T.

2017-12-01

In the present paper, we aim to reduce the discrepancies between tsunami arrival times evaluated from tsunami models and real measurements considering the role of ocean compressibility. We perform qualitative studies to reveal the phase speed reduction rate via a modified version of the Mild Slope Equation for Weakly Compressible fluid (MSEWC) proposed by Sammarco et al. (2013). The model is validated against a 3-D computational model. Physical properties of surface gravity waves are studied and compared with those for waves evaluated from an incompressible flow solver over realistic geometry for 2011 Tohoku-oki event, revealing reduction in phase speed.Plain Language SummarySubmarine earthquakes and submarine mass failures (SMFs), can generate long gravitational waves (or tsunamis) that propagate at the free surface. Tsunami waves can travel long distances and are known for their dramatic effects on coastal areas. Nowadays, numerical models are used to reconstruct the tsunamigenic events for many scientific and socioeconomic aspects i.e. Tsunami Early Warning Systems, inundation mapping, risk and hazard analysis, etc. A number of typically neglected parameters in these models cause discrepancies between model outputs and observations. Most of the tsunami models predict tsunami arrival times at distant stations slightly early in comparison to observations. In this study, we show how ocean compressibility would affect the tsunami wave propagation speed. In this framework, an efficient two-dimensional model equation for the weakly compressible ocean has been developed, validated and tested for simplified and real cases against three dimensional and incompressible solvers. Taking the effect of compressibility, the phase speed of surface gravity waves is reduced compared to that of an incompressible fluid. Then, we used the model for the case of devastating Tohoku-Oki 2011 tsunami event, improving the model accuracy. This study sheds light for future model development

A review of studies on community based early warning systems

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Margaret Macherera

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Community-based early warning systems involve community driven collection and analysis of information that enable warning messages to help a community to react to a hazard and reduce the resulting loss or harm. Most early warning systems are designed at the national or global level. Local communities’ capacity to predict weather conditions using indigenous knowledge has been demonstrated in studies focusing on climate change and agriculture in some African countries. This review was motivated by successes made in non-disease specific community-based early warning systems with a view to identify opportunities for developing similar systems for malaria. This article reviewed the existing community-based early warning systems documented in literature. The types of disasters that are addressed by these systems and the methodologies utilised in the development of the systems were identified. The review showed that most of the documented community-based early warning systems focus on natural disasters such as floods, drought, and landslides. Community-based early warning systems for human diseases are very few, even though such systems exist at national and regional and global levels. There is a clear gap in terms of community-based malaria early warning systems. The methodologies for the development of the community-based early warning systems reviewed mainly derive from the four elements of early warning systems; namely risk knowledge, monitoring, warning communication and response capability. The review indicated the need for the development of community based early warning systems for human diseases. Keywords: community; early warning; disaster; hazards

Tsunami Arrival Detection with High Frequency (HF Radar

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Donald Barrick

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Quantitative real-time observations of a tsunami have been limited to deep-water, pressure-sensor observations of changes in the sea surface elevation and observations of sea level fluctuations at the coast, which are essentially point measurements. Constrained by these data, models have been used for predictions and warning of the arrival of a tsunami, but to date no system exists for local detection of an actual incoming wave with a significant warning capability. Networks of coastal high frequency (HF-radars are now routinely observing surface currents in many countries. We report here on an empirical method for the detection of the initial arrival of a tsunami, and demonstrate its use with results from data measured by fourteen HF radar sites in Japan and USA following the magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Sendai, Japan, on 11 March 2011. The distance offshore at which the tsunami can be detected, and hence the warning time provided, depends on the bathymetry: the wider the shallow continental shelf, the greater this time. We compare arrival times at the radars with those measured by neighboring tide gauges. Arrival times measured by the radars preceded those at neighboring tide gauges by an average of 19 min (Japan and 15 min (USA The initial water-height increase due to the tsunami as measured by the tide gauges was moderate, ranging from 0.3 to 2 m. Thus it appears possible to detect even moderate tsunamis using this method. Larger tsunamis could obviously be detected further from the coast. We find that tsunami arrival within the radar coverage area can be announced 8 min (i.e., twice the radar spectral time resolution after its first appearance. This can provide advance warning of the tsunami approach to the coastline locations.

A NEW TSUNAMI RISK SCALE FOR WARNING SYSTEMS - APPLICATION TO THE BAY OF ALGIERS IN ALGERIA, WEST MEDITERRANEAN SEA

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L. A. Amir

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The city of Algiers and the surrounding coastal areas in northern Algeria are vulnerable to earthquakes which range from moderate to severe. In 2006, using several possible earthquake scenarios for the Western Mediterranean, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Algerian National Seismic Engineering Research Center predicted that heavy damage could occur in the Algiers region. Algerian Civil Defense authorities are particularly concerned by the threat of near-field earthquakes, associated slides and rock falls, as well as for tsunamis that can be generated. The present study proposes a new tsunami risk scale that provides information about the exposed communities and infrastructure, which can be used for regional tsunami alerts and warnings. Furthermore, it evaluates the vulnerability along the Bay of Algiers from tsunamigenic earthquakes. The JMA seismic intensity scale (Shindo scale and the corresponding seismic peak ground accelerations are used in the evaluation. The results of tsunami modeling studies and of earthquake vulnerability assessment described by the present study, emphasize the significance of public education and preparedness in efforts to mitigate loss of life and damage to property.

TSUNAMI HAZARD MITIGATION AND THE NOAA NATIONAL WATER LEVEL OBSERVATION NETWORK

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James R. Hubbard

2002-01-01

Full Text Available With the renewed interest in regional Tsunami Warning Systems and the potential tsunami threats throughout the Caribbean and West coast of the United States, the National Ocean Service (NOS, National Water Level Observation Network (NWLON consisting of 175 primary stations, is well situated to play a role in the National Hazard Mitigation effort. In addition, information regarding local mean sea level trends and GPS derived geodetic datum relationships at numerous coastal locations is readily available for tsunami hazard assessment and mapping applications.Tsunami inundation maps and modeling are just two of the more important products which may be derived from NWLON data. In addition to the seven water level gauges that are hardwired into the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WClATWC, NOS has a significant number of gauges with real-time satellite telemetry capabilities located along the Pacific Northwest coastline, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. These gauges, in concert with near shore buoy systems, have the potential for increasing the effectiveness of the existing tsunami warning system.The recent expansion of the Caribbean Sea Level Gauge Network through the NOS regional partnerships with Central American and Caribbean countries have opened an opportunity for a basin-wide tsunami warning network in a region which is ill prepared for a major tsunami event.

Lessons unlearned in Japan before 2011: Effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on a nuclear plant in India

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Sugimoto, M.

2015-12-01

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed around 220,000 people and startled the world. North of Chennai (Madras), the Indian plant nearly affected by tsunami in 2004. The local residents really did not get any warning in India. "On December 26, the Madras Atomic Power Station looked like a desolate place with no power, no phones, no water, no security arrangement and no hindrance whatsoever for outsiders to enter any part of the plant," said S.P. Udaykumar of SACCER. Nuclear issues hide behind such big tsunami damaged. Few media reported outside India. As for US, San Francisco Chronicle reported scientists had to rethink about nuclear power plants by the 2004 tsunami in 11th July 2005. Few tsunami scientsts did not pay attention to nucler power plants nearly affected by tsunami in US. On the other hand, US government noticed the Indian plant nearly affected in 2004. US Goverment supported nucler disaster management in several countries. As for Japan, Japanese goverment mainly concentrated reconstrucation in affected areas and tsunami early warning system. I worked in Japanese embassy in Jakarta Indonesia at that time. I did not receive the information about the Indian plant nearly affected by tsunami and US supported nucler safety to the other coutries. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami damaged society and nuclear power stations. The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident resulted in the largest release of radioactive material since the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Why did not Japanese tsunami scientists learn from warning signs from the nuclear plant in India by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to the 2011 Fukushima accident? I would like to clarify the reason few tsunami scientist notice this point in my presentation.

Tsunami Casualty Model

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Yeh, H.

2007-12-01

More than 4500 deaths by tsunamis were recorded in the decade of 1990. For example, the 1992 Flores Tsunami in Indonesia took away at least 1712 lives, and more than 2182 people were victimized by the 1998 Papua New Guinea Tsunami. Such staggering death toll has been totally overshadowed by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that claimed more than 220,000 lives. Unlike hurricanes that are often evaluated by economic losses, death count is the primary measure for tsunami hazard. It is partly because tsunamis kill more people owing to its short lead- time for warning. Although exact death tallies are not available for most of the tsunami events, there exist gender and age discriminations in tsunami casualties. Significant gender difference in the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was attributed to women's social norms and role behavior, as well as cultural bias toward women's inability to swim. Here we develop a rational casualty model based on humans' limit to withstand the tsunami flows. The application to simple tsunami runup cases demonstrates that biological and physiological disadvantages also make a significant difference in casualty rate. It further demonstrates that the gender and age discriminations in casualties become most pronounced when tsunami is marginally strong and the difference tends to diminish as tsunami strength increases.

Estimation for aerial detection effectiveness with cooperation efficiency factors of early-warning aircraft in early-warning detection SoS under BSC framework

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Feng; Hu, Xiaofeng; He, Xiaoyuan; Guo, Rui; Li, Kaiming; Yang, Lu

2017-11-01

In the military field, the performance evaluation of early-warning aircraft deployment or construction is always an important problem needing to be explored. As an effective approach of enterprise management and performance evaluation, Balanced Score Card (BSC) attracts more and more attentions and is studied more and more widely all over the world. It can also bring feasible ideas and technical approaches for studying the issue of the performance evaluation of the deployment or construction of early-warning aircraft which is the important component in early-warning detection system of systems (SoS). Therefore, the deep explored researches are carried out based on the previously research works. On the basis of the characteristics of space exploration and aerial detection effectiveness of early-warning detection SoS and the cardinal principle of BSC are analyzed simply, and the performance evaluation framework of the deployment or construction of early-warning aircraft is given, under this framework, aimed at the evaluation issue of aerial detection effectiveness of early-warning detection SoS with the cooperation efficiency factors of the early-warning aircraft and other land based radars, the evaluation indexes are further designed and the relative evaluation model is further established, especially the evaluation radar chart being also drawn to obtain the evaluation results from a direct sight angle. Finally, some practical computer simulations are launched to prove the validity and feasibility of the research thinking and technologic approaches which are proposed in the paper.

Operational tsunami modeling with TsunAWI - Examples for Indonesia and Chile

Science.gov (United States)

Rakowsky, Natalja; Androsov, Alexey; Harig, Sven; Immerz, Antonia; Fuchs, Annika; Behrens, Jörn; Danilov, Sergey; Hiller, Wolfgang; Schröter, Jens

2014-05-01

The numerical simulation code TsunAWI was developed in the framework of the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS). The numerical simulation of prototypical tsunami scenarios plays a decisive role in the a priory risk assessment for coastal regions and in the early warning process itself. TsunAWI is based on a finite element discretization, employs unstructured grids with high resolution along the coast, and includes inundation. This contribution gives an overview of the model itself and presents two applications. For GITEWS, the existing scenario database covering 528 epicenters / 3450 scenarios from Sumatra to Bali was extended by 187 epicenters / 1100 scenarios in the Eastern Sunda Arc. Furthermore, about 1100 scenarios for the Western Sunda Arc were recomputed on the new model domain covering the whole Indonesian Seas. These computations would not have been feasible in the beginning of the project. The unstructured computational grid contains 7 million nodes and resolves all coastal regions with 150m, some project regions and the surrounding of tide gauges with 50m, and the deep ocean with 12km edge length. While in the Western Sunda Arc, the large islands of Sumatra and Java shield the Northern Indonesian Archipelago, tsunamis in the Eastern Sunda Arc can propagate to the North. The unstructured grid approach allows TsunAWI to easily simulate the complex propagation patterns with the self-interactions and the reflections at the coastal regions of myriads of islands. For the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy (SHOA), we calculated a small scenario database of 100 scenarios (sources by Universidad de Chile) to provide data for a lightweight decision support system prototype (built by DLR). This work is part of the initiation project "Multi hazard information and early warning system in cooperation with Chile" and aims at sharing our experience from GITEWS with the Chilean partners.

Managing Risks? Early Warning Systems for Climate Change

Science.gov (United States)

Sitati, A. M.; Zommers, Z. A.; Habilov, M.

2014-12-01

Early warning systems are a tool with which to minimize risks posed by climate related hazards. Although great strides have been made in developing early warning systems most deal with one hazard, only provide short-term warnings and do not reach the most vulnerable. This presentation will review research results of the United Nations Environment Programme's CLIM-WARN project. The project seeks to identify how governments can better communicate risks by designing multi-hazard early warning systems that deliver actionable warnings across timescales. Household surveys and focus group discussions were conducted in 36 communities in Kenya, Ghana and Burkina Faso in order to identify relevant climate related hazards, current response strategies and early warning needs. Preliminary results show significant variability in both risks and needs within and between countries. For instance, floods are more frequent in rural western parts of Kenya. Droughts are frequent in the north while populations in urban areas face a range of hazards - floods, droughts, disease outbreaks - that sometimes occur simultaneously. The majority of the rural population, especially women, the disabled and the elderly, do not have access to modern media such as radio, television, or internet. While 55% of rural populace never watches television, 64% of urban respondents watch television on a daily basis. Communities have different concepts of how to design warning systems. It will be a challenge for national governments to create systems that accommodate such diversity yet provide standard quality of service to all. There is a need for flexible and forward-looking early warning systems that deliver broader information about risks. Information disseminated through the system could not only include details of hazards, but also long-term adaptation options, general education, and health information, thus increasingly both capabilities and response options.

Diseño de un sistema de alerta temprana de tsunamis para el cantón General Villamil Playas, provincia del Guayas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo Muñoz Montesdeoca

2016-12-01

This study refersto the tsunami early warning system in canton General Villamil Playas, monitored and controlled by the Navy Oceanographic Institute, located in the Southern Naval Base in Guayaquil city. It details the design of the system, the transmission technology selected with the most suitable terminals that will be necessary to install, the determination of the places in the canton General Villamil Playas, Guayas province, where the electronic horns will be located, as well as the type of network that will be used to activate the acoustic devices. Additionally, the main features of the horns required for the system are described, the software design that remotely manages the acoustic terminals as well as the GSM communication between horns through the use of arduino are detailed, and the coverage of each horn of the tsunami early warning system is calculated.   Keywords: Arduino, GSM, GPRS, satellites, tsunamis.

A hazard-independent approach for the standardised multi-channel dissemination of warning messages

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Esbri Palomares, M. A.; Hammitzsch, M.; Lendholt, M.

2012-04-01

The tsunami disaster affecting the Indian Ocean region on Christmas 2004 demonstrated very clearly the shortcomings in tsunami detection, public warning processes as well as intergovernmental warning message exchange in the Indian Ocean region. In that regard, early warning systems require that the dissemination of early warning messages has to be executed in way that ensures that the message delivery is timely; the message content is understandable, usable and accurate. To that end, diverse and multiple dissemination channels must be used to increase the chance of the messages reaching all affected persons in a hazard scenario. In addition to this, usage of internationally accepted standards for the warning dissemination such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element specified by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) increase the interoperability among different warning systems enabling thus the concept of system-of-systems proposed by GEOSS. The project Distant Early Warning System (DEWS), co-funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, aims at strengthening the early warning capacities by building an innovative generation of interoperable tsunami early warning systems based on the above mentioned concepts following a Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. The project focuses on the downstream part of the hazard information processing where customized, user-tailored warning messages and alerts flow from the warning centre to the responsible authorities and/or the public with their different needs and responsibilities. The information logistics services within DEWS generate tailored EDXL-DE/CAP warning messages for each user that must receive the message according to their preferences, e.g., settings for language, interested areas, dissemination channels, etc.. However, the significant difference in the implementation and

U.S. Tsunami Information technology (TIM) Modernization:Developing a Maintainable and Extensible Open Source Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System

Science.gov (United States)

Hellman, S. B.; Lisowski, S.; Baker, B.; Hagerty, M.; Lomax, A.; Leifer, J. M.; Thies, D. A.; Schnackenberg, A.; Barrows, J.

2015-12-01

Tsunami Information technology Modernization (TIM) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) project to update and standardize the earthquake and tsunami monitoring systems currently employed at the U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers in Ewa Beach, Hawaii (PTWC) and Palmer, Alaska (NTWC). While this project was funded by NOAA to solve a specific problem, the requirements that the delivered system be both open source and easily maintainable have resulted in the creation of a variety of open source (OS) software packages. The open source software is now complete and this is a presentation of the OS Software that has been funded by NOAA for benefit of the entire seismic community. The design architecture comprises three distinct components: (1) The user interface, (2) The real-time data acquisition and processing system and (3) The scientific algorithm library. The system follows a modular design with loose coupling between components. We now identify the major project constituents. The user interface, CAVE, is written in Java and is compatible with the existing National Weather Service (NWS) open source graphical system AWIPS. The selected real-time seismic acquisition and processing system is open source SeisComp3 (sc3). The seismic library (libseismic) contains numerous custom written and wrapped open source seismic algorithms (e.g., ML/mb/Ms/Mwp, mantle magnitude (Mm), w-phase moment tensor, bodywave moment tensor, finite-fault inversion, array processing). The seismic library is organized in a way (function naming and usage) that will be familiar to users of Matlab. The seismic library extends sc3 so that it can be called by the real-time system, but it can also be driven and tested outside of sc3, for example, by ObsPy or Earthworm. To unify the three principal components we have developed a flexible and lightweight communication layer called SeismoEdex.

Defining Tsunami Magnitude as Measure of Potential Impact

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Titov, V. V.; Tang, L.

2016-12-01

The goal of tsunami forecast, as a system for predicting potential impact of a tsunami at coastlines, requires quick estimate of a tsunami magnitude. This goal has been recognized since the beginning of tsunami research. The work of Kajiura, Soloviev, Abe, Murty, and many others discussed several scales for tsunami magnitude based on estimates of tsunami energy. However, difficulties of estimating tsunami energy based on available tsunami measurements at coastal sea-level stations has carried significant uncertainties and has been virtually impossible in real time, before tsunami impacts coastlines. The slow process of tsunami magnitude estimates, including collection of vast amount of available coastal sea-level data from affected coastlines, made it impractical to use any tsunami magnitude scales in tsunami warning operations. Uncertainties of estimates made tsunami magnitudes difficult to use as universal scale for tsunami analysis. Historically, the earthquake magnitude has been used as a proxy of tsunami impact estimates, since real-time seismic data is available of real-time processing and ample amount of seismic data is available for an elaborate post event analysis. This measure of tsunami impact carries significant uncertainties in quantitative tsunami impact estimates, since the relation between the earthquake and generated tsunami energy varies from case to case. In this work, we argue that current tsunami measurement capabilities and real-time modeling tools allow for establishing robust tsunami magnitude that will be useful for tsunami warning as a quick estimate for tsunami impact and for post-event analysis as a universal scale for tsunamis inter-comparison. We present a method for estimating the tsunami magnitude based on tsunami energy and present application of the magnitude analysis for several historical events for inter-comparison with existing methods.

Observing Tsunamis in the Ionosphere Using Ground Based GPS Measurements

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Galvan, D. A.; Komjathy, A.; Song, Y. Tony; Stephens, P.; Hickey, M. P.; Foster, J.

2011-01-01

Ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements of ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) show variations consistent with atmospheric internal gravity waves caused by ocean tsunamis following recent seismic events, including the Tohoku tsunami of March 11, 2011. We observe fluctuations correlated in time, space, and wave properties with this tsunami in TEC estimates processed using JPL's Global Ionospheric Mapping Software. These TEC estimates were band-pass filtered to remove ionospheric TEC variations with periods outside the typical range of internal gravity waves caused by tsunamis. Observable variations in TEC appear correlated with the Tohoku tsunami near the epicenter, at Hawaii, and near the west coast of North America. Disturbance magnitudes are 1-10% of the background TEC value. Observations near the epicenter are compared to estimates of expected tsunami-driven TEC variations produced by Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's Spectral Full Wave Model, an atmosphere-ionosphere coupling model, and found to be in good agreement. The potential exists to apply these detection techniques to real-time GPS TEC data, providing estimates of tsunami speed and amplitude that may be useful for future early warning systems.

The Pacific tsunami warning system

Science.gov (United States)

Pararas-Carayannis, G.

1986-01-01

Of all natural disasters, tsunamis are among the most terrifying and complex phenomena, responsible for great loss of lives and vast destruction of property. Enormous destruction of coastal communities has taken place throughout the world by such great waves since the beginning of recorded history.

2004 Sumatra Tsunami

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Vongvisessomjai, S.

2005-09-01

Full Text Available A catastrophic tsunami on December 26, 2004 caused devastation in the coastal region of six southern provinces of Thailand on the Andaman Sea coast. This paper summaries the characteristics of tsunami with the aim of informing and warning the public and reducing future casualties and damage.The first part is a review of the records of past catastrophic tsunamis, namely those in Chile in 1960, Alaska in 1964, and Flores, Java, Indonesia, in 1992, and the lessons drawn from these tsunamis. An analysis and the impact of the 2004 Sumatra tsunami is then presented and remedial measures recommended.Results of this study are as follows:Firstly, the 2004 Sumatra tsunami ranked fourth in terms of earthquake magnitude (9.0 M after those in 1960 in Chile (9.5 M, 1899 in Alaska (9.2 M and 1964 in Alaska (9.1 M and ranked first in terms of damage and casualties. It was most destructive when breaking in shallow water nearshore.Secondly, the best alleviation measures are 1 to set up a reliable system for providing warning at the time of an earthquake in order to save lives and reduce damage and 2 to establish a hazard map and implement land-use zoning in the devastated areas, according to the following principles:- Large hotels located at an elevation of not less than 10 m above mean sea level (MSL- Medium hotels located at an elevation of not less than 6 m above MSL- Small hotel located at elevation below 6 m MSL, but with the first floor elevated on poles to allow passage of a tsunami wave- Set-back distances from shoreline established for various developments- Provision of shelters and evacuation directionsFinally, public education is an essential part of preparedness.

Using Interdisciplinary Research Methods to Revise and Strengthen the NWS TsunamiReadyTM Community Recognition Program

Science.gov (United States)

Scott, C.; Gregg, C. E.; Ritchie, L.; Stephen, M.; Farnham, C.; Fraser, S. A.; Gill, D.; Horan, J.; Houghton, B. F.; Johnson, V.; Johnston, D.

2013-12-01

The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) partnered with the National Weather Service (NWS) in early 2000 to create the TsunamiReadyTM Community Recognition program. TsunamiReadyTM, modeled after the older NWS StormReadyTM program, is designed to help cities, towns, counties, universities and other large sites in coastal areas reduce the potential for disastrous tsunami-related consequences. To achieve TsunamiReadyTM recognition, communities must meet certain criteria aimed at better preparing a community for tsunami, including specific actions within the following categories: communications and coordination, tsunami warning reception, local warning dissemination, community preparedness, and administration. Using multidisciplinary research methods and strategies from Public Health; Psychology; Political, Social and Physical Sciences and Evaluation, our research team is working directly with a purposive sample of community stakeholders in collaboration and feedback focus group sessions. Invitation to participate is based on a variety of factors including but not limited to an individual's role as a formal or informal community leader (e.g., in business, government, civic organizations), or their organization or agency affiliation to emergency management and response. Community organizing and qualitative research methods are being used to elicit discussion regarding TsunamiReadyTM requirements and the division of requirements based on some aspect of tsunami hazard, vulnerability and risk, such as proximity to active or passive plate margins or subduction zone generated tsunamis versus earthquake-landslide generated tsunamis . The primary aim of this research is to use social science to revise and refine the NWS TsunamiReadyTM Guidelines in an effort to better prepare communities to reduce risk to tsunamis.

The seismic project of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program

Science.gov (United States)

Oppenheimer, D.H.; Bittenbinder, A.N.; Bogaert, B.M.; Buland, R.P.; Dietz, L.D.; Hansen, R.A.; Malone, S.D.; McCreery, C.S.; Sokolowski, T.J.; Whitmore, P.M.; Weaver, C.S.

2005-01-01

In 1997, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the five western States of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington joined in a partnership called the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) to enhance the quality and quantity of seismic data provided to the NOAA tsunami warning centers in Alaska and Hawaii. The NTHMP funded a seismic project that now provides the warning centers with real-time seismic data over dedicated communication links and the Internet from regional seismic networks monitoring earthquakes in the five western states, the U.S. National Seismic Network in Colorado, and from domestic and global seismic stations operated by other agencies. The goal of the project is to reduce the time needed to issue a tsunami warning by providing the warning centers with high-dynamic range, broadband waveforms in near real time. An additional goal is to reduce the likelihood of issuing false tsunami warnings by rapidly providing to the warning centers parametric information on earthquakes that could indicate their tsunamigenic potential, such as hypocenters, magnitudes, moment tensors, and shake distribution maps. New or upgraded field instrumentation was installed over a 5-year period at 53 seismic stations in the five western states. Data from these instruments has been integrated into the seismic network utilizing Earthworm software. This network has significantly reduced the time needed to respond to teleseismic and regional earthquakes. Notably, the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center responded to the 28 February 2001 Mw 6.8 Nisqually earthquake beneath Olympia, Washington within 2 minutes compared to an average response time of over 10 minutes for the previous 18 years. ?? Springer 2005.

Impact of earthquake-induced tsunamis on public health

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Mavroulis, Spyridon; Mavrouli, Maria; Lekkas, Efthymios; Tsakris, Athanassios

2017-04-01

measures, (2) lack of awareness and prior warning resulting in little time for preparedness or evacuation, (3) severely injured tsunami survivors exposed to high pathogen densities in soil and water, (4) destruction of critical infrastructures including health care systems causing delayed management and treatment of severe cases, (5) aggravating post-tsunami weather conditions, (6) formation of extensive potential vector breeding sites due to flooding, (7) overcrowded conditions in evacuation shelters characterized by small places, inadequate air ventilation, poor hand hygiene and dysfunction of the public health system, (8) low vaccination coverage, (9) poor personal hygiene, (10) minimum precautions against food contamination and (11) dependency of young children and weaker physical strength and resilience of elders needing assistance with daily activities. In conclusion, our study referred to potential ID following tsunamis induced after great earthquakes during the last 12 years. The establishment of strong disaster preparedness plans characterized by adequate environmental planning, resistant infrastructures and resilient health facilities is significant for the early detection, surveillance and control of emerging ID. Moreover, the establishment and the unceasing function of reliable early warning systems may help mitigate tsunami-related impact on public health.

Using GPS to Detect Imminent Tsunamis

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Y. Tony

2009-01-01

A promising method of detecting imminent tsunamis and estimating their destructive potential involves the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) data in addition to seismic data. Application of the method is expected to increase the reliability of global tsunami-warning systems, making it possible to save lives while reducing the incidence of false alarms. Tsunamis kill people every year. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed about 230,000 people. The magnitude of an earthquake is not always a reliable indication of the destructive potential of a tsunami. The 2004 Indian Ocean quake generated a huge tsunami, while the 2005 Nias (Indonesia) quake did not, even though both were initially estimated to be of the similar magnitude. Between 2005 and 2007, five false tsunami alarms were issued worldwide. Such alarms result in negative societal and economic effects. GPS stations can detect ground motions of earthquakes in real time, as frequently as every few seconds. In the present method, the epicenter of an earthquake is located by use of data from seismometers, then data from coastal GPS stations near the epicenter are used to infer sea-floor displacements that precede a tsunami. The displacement data are used in conjunction with local topographical data and an advanced theory to quantify the destructive potential of a tsunami on a new tsunami scale, based on the GPS-derived tsunami energy, much like the Richter Scale used for earthquakes. An important element of the derivation of the advanced theory was recognition that horizontal sea-floor motions contribute much more to generation of tsunamis than previously believed. The method produces a reliable estimate of the destructive potential of a tsunami within minutes typically, well before the tsunami reaches coastal areas. The viability of the method was demonstrated in computational tests in which the method yielded accurate representations of three historical tsunamis for which well-documented ground

Geodetic Finite-Fault-based Earthquake Early Warning Performance for Great Earthquakes Worldwide

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Ruhl, C. J.; Melgar, D.; Grapenthin, R.; Allen, R. M.

2017-12-01

GNSS-based earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithms estimate fault-finiteness and unsaturated moment magnitude for the largest, most damaging earthquakes. Because large events are infrequent, algorithms are not regularly exercised and insufficiently tested on few available datasets. The Geodetic Alarm System (G-larmS) is a GNSS-based finite-fault algorithm developed as part of the ShakeAlert EEW system in the western US. Performance evaluations using synthetic earthquakes offshore Cascadia showed that G-larmS satisfactorily recovers magnitude and fault length, providing useful alerts 30-40 s after origin time and timely warnings of ground motion for onshore urban areas. An end-to-end test of the ShakeAlert system demonstrated the need for GNSS data to accurately estimate ground motions in real-time. We replay real data from several subduction-zone earthquakes worldwide to demonstrate the value of GNSS-based EEW for the largest, most damaging events. We compare predicted ground acceleration (PGA) from first-alert-solutions with those recorded in major urban areas. In addition, where applicable, we compare observed tsunami heights to those predicted from the G-larmS solutions. We show that finite-fault inversion based on GNSS-data is essential to achieving the goals of EEW.

Lessons Learned and Unlearned from the 2004 Great Sumatran Tsunami.

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Synolakis, C.; Kanoglu, U.

2014-12-01

Huppert & Sparks (2006 Phil Trans Math Phys Eng Sci) wrote It is likely that in the future, we will experience several disasters per year that kill more than 10,000 people. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster alone resulted in more than 20,000 casualties. Synolakis & Bernard (2006 Phil Trans Math Phys Eng Sci) concluded that Before the next Sumatra-type tsunami strikes, we must resolve to create a world that can coexist with the tsunami hazard. The 2011 Japan tsunami dramatically showed that we are not there yet. Despite substantial advances after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, substantial challenges remain for improving tsunami hazard mitigation. If the tsunami community appeared at first perplexed in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, it was not due to the failure of recognized hydrodynamic paradigms, much as certain geophysical ones and scaling laws failed, but at the worst surprise, the lack of preparedness and education. Synolakis et al. (2008 Pure Appl Geophys) presented standards for tsunami modeling; for both warnings and inundation maps (IMs). Although at least one forecasting methodology has gone through extensive testing, and is now officially in use by the warning centers (WCs), standards need urgently to be formalized for warnings. In Europe, several WCs have been established, but none has yet to issue an operational warning for a hazardous event. If it happens, there might be confusion with possibly contradictory/competing warnings. Never again should there be a repeat of the TEPCO analysis for the safety of the Fukushima NPP. This was primarily due to lacks of familiarity with the context of numerical predictions and experience with real tsunami. The accident was the result of a cascade of stupid errors, almost impossible to ignore by anyone in the field (Synolakis, 26.03.2011 The New York Times). Current practices in tsunami studies for US NPPs and for IMs do not provide us with optimism that the Fukushima lessons have been absorbed and that

Sea level hazards: Altimetric monitoring of tsunamis and sea level rise

Science.gov (United States)

Hamlington, Benjamin Dillon

Whether on the short timescale of an impending tsunami or the much longer timescale of climate change-driven sea level rise, the threat stemming from rising and inundating ocean waters is a great concern to coastal populations. Timely and accurate observations of potentially dangerous changes in sea level are vital in determining the precautionary steps that need to be taken in order to protect coastal communities. While instruments from the past have provided in situ measurements of sea level at specific locations across the globe, satellites can be used to provide improved spatial and temporal sampling of the ocean in addition to producing more accurate measurements. Since 1993, satellite altimetry has provided accurate measurements of sea surface height (SSH) with near-global coverage. Not only have these measurements led to the first definitive estimates of global mean sea level rise, satellite altimetry observations have also been used to detect tsunami waves in the open ocean where wave amplitudes are relatively small, a vital step in providing early warning to those potentially affected by the impending tsunami. The use of satellite altimetry to monitor two specific sea level hazards is examined in this thesis. The first section will focus on the detection of tsunamis in the open ocean for the purpose of providing early warning to coastal inhabitants. The second section will focus on estimating secular trends using satellite altimetry data with the hope of improving our understanding of future sea level change. Results presented here will show the utility of satellite altimetry for sea level monitoring and will lay the foundation for further advancement in the detection of the two sea level hazards considered.

Rapid kinematic finite source inversion for Tsunamic Early Warning using high rate GNSS data

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Chen, K.; Liu, Z.; Song, Y. T.

2017-12-01

Recently, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been used for rapid earthquake source inversion towards tsunami early warning. In practice, two approaches, i.e., static finite source inversion based on permanent co-seismic offsets and kinematic finite source inversion using high-rate (>= 1 Hz) co-seismic displacement waveforms, are often employed to fulfill the task. The static inversion is relatively easy to be implemented and does not require additional constraints on rupture velocity, duration, and temporal variation. However, since most GNSS receivers are deployed onshore locating on one side of the subduction fault, there is very limited resolution on near-trench fault slip using GNSS in static finite source inversion. On the other hand, the high-rate GNSS displacement waveforms, which contain the timing information of earthquake rupture explicitly and static offsets implicitly, have the potential to improve near-trench resolution by reconciling with the depth-dependent megathrust rupture behaviors. In this contribution, we assess the performance of rapid kinematic finite source inversion using high-rate GNSS by three selected historical tsunamigenic cases: the 2010 Mentawai, 2011 Tohoku and 2015 Illapel events. With respect to the 2010 Mentawai case, it is a typical tsunami earthquake with most slip concentrating near the trench. The static inversion has little resolution there and incorrectly puts slip at greater depth (>10km). In contrast, the recorded GNSS displacement waveforms are deficit in high-frequency energy, the kinematic source inversion recovers a shallow slip patch (depth less than 6 km) and tsunami runups are predicted quite reasonably. For the other two events, slip from kinematic and static inversion show similar characteristics and comparable tsunami scenarios, which may be related to dense GNSS network and behavior of the rupture. Acknowledging the complexity of kinematic source inversion in real-time, we adopt the back

State Emergency Response and Field Observation Activities in California (USA) during the March 11, 2011, Tohoku Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, K. M.; Wilson, R. I.; Goltz, J.; Fenton, J.; Long, K.; Dengler, L.; Rosinski, A.; California Tsunami Program

2011-12-01

This poster will present an overview of successes and challenges observed by the authors during this major tsunami response event. The Tohoku, Japan tsunami was the most costly to affect California since the 1964 Alaskan earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The Tohoku tsunami caused at least $50 million in damage to public facilities in harbors and marinas along the coast of California, and resulted in one fatality. It was generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake which occurred at 9:46PM PST on Thursday, March 10, 2011 in the sea off northern Japan. The tsunami was recorded at tide gages monitored by the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC), which projected tsunami surges would reach California in approximately 10 hours. At 12:51AM on March 11, 2011, based on forecasted tsunami amplitudes, the WCATWC placed the California coast north of Point Conception (Santa Barbara County) in a Tsunami Warning, and the coast south of Point Conception to the Mexican border in a Tsunami Advisory. The California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA) activated two Regional Emergency Operation Centers (REOCs) and the State Operation Center (SOC). The California Geological Survey (CGS) deployed a field team which collected data before, during and after the event through an information clearinghouse. Conference calls were conducted hourly between the WCATWC and State Warning Center, as well as with emergency managers in the 20 coastal counties. Coordination focused on local response measures, public information messaging, assistance needs, evacuations, emergency shelters, damage, and recovery issues. In the early morning hours, some communities in low lying areas recommended evacuation for their citizens, and the fishing fleet at Crescent City evacuated to sea. The greatest damage occurred in the harbors of Crescent City and Santa Cruz. As with any emergency, there were lessons learned and important successes in managing this event. Forecasts by the WCATWC were highly accurate

Real-time forecasting of the April 11, 2012 Sumatra tsunami

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Wang, Dailin; Becker, Nathan C.; Walsh, David; Fryer, Gerard J.; Weinstein, Stuart A.; McCreery, Charles S.; ,

2012-01-01

The April 11, 2012, magnitude 8.6 earthquake off the northern coast of Sumatra generated a tsunami that was recorded at sea-level stations as far as 4800 km from the epicenter and at four ocean bottom pressure sensors (DARTs) in the Indian Ocean. The governments of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Maldives issued tsunami warnings for their coastlines. The United States' Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) issued an Indian Ocean-wide Tsunami Watch Bulletin in its role as an Interim Service Provider for the region. Using an experimental real-time tsunami forecast model (RIFT), PTWC produced a series of tsunami forecasts during the event that were based on rapidly derived earthquake parameters, including initial location and Mwp magnitude estimates and the W-phase centroid moment tensor solutions (W-phase CMTs) obtained at PTWC and at the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS). We discuss the real-time forecast methodology and how successive, real-time tsunami forecasts using the latest W-phase CMT solutions improved the accuracy of the forecast.

Correlation Equation of Fault Size, Moment Magnitude, and Height of Tsunami Case Study: Historical Tsunami Database in Sulawesi

Science.gov (United States)

Julius, Musa, Admiral; Pribadi, Sugeng; Muzli, Muzli

2018-03-01

Sulawesi, one of the biggest island in Indonesia, located on the convergence of two macro plate that is Eurasia and Pacific. NOAA and Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory show more than 20 tsunami data recorded in Sulawesi since 1820. Based on this data, determination of correlation between tsunami and earthquake parameter need to be done to proved all event in the past. Complete data of magnitudes, fault sizes and tsunami heights on this study sourced from NOAA and Novosibirsk Tsunami database, completed with Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) catalog. This study aims to find correlation between moment magnitude, fault size and tsunami height by simple regression. The step of this research are data collecting, processing, and regression analysis. Result shows moment magnitude, fault size and tsunami heights strongly correlated. This analysis is enough to proved the accuracy of historical tsunami database in Sulawesi on NOAA, Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory and PTWC.

Use of Advanced Tsunami Hazard Assessment Techniques and Tsunami Source Characterizations in U.S. and International Nuclear Regulatory Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Kammerer, A. M.; Godoy, A. R.

2009-12-01

In response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, as well as the anticipation of the submission of license applications for new nuclear facilities, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC) initiated a long-term research program to improve understanding of tsunami hazard levels for nuclear power plants and other coastal facilities in the United States. To undertake this effort, the US NRC organized a collaborative research program jointly undertaken with researchers at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the purpose of assessing tsunami hazard on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States. This study identified and modeled both seismic and landslide tsunamigenic sources in the near- and far-field. The results from this work are now being used directly as the basis for the review of tsunami hazard at potential nuclear plant sites. This application once again shows the importance that the earth sciences can play in addressing issues of importance to society. Because the Indian Ocean Tsunami was a global event, a number of cooperative international activities have also been initiated within the nuclear community. The results of US efforts are being incorporated into updated regulatory guidance for both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Coordinated efforts are underway to integrate state-of-the art tsunami warning tools developed by NOAA into NRC and IAEA activities. The goal of the warning systems project is to develop automated protocols that allow scientists at these agencies to have up-to-the minute user-specific information in hand shortly after a potential tsunami has been identified by the US Tsunami Warning System. Lastly, USGS and NOAA scientists are assisting the NRC and IAEA in a special Extra-Budgetary Program (IAEA EBP) on tsunami being coordinated by the IAEA’s International Seismic Safety

A Collaborative Effort Between Caribbean States for Tsunami Numerical Modeling: Case Study CaribeWave15

Science.gov (United States)

Chacón-Barrantes, Silvia; López-Venegas, Alberto; Sánchez-Escobar, Rónald; Luque-Vergara, Néstor

2018-04-01

Historical records have shown that tsunami have affected the Caribbean region in the past. However infrequent, recent studies have demonstrated that they pose a latent hazard for countries within this basin. The Hazard Assessment Working Group of the ICG/CARIBE-EWS (Intergovernmental Coordination Group of the Early Warning System for Tsunamis and Other Coastal Threats for the Caribbean Sea and Adjacent Regions) of IOC/UNESCO has a modeling subgroup, which seeks to develop a modeling platform to assess the effects of possible tsunami sources within the basin. The CaribeWave tsunami exercise is carried out annually in the Caribbean region to increase awareness and test tsunami preparedness of countries within the basin. In this study we present results of tsunami inundation using the CaribeWave15 exercise scenario for four selected locations within the Caribbean basin (Colombia, Costa Rica, Panamá and Puerto Rico), performed by tsunami modeling researchers from those selected countries. The purpose of this study was to provide the states with additional results for the exercise. The results obtained here were compared to co-seismic deformation and tsunami heights within the basin (energy plots) provided for the exercise to assess the performance of the decision support tools distributed by PTWC (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center), the tsunami service provider for the Caribbean basin. However, comparison of coastal tsunami heights was not possible, due to inconsistencies between the provided fault parameters and the modeling results within the provided exercise products. Still, the modeling performed here allowed to analyze tsunami characteristics at the mentioned states from sources within the North Panamá Deformed Belt. The occurrence of a tsunami in the Caribbean may affect several countries because a great variety of them share coastal zones in this basin. Therefore, collaborative efforts similar to the one presented in this study, particularly between neighboring

Significant Tsunami Events

Science.gov (United States)

Dunbar, P. K.; Furtney, M.; McLean, S. J.; Sweeney, A. D.

2014-12-01

Tsunamis have inflicted death and destruction on the coastlines of the world throughout history. The occurrence of tsunamis and the resulting effects have been collected and studied as far back as the second millennium B.C. The knowledge gained from cataloging and examining these events has led to significant changes in our understanding of tsunamis, tsunami sources, and methods to mitigate the effects of tsunamis. The most significant, not surprisingly, are often the most devastating, such as the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake and tsunami. The goal of this poster is to give a brief overview of the occurrence of tsunamis and then focus specifically on several significant tsunamis. There are various criteria to determine the most significant tsunamis: the number of deaths, amount of damage, maximum runup height, had a major impact on tsunami science or policy, etc. As a result, descriptions will include some of the most costly (2011 Tohoku, Japan), the most deadly (2004 Sumatra, 1883 Krakatau), and the highest runup ever observed (1958 Lituya Bay, Alaska). The discovery of the Cascadia subduction zone as the source of the 1700 Japanese "Orphan" tsunami and a future tsunami threat to the U.S. northwest coast, contributed to the decision to form the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 marked the beginning of the modern era of seismology. Knowledge gained from the 1964 Alaska earthquake and tsunami helped confirm the theory of plate tectonics. The 1946 Alaska, 1952 Kuril Islands, 1960 Chile, 1964 Alaska, and the 2004 Banda Aceh, tsunamis all resulted in warning centers or systems being established.The data descriptions on this poster were extracted from NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) global historical tsunami database. Additional information about these tsunamis, as well as water level data can be found by accessing the NGDC website www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazard/

CARIBE WAVE/LANTEX Caribbean and Western Atlantic Tsunami Exercises

Science.gov (United States)

von Hillebrandt-Andrade, C.; Whitmore, P.; Aliaga, B.; Huerfano Moreno, V.

2013-12-01

Over 75 tsunamis have been documented in the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions over the past 500 years. While most have been generated by local earthquakes, distant generated tsunamis can also affect the region. For example, waves from the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami were observed in Cuba, Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, as well as Antigua, Martinique, Guadalupe and Barbados in the Lesser Antilles. Since 1500, at least 4484 people are reported to have perished in these killer waves. Although the tsunami generated by the 2010 Haiti earthquake claimed only a few lives, in the 1530 El Pilar, Venezuela; 1602 Port Royale, Jamaica; 1918 Puerto Rico; and 1946 Samaná, Dominican Republic tsunamis the death tolls ranged to over a thousand. Since then, there has been an explosive increase in residents, visitors, infrastructure, and economic activity along the coastlines, increasing the potential for human and economic loss. It has been estimated that on any day, upwards of more than 500,000 people could be in harm's way just along the beaches, with hundreds of thousands more working and living in the tsunamis hazard zones. Given the relative infrequency of tsunamis, exercises are a valuable tool to test communications, evaluate preparedness and raise awareness. Exercises in the Caribbean are conducted under the framework of the UNESCO IOC Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (CARIBE EWS) and the US National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. On March 23, 2011, 34 countries and territories participated in the first CARIBE WAVE/LANTEX regional tsunami exercise, while in the second exercise on March 20, 2013 a total of 45 countries and territories participated. 481 organizations (almost 200 more than in 2011) also registered to receive the bulletins issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC), West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center and/or the Puerto Rico

The investigation of early warning signs of aggression in forensic

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Frans Fluttert; prof Berno van Meijel; Mieke Grypdonck; Bjørkly Stal; Mirjan van Leeuwen

2012-01-01

Aims and objectives. The Forensic Early Warning Signs of Aggression Inventory (FESAI) was developed to assist nurses and patients in identifying early warning signs and constructing individual early detection plans (EDP) for the prevention of aggressive incidents. The aims of this research were as

Sensors Provide Early Warning of Biological Threats

Science.gov (United States)

2009-01-01

Early Warning Inc. of Troy, New York, licensed powerful biosensor technology from Ames Research Center. Incorporating carbon nanotubes tipped with single strands of nucleic acid from waterborne pathogens, the sensor can detect even minute amounts of targeted, disease causing bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Early Warning features the NASA biosensor in its water analyzer, which can provide advance alert of potential biological hazards in water used for agriculture, food and beverages, showers, and at beaches and lakes -- within hours instead of the days required by conventional laboratory methods.

Preliminary Report Summarizes Tsunami Impacts and Lessons Learned from the September 7, 2017, M8.1 Tehuantepec Earthquake

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, R. I.; Ramirez-Herrera, M. T.; Dengler, L. A.; Miller, K.; LaDuke, Y.

2017-12-01

The preliminary tsunami impacts from the September 7, 2017, M8.1 Tehuantepec Earthquake have been summarized in the following report: https://www.eeri.org/wp-content/uploads/EERI-Recon-Rpt-090717-Mexico-tsunami_fn.pdf. Although the tsunami impacts were not as significant as those from the earthquake itself (98 fatalities and 41,000 homes damaged), the following are highlights and lessons learned: The Tehuantepec earthquake was one of the largest down-slab normal faulting events ever recorded. This situation complicated the tsunami forecast since forecast methods and pre-event modeling are primarily associated with megathrust earthquakes where the most significant tsunamis are generated. Adding non-megathrust source modeling to the tsunami forecast databases of conventional warning systems should be considered. Offshore seismic and tsunami hazard analyses using past events should incorporate the potential for large earthquakes occurring along sources other than the megathrust boundary. From an engineering perspective, initial reports indicate there was only minor tsunami damage along the Mexico coast. There was damage to Marina Chiapas where floating docks overtopped their piles. Increasing pile heights could reduce the potential for damage to floating docks. Tsunami warning notifications did not get to the public in time to assist with evacuation. Streamlining the messaging in Mexico from the warning system directly to the public should be considered. And, for local events, preparedness efforts should place emphasis on responding to feeling the earthquake and not waiting to be notified. Although the U.S. tsunami warning centers were timely with their international and domestic messaging, there were some issues with how those messages were presented and interpreted. The use of a "Tsunami Threat" banner on the new main warning center website created confusion with emergency managers in the U.S. where no tsunami threat was expected to exist. Also, some U.S. states and

An organizational early-warning system for safety, health, and environmental crises

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shrivastava, P.

1992-01-01

Early-warning systems have played an important role in preventing major industrial accidents and technological disasters. These systems record critical operating and performance parameters and raise warnings or alarms if these parameters cross acceptable limits. Most early-warning systems used in hazardous industries focus on the technological system and to a lesser extent on their human operators. However, industrial disasters are caused not only by technological and human failure, but also by organizational, regulatory, infrastructural, and community preparedness failures. Hazardous industries can benefit from the development of early-warning systems that have a broader scope than the core technology. These systems could cover financial, human resource, organizational policies, regulatory, infrastructural, and community-related variables. This paper develops some basic concepts that can help build managerially useful early-warning systems for safety, health, and environmental (SHE) incidents. It identifies variables that should be tracked, the threshold levels for these variables, and possible managerial reactions to warnings

Source mechanisms of volcanic tsunamis.

Science.gov (United States)

Paris, Raphaël

2015-10-28

Volcanic tsunamis are generated by a variety of mechanisms, including volcano-tectonic earthquakes, slope instabilities, pyroclastic flows, underwater explosions, shock waves and caldera collapse. In this review, we focus on the lessons that can be learnt from past events and address the influence of parameters such as volume flux of mass flows, explosion energy or duration of caldera collapse on tsunami generation. The diversity of waves in terms of amplitude, period, form, dispersion, etc. poses difficulties for integration and harmonization of sources to be used for numerical models and probabilistic tsunami hazard maps. In many cases, monitoring and warning of volcanic tsunamis remain challenging (further technical and scientific developments being necessary) and must be coupled with policies of population preparedness. © 2015 The Author(s).

Relationship between the Prediction Accuracy of Tsunami Inundation and Relative Distribution of Tsunami Source and Observation Arrays: A Case Study in Tokyo Bay

Science.gov (United States)

Takagawa, T.

2017-12-01

A rapid and precise tsunami forecast based on offshore monitoring is getting attention to reduce human losses due to devastating tsunami inundation. We developed a forecast method based on the combination of hierarchical Bayesian inversion with pre-computed database and rapid post-computing of tsunami inundation. The method was applied to Tokyo bay to evaluate the efficiency of observation arrays against three tsunamigenic earthquakes. One is a scenario earthquake at Nankai trough and the other two are historic ones of Genroku in 1703 and Enpo in 1677. In general, rich observation array near the tsunami source has an advantage in both accuracy and rapidness of tsunami forecast. To examine the effect of observation time length we used four types of data with the lengths of 5, 10, 20 and 45 minutes after the earthquake occurrences. Prediction accuracy of tsunami inundation was evaluated by the simulated tsunami inundation areas around Tokyo bay due to target earthquakes. The shortest time length of accurate prediction varied with target earthquakes. Here, accurate prediction means the simulated values fall within the 95% credible intervals of prediction. In Enpo earthquake case, 5-minutes observation is enough for accurate prediction for Tokyo bay, but 10-minutes and 45-minutes are needed in the case of Nankai trough and Genroku, respectively. The difference of the shortest time length for accurate prediction shows the strong relationship with the relative distance from the tsunami source and observation arrays. In the Enpo case, offshore tsunami observation points are densely distributed even in the source region. So, accurate prediction can be rapidly achieved within 5 minutes. This precise prediction is useful for early warnings. Even in the worst case of Genroku, where less observation points are available near the source, accurate prediction can be obtained within 45 minutes. This information can be useful to figure out the outline of the hazard in an early

The Financial Benefit of Early Flood Warnings in Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Pappenberger, Florian; Cloke, Hannah L.; Wetterhall, Fredrik; Parker, Dennis J.; Richardson, David; Thielen, Jutta

2015-04-01

Effective disaster risk management relies on science based solutions to close the gap between prevention and preparedness measures. The outcome of consultations on the UNIDSR post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction highlight the need for cross-border early warning systems to strengthen the preparedness phases of disaster risk management in order to save people's lives and property and reduce the overall impact of severe events. In particular, continental and global scale flood forecasting systems provide vital information to various decision makers with which early warnings of floods can be made. Here the potential monetary benefits of early flood warnings using the example of the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) are calculated based on pan-European Flood damage data and calculations of potential flood damage reductions. The benefits are of the order of 400 Euro for every 1 Euro invested. Because of the uncertainties which accompany the calculation, a large sensitivity analysis is performed in order to develop an envelope of possible financial benefits. Current EFAS system skill is compared against perfect forecasts to demonstrate the importance of further improving the skill of the forecasts. Improving the response to warnings is also essential in reaping the benefits of flood early warnings.

Impact of social preparedness on flood early warning systems

Science.gov (United States)

Girons Lopez, M.; Di Baldassarre, G.; Seibert, J.

2017-01-01

Flood early warning systems play a major role in the disaster risk reduction paradigm as cost-effective methods to mitigate flood disaster damage. The connections and feedbacks between the hydrological and social spheres of early warning systems are increasingly being considered as key aspects for successful flood mitigation. The behavior of the public and first responders during flood situations, determined by their preparedness, is heavily influenced by many behavioral traits such as perceived benefits, risk awareness, or even denial. In this study, we use the recency of flood experiences as a proxy for social preparedness to assess its impact on the efficiency of flood early warning systems through a simple stylized model and implemented this model using a simple mathematical description. The main findings, which are based on synthetic data, point to the importance of social preparedness for flood loss mitigation, especially in circumstances where the technical forecasting and warning capabilities are limited. Furthermore, we found that efforts to promote and preserve social preparedness may help to reduce disaster-induced losses by almost one half. The findings provide important insights into the role of social preparedness that may help guide decision-making in the field of flood early warning systems.

Introduction to "Global Tsunami Science: Past and Future, Volume III"

Science.gov (United States)

Rabinovich, Alexander B.; Fritz, Hermann M.; Tanioka, Yuichiro; Geist, Eric L.

2018-04-01

Twenty papers on the study of tsunamis are included in Volume III of the PAGEOPH topical issue "Global Tsunami Science: Past and Future". Volume I of this topical issue was published as PAGEOPH, vol. 173, No. 12, 2016 and Volume II as PAGEOPH, vol. 174, No. 8, 2017. Two papers in Volume III focus on specific details of the 2009 Samoa and the 1923 northern Kamchatka tsunamis; they are followed by three papers related to tsunami hazard assessment for three different regions of the world oceans: South Africa, Pacific coast of Mexico and the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean. The next six papers are on various aspects of tsunami hydrodynamics and numerical modelling, including tsunami edge waves, resonant behaviour of compressible water layer during tsunamigenic earthquakes, dispersive properties of seismic and volcanically generated tsunami waves, tsunami runup on a vertical wall and influence of earthquake rupture velocity on maximum tsunami runup. Four papers discuss problems of tsunami warning and real-time forecasting for Central America, the Mediterranean coast of France, the coast of Peru, and some general problems regarding the optimum use of the DART buoy network for effective real-time tsunami warning in the Pacific Ocean. Two papers describe historical and paleotsunami studies in the Russian Far East. The final set of three papers importantly investigates tsunamis generated by non-seismic sources: asteroid airburst and meteorological disturbances. Collectively, this volume highlights contemporary trends in global tsunami research, both fundamental and applied toward hazard assessment and mitigation.

National Geophysical Data Center Tsunami Data Archive

Science.gov (United States)

Stroker, K. J.; Dunbar, P. K.; Brocko, R.

2008-12-01

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and co-located World Data Center for Geophysics and Marine Geology long-term tsunami data archive provides data and derived products essential for tsunami hazard assessment, forecast and warning, inundation modeling, preparedness, mitigation, education, and research. As a result of NOAA's efforts to strengthen its tsunami activities, the long-term tsunami data archive has grown from less than 5 gigabyte in 2004 to more than 2 terabytes in 2008. The types of data archived for tsunami research and operation activities have also expanded in fulfillment of the P.L. 109-424. The archive now consists of: global historical tsunami, significant earthquake and significant volcanic eruptions database; global tsunami deposits and proxies database; reference database; damage photos; coastal water-level data (i.e. digital tide gauge data and marigrams on microfiche); bottom pressure recorder (BPR) data as collected by Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys. The tsunami data archive comes from a wide variety of data providers and sources. These include the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers, NOAA National Data Buoy Center, NOAA National Ocean Service, IOC/NOAA International Tsunami Information Center, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey, tsunami catalogs, reconnaissance reports, journal articles, newspaper articles, internet web pages, and email. NGDC has been active in the management of some of these data for more than 50 years while other data management efforts are more recent. These data are openly available, either directly on-line or by contacting NGDC. All of the NGDC tsunami and related databases are stored in a relational database management system. These data are accessible over the Web as tables, reports, and interactive maps. The maps provide integrated web-based GIS access to individual GIS layers including tsunami sources, tsunami effects, significant earthquakes

Development of a Tsunami Scenario Database for Marmara Sea

Science.gov (United States)

Ozer Sozdinler, Ceren; Necmioglu, Ocal; Meral Ozel, Nurcan

2016-04-01

Due to the very short travel times in Marmara Sea, a Tsunami Early Warning System (TEWS) has to be strongly coupled with the earthquake early warning system and should be supported with a pre-computed tsunami scenario database to be queried in near real-time based on the initial earthquake parameters. To address this problem, 30 different composite earthquake scenarios with maximum credible Mw values based on 32 fault segments have been identified to produce a detailed scenario database for all possible earthquakes in the Marmara Sea with a tsunamigenic potential. The bathy/topo data of Marmara Sea was prepared using GEBCO and ASTER data, bathymetric measurements along Bosphorus, Istanbul and Dardanelle, Canakkale and the coastline digitized from satellite images. The coarser domain in 90m-grid size was divided into 11 sub-regions having 30m-grid size in order to increase the data resolution and precision of the calculation results. The analyses were performed in nested domains with numerical model NAMIDANCE using non-linear shallow water equations. In order to cover all the residential areas, industrial facilities and touristic locations, more than 1000 numerical gauge points were selected along the coasts of Marmara Sea, which are located at water depth of 5 to 10m in finer domain. The distributions of tsunami hydrodynamic parameters were investigated together with the change of water surface elevations, current velocities, momentum fluxes and other important parameters at the gauge points. This work is funded by the project MARsite - New Directions in Seismic Hazard assessment through Focused Earth Observation in the Marmara Supersite (FP7-ENV.2012 6.4-2, Grant 308417 - see NH2.3/GMPV7.4/SM7.7) and supported by SATREPS-MarDim Project (Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Mitigation in the Marmara Region and Disaster Education in Turkey) and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). The authors would like to acknowledge Ms. Basak Firat for her assistance in

Correlation of Fault Size, Moment Magnitude, and Tsunami Height to Proved Paleo-tsunami Data in Sulawesi Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Julius, A. M.; Pribadi, S.

2016-02-01

Sulawesi (Indonesia) island is located in the meeting of three large plates i.e. Indo-Australia, Pacific, and Eurasia. This configuration surely make high risk on tsunami by earthquake and by sea floor landslide. NOAA and Russia Tsunami Laboratory show more than 20 tsunami data recorded in Sulawesi since 1820. Based on this data, determine of correlation between all tsunami parameter need to be done to proved all event in the past. Complete data of magnitudes, fault sizes and tsunami heights in this study sourced from NOAA and Russia Tsunami database and completed with Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) catalog. This study aims to find correlation between fault area, moment magnitude, and tsunami height by simple regression in Sulawesi. The step of this research are data collect, processing, and regression analysis. Result shows very good correlation, each moment magnitude, tsunami heights, and fault parameter i.e. long, wide, and slip are correlate linier. In increasing of fault area, the tsunami height and moment magnitude value also increase. In increasing of moment magnitude, tsunami height also increase. This analysis is enough to proved all Sulawesi tsunami parameter catalog in NOAA, Russia Tsunami Laboratory and PTWC are correct. Keyword: tsunami, magnitude, height, fault

A review of studies on community based early warning systems

OpenAIRE

Margaret Macherera; Moses J. Chimbari

2016-01-01

Community-based early warning systems involve community driven collection and analysis of information that enable warning messages to help a community to react to a hazard and reduce the resulting loss or harm. Most early warning systems are designed at the national or global level. Local communities’ capacity to predict weather conditions using indigenous knowledge has been demonstrated in studies focusing on climate change and agriculture in some African countries. This review was motivated...

People-centred landslide early warning systems in the context of risk management

Science.gov (United States)

Haß, S.; Asch, K.; Fernandez-Steeger, T.; Arnhardt, C.

2009-04-01

In the current hazard research people-centred warning becomes more and more important, because different types of organizations and groups have to be involved in the warning process. This fact has to be taken into account when developing early warning systems. The effectiveness of early warning depends not only on technical capabilities but also on the preparedness of decision makers and their immediate response on how to act in case of emergency. Hence early warning systems have to be regarded in the context of an integrated and holistic risk management. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures include people-centred, timely and understandable warning. Further responsible authorities have to be identified in advance and standards for risk communication have to be established. Up to now, hazard and risk assessment for geohazards focuses on the development of inventory, susceptibility, hazard and risk maps. But often, especially in Europe, there are no institutional structures for managing geohazards and in addition there is a lack of an authority that is legally obliged to alarm on landslides at national or regional level. One of the main characteristics within the warning process for natural hazards e.g. in Germany is the split of responsibility between scientific authorities (wissenschaftliche Fachbehörde) and enforcement authorities (Vollzugsbehörde). The scientific authority provides the experts who define the methods and measures for monitoring and evaluate the hazard level. The main focus is the acquisition and evaluation of data and subsequently the distribution of information. The enforcement authority issues official warnings about dangerous natural phenomena. Hence the information chain in the context of early warning ranges over two different institutions, the forecast service and the warning service. But there doesn't exist a framework for warning processes in terms of landslides as yet. The concept for managing natural disasters is often reduced to

Early warning signal for interior crises in excitable systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Karnatak, Rajat; Kantz, Holger; Bialonski, Stephan

2017-10-01

The ability to reliably predict critical transitions in dynamical systems is a long-standing goal of diverse scientific communities. Previous work focused on early warning signals related to local bifurcations (critical slowing down) and nonbifurcation-type transitions. We extend this toolbox and report on a characteristic scaling behavior (critical attractor growth) which is indicative of an impending global bifurcation, an interior crisis in excitable systems. We demonstrate our early warning signal in a conceptual climate model as well as in a model of coupled neurons known to exhibit extreme events. We observed critical attractor growth prior to interior crises of chaotic as well as strange-nonchaotic attractors. These observations promise to extend the classes of transitions that can be predicted via early warning signals.

ASSIMILATION OF REAL-TIME DEEP SEA BUOY DATA FOR TSUNAMI FORECASTING ALONG THAILAND’S ANDAMAN COASTLINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seree Supharatid

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The occurrence of 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami enhanced the necessity for a tsunami early warning system for countries bordering the Indian Ocean, including Thailand. This paper describes the assimilation of real-time deep sea buoy data for tsunami forecasting along Thailand’s Andaman coastline. Firstly, the numerical simulation (by the linear and non-linear shallow water equations was carried out for hypothetical cases of tsunamigenic earthquakes with epicenters located in the Andaman micro plate. Outputs of the numerical model are tsunami arrival times and the maximum wave height that can be expected at 58 selected communities along Thailand Andaman coastline and two locations of DART buoys in the Indian Ocean. Secondly, a “neural” network model (GRNN was developed to access the data from the numerical computations for subsequent construction of a tsunami database that can be displayed on a web-based system. This database can be updated with the integration from two DART buoys and from several GRNN models.

[Application of Big Data Mining Technology in Monitoring and Early-warning of Schistosomiasis].

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Kun; Li, Shi-zhu

2015-12-01

The prevalence of schistosomiasis will soon be controlled to a low level in China. It is therefore imperative to establish a more sensitive and effective early warning system for schistosomiasis, so as to consolidate the achievements of the disease control. By covering four topics including the importance of early warning system for schistosomiasis and its research direction, as well as recent development in big data mining and its application in monitoring and early-warning of schistosomiasis, this review discusses the feasibility of data mining technology for monitoring and early warning of the disease. It is hoped that this technology would increase the efficacy of studies on monitoring and early warning, and promote the elimination of schistosomiasis in China.

Early Warning Signals of Ecological Transitions: Methods for Spatial Patterns

Science.gov (United States)

Brock, William A.; Carpenter, Stephen R.; Ellison, Aaron M.; Livina, Valerie N.; Seekell, David A.; Scheffer, Marten; van Nes, Egbert H.; Dakos, Vasilis

2014-01-01

A number of ecosystems can exhibit abrupt shifts between alternative stable states. Because of their important ecological and economic consequences, recent research has focused on devising early warning signals for anticipating such abrupt ecological transitions. In particular, theoretical studies show that changes in spatial characteristics of the system could provide early warnings of approaching transitions. However, the empirical validation of these indicators lag behind their theoretical developments. Here, we summarize a range of currently available spatial early warning signals, suggest potential null models to interpret their trends, and apply them to three simulated spatial data sets of systems undergoing an abrupt transition. In addition to providing a step-by-step methodology for applying these signals to spatial data sets, we propose a statistical toolbox that may be used to help detect approaching transitions in a wide range of spatial data. We hope that our methodology together with the computer codes will stimulate the application and testing of spatial early warning signals on real spatial data. PMID:24658137

Early Warning System Ghana: how to successfully implement a disaster early warning system in a data scarce region

Science.gov (United States)

Udo, Job; Jungermann, Nicole

2016-04-01

Ghana is a country frequently struck by natural disasters like floods and droughts. Timely warning or detection of such disasters will mitigate the negative impact on lives and property. However, local data and monitoring systems necessary to provide such a warning are hardly available. The availability and improvement of internet, mobile phones and satellites has provided new possibilities for disaster warning systems in data scarce regions such as Ghana. Our presentation describes the development of an early warning system (EWS) in Ghana completely based on satellite based open data. The EWS provides a flood or drought hazard warning on sub-catchment level and links the warning to a more detailed flood or drought risk map, to enable the disaster coordinator to send warnings or relieve more efficiently to areas that have the highest risk. This is especially relevant because some areas for which the system is implemented are very remote. The system is developed and tested to be robust and operational especially in remote areas. This means that the necessary information is also available under limited internet conditions and not dependent on local computer facilities. In many rural areas in Ghana communities rely on indigenous knowledge when it comes to flood or drought disaster forecasting. The EWS has a feature that allows indigenous knowledge indicators to be taken into account in the warning and makes easy comparison possible with the satellite based warnings.

Simulation of space-borne tsunami detection using GNSS-Reflectometry applied to tsunamis in the Indian Ocean

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Stosius

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Within the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System project GITEWS (Rudloff et al., 2009, a feasibility study on a future tsunami detection system from space has been carried out. The Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R is an innovative way of using reflected GNSS signals for remote sensing, e.g. sea surface altimetry. In contrast to conventional satellite radar altimetry, multiple height measurements within a wide field of view can be made simultaneously. With a dedicated Low Earth Orbit (LEO constellation of satellites equipped with GNSS-R, densely spaced sea surface height measurements could be established to detect tsunamis. This simulation study compares the Walker and the meshed comb constellation with respect to their global reflection point distribution. The detection performance of various LEO constellation scenarios with GPS, GLONASS and Galileo as signal sources is investigated. The study concentrates on the detection performance for six historic tsunami events in the Indian Ocean generated by earthquakes of different magnitudes, as well as on different constellation types and orbit parameters. The GNSS-R carrier phase is compared with the PARIS or code altimetry approach. The study shows that Walker constellations have a much better reflection point distribution compared to the meshed comb constellation. Considering simulation assumptions and assuming technical feasibility it can be demonstrated that strong tsunamis with magnitudes (M ≥8.5 can be detected with certainty from any orbit altitude within 15–25 min by a 48/8 or 81/9 Walker constellation if tsunami waves of 20 cm or higher can be detected by space-borne GNSS-R. The carrier phase approach outperforms the PARIS altimetry approach especially at low orbit altitudes and for a low number of LEO satellites.

Introduction to “Global tsunami science: Past and future, Volume III”

Science.gov (United States)

Rabinovich, Alexander B.; Fritz, Hermann M.; Tanioka, Yuichiro; Geist, Eric L.

2018-01-01

Twenty papers on the study of tsunamis are included in Volume III of the PAGEOPH topical issue “Global Tsunami Science: Past and Future”. Volume I of this topical issue was published as PAGEOPH, vol. 173, No. 12, 2016 and Volume II as PAGEOPH, vol. 174, No. 8, 2017. Two papers in Volume III focus on specific details of the 2009 Samoa and the 1923 northern Kamchatka tsunamis; they are followed by three papers related to tsunami hazard assessment for three different regions of the world oceans: South Africa, Pacific coast of Mexico and the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean. The next six papers are on various aspects of tsunami hydrodynamics and numerical modelling, including tsunami edge waves, resonant behaviour of compressible water layer during tsunamigenic earthquakes, dispersive properties of seismic and volcanically generated tsunami waves, tsunami runup on a vertical wall and influence of earthquake rupture velocity on maximum tsunami runup. Four papers discuss problems of tsunami warning and real-time forecasting for Central America, the Mediterranean coast of France, the coast of Peru, and some general problems regarding the optimum use of the DART buoy network for effective real-time tsunami warning in the Pacific Ocean. Two papers describe historical and paleotsunami studies in the Russian Far East. The final set of three papers importantly investigates tsunamis generated by non-seismic sources: asteroid airburst and meteorological disturbances. Collectively, this volume highlights contemporary trends in global tsunami research, both fundamental and applied toward hazard assessment and mitigation.

Earthquake Early Warning: User Education and Designing Effective Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Burkett, E. R.; Sellnow, D. D.; Jones, L.; Sellnow, T. L.

2014-12-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and partners are transitioning from test-user trials of a demonstration earthquake early warning system (ShakeAlert) to deciding and preparing how to implement the release of earthquake early warning information, alert messages, and products to the public and other stakeholders. An earthquake early warning system uses seismic station networks to rapidly gather information about an occurring earthquake and send notifications to user devices ahead of the arrival of potentially damaging ground shaking at their locations. Earthquake early warning alerts can thereby allow time for actions to protect lives and property before arrival of damaging shaking, if users are properly educated on how to use and react to such notifications. A collaboration team of risk communications researchers and earth scientists is researching the effectiveness of a chosen subset of potential earthquake early warning interface designs and messages, which could be displayed on a device such as a smartphone. Preliminary results indicate, for instance, that users prefer alerts that include 1) a map to relate their location to the earthquake and 2) instructions for what to do in response to the expected level of shaking. A number of important factors must be considered to design a message that will promote appropriate self-protective behavior. While users prefer to see a map, how much information can be processed in limited time? Are graphical representations of wavefronts helpful or confusing? The most important factor to promote a helpful response is the predicted earthquake intensity, or how strong the expected shaking will be at the user's location. Unlike Japanese users of early warning, few Californians are familiar with the earthquake intensity scale, so we are exploring how differentiating instructions between intensity levels (e.g., "Be aware" for lower shaking levels and "Drop, cover, hold on" at high levels) can be paired with self-directed supplemental

Earthquake Early Warning Systems

OpenAIRE

Pei-Yang Lin

2011-01-01

Because of Taiwan’s unique geographical environment, earthquake disasters occur frequently in Taiwan. The Central Weather Bureau collated earthquake data from between 1901 and 2006 (Central Weather Bureau, 2007) and found that 97 earthquakes had occurred, of which, 52 resulted in casualties. The 921 Chichi Earthquake had the most profound impact. Because earthquakes have instant destructive power and current scientific technologies cannot provide precise early warnings in advance, earthquake ...

Implementing drought early warning systems: policy lessons and future needs

Science.gov (United States)

Iglesias, Ana; Werner, Micha; Maia, Rodrigo; Garrote, Luis; Nyabeze, Washington

2014-05-01

Drought forecasting and Warning provides the potential of reducing impacts to society due to drought events. The implementation of effective drought forecasting and warning, however, requires not only science to support reliable forecasting, but also adequate policy and societal response. Here we propose a protocol to develop drought forecasting and early warning based in the international cooperation of African and European institutions in the DEWFORA project (EC, 7th Framework Programme). The protocol includes four major phases that address the scientific knowledge and the social capacity to use the knowledge: (a) What is the science available? Evaluating how signs of impending drought can be detected and predicted, defining risk levels, and analysing of the signs of drought in an integrated vulnerability approach. (b) What are the societal capacities? In this the institutional framework that enables policy development is evaluated. The protocol gathers information on vulnerability and pending hazard in advance so that early warnings can be declared at sufficient lead time and drought mitigation planning can be implemented at an early stage. (c) How can science be translated into policy? Linking science indicators into the actions/interventions that society needs to implement, and evaluating how policy is implemented. Key limitations to planning for drought are the social capacities to implement early warning systems. Vulnerability assessment contributes to identify these limitations and therefore provides crucial information to policy development. Based on the assessment of vulnerability we suggest thresholds for management actions to respond to drought forecasts and link predictive indicators to relevant potential mitigation strategies. Vulnerability assessment is crucial to identify relief, coping and management responses that contribute to a more resilient society. (d) How can society benefit from the forecast? Evaluating how information is provided to

International year of planet earth 7. Oceans, submarine land-slides and consequent tsunamis in Canada

Science.gov (United States)

Mosher, D.C.

2009-01-01

Canada has the longest coastline and largest continental margin of any nation in the World. As a result, it is more likely than other nations to experience marine geohazards such as submarine landslides and consequent tsunamis. Coastal landslides represent a specific threat because of their possible proximity to societal infrastructure and high tsunami potential; they occur without warning and with little time lag between failure and tsunami impact. Continental margin landslides are common in the geologic record but rare on human timescales. Some ancient submarine landslides are massive but more recent events indicate that even relatively small slides on continental margins can generate devastating tsunamis. Tsunami impact can occur hundreds of km away from the source event, and with less than 2 hours warning. Identification of high-potential submarine landslide regions, combined with an understanding of landslide and tsunami processes and sophisticated tsunami propagation models, are required to identify areas at high risk of impact.

Japan Tsunami Current Flows Observed by HF Radars on Two Continents

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Toshiyuki Awaji

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Quantitative real-time observations of a tsunami have been limited to deep-water, pressure-sensor observations of changes in the sea surface elevation and observations of sea level fluctuations at the coast, which are essentially point measurements. Constrained by these data, models have been used for predictions and warning of the arrival of a tsunami, but to date no detailed verification of flow patterns nor area measurements have been possible. Here we present unique HF-radar area observations of the tsunami signal seen in current velocities as the wave train approaches the coast. Networks of coastal HF-radars are now routinely observing surface currents in many countries and we report clear results from five HF radar sites spanning a distance of 8,200 km on two continents following the magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Sendai, Japan, on 11 March 2011. We confirm the tsunami signal with three different methodologies and compare the currents observed with coastal sea level fluctuations at tide gauges. The distance offshore at which the tsunami can be detected, and hence the warning time provided, depends on the bathymetry: the wider the shallow continental shelf, the greater this time. Data from these and other radars around the Pacific rim can be used to further develop radar as an important tool to aid in tsunami observation and warning as well as post-processing comparisons between observation and model predictions.

Comparison of Human Response against Earthquake and Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Arikawa, T.; Güler, H. G.; Yalciner, A. C.

2017-12-01

The evacuation response against the earthquake and tsunamis is very important for the reduction of human damages against tsunami. But it is very difficult to predict the human behavior after shaking of the earthquake. The purpose of this research is to clarify the difference of the human response after the earthquake shock in the difference countries and to consider the relation between the response and the safety feeling, knowledge and education. For the objective of this paper, the questionnaire survey was conducted after the 21st July 2017 Gokova earthquake and tsunami. Then, consider the difference of the human behavior by comparison of that in 2015 Chilean earthquake and tsunami and 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami. The seismic intensity of the survey points was almost 6 to 7. The contents of the questions include the feeling of shaking, recalling of the tsunami, the behavior after shock and so on. The questionnaire was conducted for more than 20 20 people in 10 areas. The results are the following; 1) Most people felt that it was a strong shake not to stand, 2) All of the questionnaires did not recall the tsunami, 3) Depending on the area, they felt that after the earthquake the beach was safer than being at home. 4) After they saw the sea drawing, they thought that a tsunami would come and ran away. Fig. 1 shows the comparison of the evacuation rate within 10 minutes in 2011 Japan, 2015 Chile and 2017 Turkey.. From the education point of view, education for tsunami is not done much in Turkey. From the protection facilities point of view, the high sea walls are constructed only in Japan. From the warning alert point of view, there is no warning system against tsunamis in the Mediterranean Sea. As a result of this survey, the importance of tsunami education is shown, and evacuation tends to be delayed if dependency on facilities and alarms is too high.

Real-Time Integration of Positioning and Accelerometer Data for Early Earthquake Warning on Canada's West Coast

Science.gov (United States)

Biffard, B.; Rosenberger, A.; Pirenne, B.; Valenzuela, M.; MacArthur, M.

2017-12-01

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) operates ocean and coastal observatories on all three of Canada's coasts, and more particularly across the Cascadia subduction zone. The data are acquired, parsed, calibrated and archived by ONC's data management system (Oceans 2.0), with real-time event detection, reaction and access capabilities. As such, ONC is in a unique position to develop early warning systems for earthquakes, near- and far-field tsunamis and other events. ONC is leading the development of a system to alert southwestern British Columbia of an impending Cascadia subduction zone earthquake on behalf of the provincial government and with the support of the Canadian Federal Government. Similarly to other early earthquake warning systems, an array of accelerometers is used to detect the initial earthquake p-waves. This can provide 5-60 seconds of warning to subscribers who can then take action, such as stopping trains and surgeries, closing valves, taking cover, etc. To maximize the detection capability and the time available to react to a notification, instruments are placed both underwater and on land on Vancouver Island. A novel feature of ONC's system is, for land-based sites, the combination of real-time satellite positioning (GNSS) and accelerometer data in the calculations to improve earthquake intensity estimates. This results in higher accuracy, dynamic range and responsiveness than either type of sensor is capable of alone. P-wave detections and displacement data are sent from remote stations to a data centre that must calculate epicentre locations and magnitude. The latter are then delivered to subscribers with client software that, given their position, will calculate arrival time and intensity. All of this must occur with very high standards for latency, reliability and accuracy.

Statistical emulation of a tsunami model for sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Sarri

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Due to the catastrophic consequences of tsunamis, early warnings need to be issued quickly in order to mitigate the hazard. Additionally, there is a need to represent the uncertainty in the predictions of tsunami characteristics corresponding to the uncertain trigger features (e.g. either position, shape and speed of a landslide, or sea floor deformation associated with an earthquake. Unfortunately, computer models are expensive to run. This leads to significant delays in predictions and makes the uncertainty quantification impractical. Statistical emulators run almost instantaneously and may represent well the outputs of the computer model. In this paper, we use the outer product emulator to build a fast statistical surrogate of a landslide-generated tsunami computer model. This Bayesian framework enables us to build the emulator by combining prior knowledge of the computer model properties with a few carefully chosen model evaluations. The good performance of the emulator is validated using the leave-one-out method.

Numerical tool for tsunami risk assessment in the southern coast of Dominican Republic

Science.gov (United States)

Macias Sanchez, J.; Llorente Isidro, M.; Ortega, S.; Gonzalez Vida, J. M., Sr.; Castro, M. J.

2016-12-01

The southern coast of Dominican Republic is a very populated region, with several important cities including Santo Domingo, its capital. Important activities are rooted in the southern coast including tourism, industry, commercial ports, and, energy facilities, among others. According to historical reports, it has been impacted by big earthquakes accompanied by tsunamis as in Azua in 1751 and recently Pedernales in 2010, but their sources are not clearly identified. The aim of the present work is to develop a numerical tool to simulate the impact in the southern coast of the Dominican Republic of tsunamis generated in the Caribbean Sea. This tool, based on the Tsunami-HySEA model from EDANYA group (University of Malaga, Spain), could be used in the framework of a Tsunami Early Warning Systems due the very short computing times when only propagation is computed or it could be used to assess inundation impact, computing inundation with a initial 5 meter resolution. Numerical results corresponding to three theoretical sources are used to test the numerical tool.

The 2017 México Tsunami Record, Numerical Modeling and Threat Assessment in Costa Rica

Science.gov (United States)

Chacón-Barrantes, Silvia

2018-03-01

An M w 8.2 earthquake and tsunami occurred offshore the Pacific coast of México on 2017-09-08, at 04:49 UTC. Costa Rican tide gauges have registered a total of 21 local, regional and far-field tsunamis. The Quepos gauge registered 12 tsunamis between 1960 and 2014 before it was relocated inside a harbor by late 2014, where it registered two more tsunamis. This paper analyzes the 2017 México tsunami as recorded by the Quepos gauge. It took 2 h for the tsunami to arrive to Quepos, with a first peak height of 9.35 cm and a maximum amplitude of 18.8 cm occurring about 6 h later. As a decision support tool, this tsunami was modeled for Quepos in real time using ComMIT (Community Model Interface for Tsunami) with the finer grid having a resolution of 1 arcsec ( 30 m). However, the model did not replicate the tsunami record well, probably due to the lack of a finer and more accurate bathymetry. In 2014, the National Tsunami Monitoring System of Costa Rica (SINAMOT) was created, acting as a national tsunami warning center. The occurrence of the 2017 México tsunami raised concerns about warning dissemination mechanisms for most coastal communities in Costa Rica, due to its short travel time.

An Evaluation of Infrastructure for Tsunami Evacuation in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Cedillos, V.; Canney, N.; Deierlein, G.; Diposaptono, S.; Geist, E. L.; Henderson, S.; Ismail, F.; Jachowski, N.; McAdoo, B. G.; Muhari, A.; Natawidjaja, D. H.; Sieh, K. E.; Toth, J.; Tucker, B. E.; Wood, K.

2009-12-01

Padang has one of the world’s highest tsunami risks due to its high hazard, vulnerable terrain and population density. The current strategy to prepare for tsunamis in Padang is focused on developing early warning systems, planning evacuation routes, conducting evacuation drills, and raising local awareness. Although these are all necessary, they are insufficient. Padang’s proximity to the Sunda Trench and flat terrain make reaching safe ground impossible for much of the population. The natural warning in Padang - a strong earthquake that lasts over a minute - will be the first indicator of a potential tsunami. People will have about 30 minutes after the earthquake to reach safe ground. It is estimated that roughly 50,000 people in Padang will be unable to evacuate in that time. Given these conditions, other means to prepare for the expected tsunami must be developed. With this motivation, GeoHazards International and Stanford University’s Chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World partnered with Indonesian organizations - Andalas University and Tsunami Alert Community in Padang, Laboratory for Earth Hazards, and the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries - in an effort to evaluate the need for and feasibility of tsunami evacuation infrastructure in Padang. Tsunami evacuation infrastructure can include earthquake-resistant bridges and evacuation structures that rise above the maximum tsunami water level, and can withstand the expected earthquake and tsunami forces. The choices for evacuation structures vary widely - new and existing buildings, evacuation towers, soil berms, elevated highways and pedestrian overpasses. This interdisciplinary project conducted a course at Stanford University, undertook several field investigations, and concluded that: (1) tsunami evacuation structures and bridges are essential to protect the people in Padang, (2) there is a need for a more thorough engineering-based evaluation than conducted to-date of the suitability of

Public Perceptions of Tsunamis and the NOAA TsunamiReady Program in Los Angeles

Science.gov (United States)

Rosati, A.

2010-12-01

After the devastating December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, California and other coastal states began installing "Tsunami Warning Zone" and "Evacuation Route" signs at beaches and major access roads. The geography of the Los Angeles area may not be conducive to signage alone for communication of the tsunami risk and safety precautions. Over a year after installation, most people surveyed did not know about or recognize the tsunami signs. More alarming is that many did not believe a tsunami could occur in the area even though earthquake generated waves have reached nearby beaches as recently as September 2009! UPDATE: FEB. 2010. Fifty two percent of the 147 people surveyed did not believe they would survive a natural disaster in Los Angeles. Given the unique geography of Los Angeles, how can the city and county improve the mental health of its citizens before and after a natural disaster? This poster begins to address the issues of community self-efficacy and resiliency in the face of tsunamis. Of note for future research, the data from this survey showed that most people believed climate change would increase the occurrence of tsunamis. Also, the public understanding of water inundation was disturbingly low. As scientists, it is important to understand the big picture of our research - how it is ultimately communicated, understood, and used by the public.

Introduction to “Global tsunami science: Past and future, Volume I”

Science.gov (United States)

Geist, Eric L.; Fritz, Hermann; Rabinovich, Alexander B.; Tanioka, Yuichiro

2016-01-01

Twenty-five papers on the study of tsunamis are included in Volume I of the PAGEOPH topical issue “Global Tsunami Science: Past and Future”. Six papers examine various aspects of tsunami probability and uncertainty analysis related to hazard assessment. Three papers relate to deterministic hazard and risk assessment. Five more papers present new methods for tsunami warning and detection. Six papers describe new methods for modeling tsunami hydrodynamics. Two papers investigate tsunamis generated by non-seismic sources: landslides and meteorological disturbances. The final three papers describe important case studies of recent and historical events. Collectively, this volume highlights contemporary trends in global tsunami research, both fundamental and applied toward hazard assessment and mitigation.

Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory across Generations (RK and M). Markers - Reflections on Inter-generational Warnings in the Form of Japanese Tsunami Stones

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pescatore, Claudio; Botezvan, Radu; Luik, Abe; Holtorf, Cornelius; Van Wyck, Peter C.

2014-01-01

As states with nuclear power programmes are, or intend to become, engaged in planning the disposal of their high-level and/or long-lived radioactive waste in deep geological repositories, means to ensure that future generations will be aware of these repositories and not disturb them are being studied. Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory (RK and M) across Generations, launched in March 2010, is the relevant initiative under the NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee in this area. Its several years of work and findings are documented online at www.oecdnea. org/rwm/rkm. A strategy of communicating important information to future generations must be based on several complementary means and approaches. Markers placed in the vicinity of closed repositories represent one potential component of this strategy. The RK and M initiative's glossary defines a marker as 'a long-lasting object that indicates an area of influence, power or danger. It is placed strategically at or near the site for immediate recognition or for discovery at a later time'. Markers are meant to reach future generations in the medium (a few hundred years) to long term (hundred thousand of years) and are conceived to be immobile (that is, in permanent association with a site), robust (in order to maximize survivability on its own) and provide messages that are likely to be understandable across generations. A marking system can range from a simple stone to a contrived and monumental multi-component system. The present report seeks to develop the understanding of the potential effectiveness of makers drawing from the study of the role that stone markers played in Japan during the Tohoku tsunami event of 2011. There are hundreds such markers placed at various epochs on Japan's north-eastern coast to warn future generations about the dangers of tsunamis. The existence of markers for recurrent, destructive events may help save lives, as in the case of the villages of Murohama and Aneyoshi

Observing Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances Caused by Tsunamis Using GPS TEC Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Galvan, David A.; Komjathy, Attila; Hickey, Michael; Foster, James; Mannucci, Anthony J.

2010-01-01

Ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements of ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) show variations consistent with atmospheric internal gravity waves caused by ocean tsunamis following two recent seismic events: the American Samoa earthquake of September 29, 2009, and the Chile earthquake of February 27, 2010. Fluctuations in TEC correlated in time, space, and wave properties with these tsunamis were observed in TEC estimates processed using JPL's Global Ionospheric Mapping Software. These TEC estimates were band-pass filtered to remove ionospheric TEC variations with wavelengths and periods outside the typical range of internal gravity waves caused by tsunamis. Observable variations in TEC appear correlated with the tsunamis in certain locations, but not in others. Where variations are observed, the typical amplitude tends to be on the order of 1% of the background TEC value. Variations with amplitudes 0.1 - 0.2 TECU are observable with periods and timing affiliated with the tsunami. These observations are compared to estimates of expected tsunami-driven TEC variations produced by Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's Spectral Full Wave Model, an atmosphere-ionosphere coupling model, and found to be in good agreement in some locations, though there are cases when the model predicts an observable tsunami-driven signature and none is observed. These TEC variations are not always seen when a tsunami is present, but in these two events the regions where a strong ocean tsunami was observed did coincide with clear TEC observations, while a lack of clear TEC observations coincided with smaller tsunami amplitudes. There exists the potential to apply these detection techniques to real-time GPS TEC data, providing estimates of tsunami speed and amplitude that may be useful for early warning systems.

Observations and Impacts from the 2010 Chilean and 2011 Japanese Tsunamis in California (USA)

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, Rick I.; Admire, Amanda R.; Borrero, Jose C.; Dengler, Lori A.; Legg, Mark R.; Lynett, Patrick; McCrink, Timothy P.; Miller, Kevin M.; Ritchie, Andy; Sterling, Kara; Whitmore, Paul M.

2013-06-01

The coast of California was significantly impacted by two recent teletsunami events, one originating off the coast of Chile on February 27, 2010 and the other off Japan on March 11, 2011. These tsunamis caused extensive inundation and damage along the coast of their respective source regions. For the 2010 tsunami, the NOAA West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued a state-wide Tsunami Advisory based on forecasted tsunami amplitudes ranging from 0.18 to 1.43 m with the highest amplitudes predicted for central and southern California. For the 2011 tsunami, a Tsunami Warning was issued north of Point Conception and a Tsunami Advisory south of that location, with forecasted amplitudes ranging from 0.3 to 2.5 m, the highest expected for Crescent City. Because both teletsunamis arrived during low tide, the potential for significant inundation of dry land was greatly reduced during both events. However, both events created rapid water-level fluctuations and strong currents within harbors and along beaches, causing extensive damage in a number of harbors and challenging emergency managers in coastal jurisdictions. Field personnel were deployed prior to each tsunami to observe and measure physical effects at the coast. Post-event survey teams and questionnaires were used to gather information from both a physical effects and emergency response perspective. During the 2010 tsunami, a maximum tsunami amplitude of 1.2 m was observed at Pismo Beach, and over 3-million worth of damage to boats and docks occurred in nearly a dozen harbors, most significantly in Santa Cruz, Ventura, Mission Bay, and northern Shelter Island in San Diego Bay. During the 2011 tsunami, the maximum amplitude was measured at 2.47 m in Crescent City Harbor with over 50-million in damage to two dozen harbors. Those most significantly affected were Crescent City, Noyo River, Santa Cruz, Moss Landing, and southern Shelter Island. During both events, people on docks and near the ocean became at risk to

Vantage point - Early warning flaws.

Science.gov (United States)

Swinden, Donna

2014-08-28

USING AN EARLY warning score (EWS) system should improve the detection of acutely deteriorating patients. Under such a system, a score is allocated to each of six physiological measurements including respiratory rate and oxygen saturations, which are aggregated to produce an overall score. An aggregated score of seven or higher prompts nursing staff to refer a patient for emergency assessment.

Early Warning Models for Systemic Banking Crises in Montenegro

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Željka Asanović

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to create an adequate early warning model for systemic banking crises in Montenegro. The probability of banking crisis occurrence is calculated using discrete dependent variable models, more precisely, estimating logit regression. Afterwards, seven simple logit regressions that individually have two explanatory variables are estimated. Adequate weights have been assigned to all seven regressions using the technique of Bayesian model averaging. The advantage of this technique is that it takes into account the model uncertainty by considering various combinations of models in order to minimize the author’s subjective judgment when determining reliable early warning indicators. The results of Bayesian model averaging largely coincide with the results of a previously estimated dynamic logit model. Indicators of credit expansion, thanks to their performances, have a dominant role in early warning models for systemic banking crises in Montenegro. The results have also shown that the Montenegrin banking system is significantly exposed to trends on the global level.

Using Multi-Scenario Tsunami Modelling Results combined with Probabilistic Analyses to provide Hazard Information for the South-WestCoast of Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Zosseder, K.; Post, J.; Steinmetz, T.; Wegscheider, S.; Strunz, G.

2009-04-01

Indonesia is located at one of the most active geological subduction zones in the world. Following the most recent seaquakes and their subsequent tsunamis in December 2004 and July 2006 it is expected that also in the near future tsunamis are likely to occur due to increased tectonic tensions leading to abrupt vertical seafloor alterations after a century of relative tectonic silence. To face this devastating threat tsunami hazard maps are very important as base for evacuation planning and mitigation strategies. In terms of a tsunami impact the hazard assessment is mostly covered by numerical modelling because the model results normally offer the most precise database for a hazard analysis as they include spatially distributed data and their influence to the hydraulic dynamics. Generally a model result gives a probability for the intensity distribution of a tsunami at the coast (or run up) and the spatial distribution of the maximum inundation area depending on the location and magnitude of the tsunami source used. The boundary condition of the source used for the model is mostly chosen by a worst case approach. Hence the location and magnitude which are likely to occur and which are assumed to generate the worst impact are used to predict the impact at a specific area. But for a tsunami hazard assessment covering a large coastal area, as it is demanded in the GITEWS (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System) project in which the present work is embedded, this approach is not practicable because a lot of tsunami sources can cause an impact at the coast and must be considered. Thus a multi-scenario tsunami model approach is developed to provide a reliable hazard assessment covering large areas. For the Indonesian Early Warning System many tsunami scenarios were modelled by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) at different probable tsunami sources and with different magnitudes along the Sunda Trench. Every modelled scenario delivers the spatial distribution of

The 2010 Chile Earthquake: Rapid Assessments of Tsunami

OpenAIRE

Michelini, A.; Lauciani, V.; Selvaggi, G.; Lomax, A.

2010-01-01

After an earthquake underwater, rapid real-time assessment of earthquake parameters is important for emergency response related to infrastructure damage and, perhaps more exigently, for issuing warnings of the possibility of an impending tsunami. Since 2005, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) has worked on the rapid quantification of earthquake magnitude and tsunami potential, especially for the Mediterranean area. This work includes quantification of earthquake size fr...

Accuracy of a pediatric early warning score in the recognition of clinical deterioration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juliana de Oliveira Freitas Miranda

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Objective: to evaluate the accuracy of the version of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score translated and adapted for the Brazilian context, in the recognition of clinical deterioration. Method: a diagnostic test study to measure the accuracy of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context, in relation to a reference standard. The sample consisted of 271 children, aged 0 to 10 years, blindly evaluated by a nurse and a physician, specialists in pediatrics, with interval of 5 to 10 minutes between the evaluations, for the application of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context and of the reference standard. The data were processed and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and VassarStats.net programs. The performance of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context was evaluated through the indicators of sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, area under the ROC curve, likelihood ratios and post-test probability. Results: the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context showed sensitivity of 73.9%, specificity of 95.5%, positive predictive value of 73.3%, negative predictive value of 94.7%, area under Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve of 91.9% and the positive post-test probability was 80%. Conclusion: the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context, presented good performance, considered valid for the recognition of clinical deterioration warning signs of the children studied.

How prepared individuals and communities are for evacuation in tsunami-prone areas in Europe? Findings from the ASTARTE EU Programme

Science.gov (United States)

Lavigne, Franck; Grancher, Delphine; Goeldner-Gianella, Lydie; Karanci, Nuray; Dogulu, Nilay; Kanoglu, Utku; Zaniboni, Filippo; Tinti, Stefano; Papageorgiou, Antonia; Papadopoulos, Gerassimos; Constantin, Angela; Moldovan, Iren; El Mouraouah, Azelarab; Benchekroun, Sabah; Birouk, Abdelouahad

2016-04-01

Understanding social vulnerability to tsunamis provides risk managers with the required information to determine whether individuals have the capacity to evacuate, and therefore to take mitigation measures to protect their communities. In the frame of the EU programme ASTARTE (Assessment, STrategy And Risk reduction for Tsunamis in Europe), we conducted a questionnaire-based survey among 1,661 people from 41 nationalities living in, working in, or visiting 10 Test Sites from 9 different countries. The questions, which have been translated in 11 languages, focused on tsunami hazard awareness, risk perception, and knowledge of the existing warning systems. Our results confirm our initial hypothesis that low attention is paid in Europe to tsunami risk. Among all type of hazards, either natural or not, tsunami rank first in only one site (Lyngen fjord in Norway), rank third in 3 other sites (Eforie Nord in Romania, Nice and Istanbul), rank 4 in Gulluk Bay, 5 in Sines and Heraklion, and 10 in Siracusa (Sicily) and San Jordi (Balearic Islands). Whatever the respondent's status (i.e. local population, local authorities, or tourists), earthquakes and drawdown of the sea are cited as tsunami warning signs by 43% and 39% of the respondents, respectively. Therefore self-evacuation is not expected for more than half of the population. Considering that most European countries have no early warning system for tsunamis, a disaster is likely to happen in any coastal area exposed to this specific hazard. Furthermore, knowledge of past tsunami events is also very limited: only 22% of people stated that a tsunami has occurred in the past, whereas a deadly tsunami occurs every century in the Mediterranean Sea (e.g. in AD 365, 1660, 1672 or 1956 in the eastern part, 1908, 1979 or 2003 in the western part), and high tsunami waves devastated the Portugal and Moroccan coasts in 1755. Despite this lack of knowledge and awareness of past events, 62% of the respondents think that the site of

Accuracy of a pediatric early warning score in the recognition of clinical deterioration.

Science.gov (United States)

Miranda, Juliana de Oliveira Freitas; Camargo, Climene Laura de; Nascimento, Carlito Lopes; Portela, Daniel Sales; Monaghan, Alan

2017-07-10

to evaluate the accuracy of the version of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score translated and adapted for the Brazilian context, in the recognition of clinical deterioration. a diagnostic test study to measure the accuracy of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context, in relation to a reference standard. The sample consisted of 271 children, aged 0 to 10 years, blindly evaluated by a nurse and a physician, specialists in pediatrics, with interval of 5 to 10 minutes between the evaluations, for the application of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context and of the reference standard. The data were processed and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and VassarStats.net programs. The performance of the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context was evaluated through the indicators of sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, area under the ROC curve, likelihood ratios and post-test probability. the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context showed sensitivity of 73.9%, specificity of 95.5%, positive predictive value of 73.3%, negative predictive value of 94.7%, area under Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve of 91.9% and the positive post-test probability was 80%. the Brighton Pediatric Early Warning Score for the Brazilian context, presented good performance, considered valid for the recognition of clinical deterioration warning signs of the children studied. avaliar a acurácia da versão traduzida e adaptada do Brighton Paediatric Early Warning Score para o contexto brasileiro, no reconhecimento da deterioração clínica. estudo de teste diagnóstico para medir a acurácia do Brighton Paediatric Early Warning Score, para o contexto brasileiro, em relação a um padrão de referência. A amostra foi composta por 271 crianças de 0 a 10 anos, avaliadas de forma cega por uma enfermeira e um médico, especialistas em pediatria, com

The human impact of tsunamis: a historical review of events 1900-2009 and systematic literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Doocy, Shannon; Daniels, Amy; Dick, Anna; Kirsch, Thomas D

2013-04-16

Introduction. Although rare, tsunamis have the potential to cause considerable loss of life and injury as well as widespread damage to the natural and built environments. The objectives of this review were to describe the impact of tsunamis on human populations in terms of mortality, injury, and displacement and, to the extent possible, identify risk factors associated with these outcomes. This is one of five reviews on the human impact of natural disasters. Methods. Data on the impact of tsunamis were compiled using two methods, a historical review from 1900 to mid 2009 of tsunami events from multiple databases and a systematic literature review to October 2012 of publications. Analysis included descriptive statistics and bivariate tests for associations between tsunami mortality and characteristics using STATA 11. Findings. There were 255,195 deaths (range 252,619-275,784) and 48,462 injuries (range 45,466-51,457) as a result of tsunamis from 1900 to 2009. The majority of deaths (89%) and injuries reported during this time period were attributed to a single event -the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Findings from the systematic literature review indicate that the primary cause of tsunami-related mortality is drowning, and that females, children and the elderly are at increased mortality risk. The few studies that reported on tsunami-related injury suggest that males and young adults are at increased injury-risk. Conclusions. Early warning systems may help mitigate tsunami-related loss of life.

The Mauritius and Indian Tsunami Case Study

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nafiisah

such unforeseen disasters in order to alleviate sufferings and to reduce loss of lives. Nowadays .... up an Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (I.O.T.W.S). ... and other natural disasters like floods, typhoons, hurricanes, and.

Early warnings of extreme winds using the ECMWF Extreme Forecast Index

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petroliagis, Thomas I.; Pinson, Pierre

2014-01-01

The European FP7 SafeWind Project aims at developing research towards a European vision of wind power forecasting, which requires advanced meteorological support concerning extreme wind events. This study is focused mainly on early warnings of extreme winds in the early medium-range. Three synoptic...... regimes. Overall, it becomes clear that the first indications of an extreme wind event might come from the ECMWF deterministic and/or probabilistic components capturing very intense weather systems (possible windstorms) in the medium term. For early warnings, all available EPS Extreme Forecast Index (EFI......) formulations were used, by linking daily maximum wind speeds to EFI values for different forecast horizons. From all possible EFI schemes deployed for issuing early warnings, the highest skill was found for the Gust Factor formulation (EFI-10FGI). Using EFI-10FGI, the corresponding 99% threshold could provide...

Uncertainties in the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman source through nonlinear stochastic inversion of tsunami waves

Science.gov (United States)

Venugopal, M.; Roy, D.; Rajendran, K.; Guillas, S.; Dias, F.

2017-01-01

Numerical inversions for earthquake source parameters from tsunami wave data usually incorporate subjective elements to stabilize the search. In addition, noisy and possibly insufficient data result in instability and non-uniqueness in most deterministic inversions, which are barely acknowledged. Here, we employ the satellite altimetry data for the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman tsunami event to invert the source parameters. We also include kinematic parameters that improve the description of tsunami generation and propagation, especially near the source. Using a finite fault model that represents the extent of rupture and the geometry of the trench, we perform a new type of nonlinear joint inversion of the slips, rupture velocities and rise times with minimal a priori constraints. Despite persistently good waveform fits, large uncertainties in the joint parameter distribution constitute a remarkable feature of the inversion. These uncertainties suggest that objective inversion strategies should incorporate more sophisticated physical models of seabed deformation in order to significantly improve the performance of early warning systems. PMID:28989311

Forests and Phenology: Designing the Early Warning System to Understand Forest Change

Science.gov (United States)

Pierce, T.; Phillips, M. B.; Hargrove, W. W.; Dobson, G.; Hicks, J.; Hutchins, M.; Lichtenstein, K.

2010-12-01

Vegetative phenology is the study of plant development and changes with the seasons, such as the greening-up and browning-down of forests, and how these events are influenced by variations in climate. A National Phenology Data Set, based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite images covering 2002 through 2009, is now available from work by NASA, the US Forest Service, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This new data set provides an easily interpretable product useful for detecting changes to the landscape due to long-term factors such as climate change, as well as finding areas affected by short-term forest threats such as insects or disease. The Early Warning System (EWS) is a toolset being developed by the US Forest Service and the University of North Carolina-Asheville to support distribution and use of the National Phenology Data Set. The Early Warning System will help research scientists, US Forest Service personnel, forest and natural resources managers, decision makers, and the public in the use of phenology data to better understand unexpected change within our nation’s forests. These changes could have multiple natural sources such as insects, disease, or storm damage, or may be due to human-induced events, like thinning, harvest, forest conversion to agriculture, or residential and commercial use. The primary goal of the Early Warning System is to provide a seamless integration between monitoring, detection, early warning and prediction of these forest disturbances as observed through phenological data. The system consists of PC and web-based components that are structured to support four user stages of increasing knowledge and data sophistication. Building Literacy: This stage of the Early Warning System educates potential users about the system, why the system should be used, and the fundamentals about the data the system uses. The channels for this education include a website, interactive tutorials, pamphlets, and other technology

EARLY WARNING SYSTEM DAN PERTUMBUHAN PENDAPATAN KONTRIBUSI PADA PERUSAHAAN ASURANSI JIWA SYARIAH DI INDONESIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Oktaviani

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The background of this study was the lack of awareness Indonesian society toward syariah life insurance andit needed to be investigated whether there was a problem on its financial instruments by using Early WarningSystem ratio. The purpose of this study was to prove the influence of Early Warning System ratio for contributionrevenue growth syariah life insurance companies in Indonesia period 2010-2013. The sampling techniqueused was purposive sampling. Samples that acquired the criteria were 10 companies. Data were analyzedusing multiple linear regression. The ratio of the Early Warning System consisted of 6 solvencies: solvencymargin ratio, change in surplus ratio, return on investment ratio, liquidity ratio, agent’s balance to surplusratio and technical ratio. The result of this study was Early Warning System ratio influenced simultaneouslyon contribution revenue growth ratio and partial contribution of technical ratio influenced positively tocontribution revenue growth ratio. So, Early Warning System ratio could be applied in order to increasecontribution revenue growth of life insurance syariah units companies.

Early warnings of hazardous thunderstorms over Lake Victoria

Science.gov (United States)

Thiery, Wim; Gudmundsson, Lukas; Bedka, Kristopher; Semazzi, Fredrick H. M.; Lhermitte, Stef; Willems, Patrick; van Lipzig, Nicole P. M.; Seneviratne, Sonia I.

2017-07-01

Weather extremes have harmful impacts on communities around Lake Victoria in East Africa. Every year, intense nighttime thunderstorms cause numerous boating accidents on the lake, resulting in thousands of deaths among fishermen. Operational storm warning systems are therefore crucial. Here we complement ongoing early warning efforts based on numerical weather prediction, by presenting a new satellite data-driven storm prediction system, the prototype Lake Victoria Intense storm Early Warning System (VIEWS). VIEWS derives predictability from the correlation between afternoon land storm activity and nighttime storm intensity on Lake Victoria, and relies on logistic regression techniques to forecast extreme thunderstorms from satellite observations. Evaluation of the statistical model reveals that predictive power is high and independent of the type of input dataset. We then optimise the configuration and show that false alarms also contain valuable information. Our results suggest that regression-based models that are motivated through process understanding have the potential to reduce the vulnerability of local fishing communities around Lake Victoria. The experimental prediction system is publicly available under the MIT licence at http://github.com/wthiery/VIEWS.

Introduction to "Global Tsunami Science: Past and Future, Volume II"

Science.gov (United States)

Rabinovich, Alexander B.; Fritz, Hermann M.; Tanioka, Yuichiro; Geist, Eric L.

2017-08-01

Twenty-two papers on the study of tsunamis are included in Volume II of the PAGEOPH topical issue "Global Tsunami Science: Past and Future". Volume I of this topical issue was published as PAGEOPH, vol. 173, No. 12, 2016 (Eds., E. L. Geist, H. M. Fritz, A. B. Rabinovich, and Y. Tanioka). Three papers in Volume II focus on details of the 2011 and 2016 tsunami-generating earthquakes offshore of Tohoku, Japan. The next six papers describe important case studies and observations of recent and historical events. Four papers related to tsunami hazard assessment are followed by three papers on tsunami hydrodynamics and numerical modelling. Three papers discuss problems of tsunami warning and real-time forecasting. The final set of three papers importantly investigates tsunamis generated by non-seismic sources: volcanic explosions, landslides, and meteorological disturbances. Collectively, this volume highlights contemporary trends in global tsunami research, both fundamental and applied toward hazard assessment and mitigation.

Tsunami Modeling and Prediction Using a Data Assimilation Technique with Kalman Filters

Science.gov (United States)

Barnier, G.; Dunham, E. M.

2016-12-01

Earthquake-induced tsunamis cause dramatic damages along densely populated coastlines. It is difficult to predict and anticipate tsunami waves in advance, but if the earthquake occurs far enough from the coast, there may be enough time to evacuate the zones at risk. Therefore, any real-time information on the tsunami wavefield (as it propagates towards the coast) is extremely valuable for early warning systems. After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, a dense tsunami-monitoring network (S-net) based on cabled ocean-bottom pressure sensors has been deployed along the Pacific coast in Northeastern Japan. Maeda et al. (GRL, 2015) introduced a data assimilation technique to reconstruct the tsunami wavefield in real time by combining numerical solution of the shallow water wave equations with additional terms penalizing the numerical solution for not matching observations. The penalty or gain matrix is determined though optimal interpolation and is independent of time. Here we explore a related data assimilation approach using the Kalman filter method to evolve the gain matrix. While more computationally expensive, the Kalman filter approach potentially provides more accurate reconstructions. We test our method on a 1D tsunami model derived from the Kozdon and Dunham (EPSL, 2014) dynamic rupture simulations of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. For appropriate choices of model and data covariance matrices, the method reconstructs the tsunami wavefield prior to wave arrival at the coast. We plan to compare the Kalman filter method to the optimal interpolation method developed by Maeda et al. (GRL, 2015) and then to implement the method for 2D.

The quest for wisdom: lessons from 17 tsunamis, 2004-2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Okal, Emile A

2015-10-28

Since the catastrophic Sumatra-Andaman tsunami took place in 2004, 16 other tsunamis have resulted in significant damage and 14 in casualties. We review the fundamental changes that have affected our command of tsunami issues as scientists, engineers and decision-makers, in the quest for improved wisdom in this respect. While several scientific paradigms have had to be altered or abandoned, new algorithms, e.g. the W seismic phase and real-time processing of fast-arriving seismic P waves, give us more powerful tools to estimate in real time the tsunamigenic character of an earthquake. We assign to each event a 'wisdom index' based on the warning issued (or not) during the event, and on the response of the population. While this approach is admittedly subjective, it clearly shows several robust trends: (i) we have made significant progress in our command of far-field warning, with only three casualties in the past 10 years; (ii) self-evacuation by educated populations in the near field is a key element of successful tsunami mitigation; (iii) there remains a significant cacophony between the scientific community and decision-makers in industry and government as documented during the 2010 Maule and 2011 Tohoku events; and (iv) the so-called 'tsunami earthquakes' generating larger tsunamis than expected from the size of their seismic source persist as a fundamental challenge, despite scientific progress towards characterizing these events in real time. © 2015 The Author(s).

Paediatric Early Warning Score - A multi-center randomized controlled intervention study

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Claus Sixtus; Aagaard, Hanne; Olesen, Hanne Vebert

Paediatric Early Warning System on evolving critical illness and intervention in hospitalised children; a regional multicentre study on implementation of a Paediatric Early Warning System Background: Critical illness in the patient and death can potentially be predicted and prevented. Deterioration...... is critically ill are related to the child’s symptoms of serious illness often being uncharacteristic. Children can seem relatively unaffected until a short time before circulatory insufficiency and cardiac arrest. Thus, there is a need for developing and investigating if an Paediatric Early Warning System...... of the intervention and evaluation. The study involves all paediatric departments and some acute departments in Central Denmark Region. The project both includes quantitative studies and a qualitative evaluation study. The studies will have different designs: • Registry study - exploring and describing life...

Automatic early warning systems for the environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lesjak Martin

2003-01-01

Full Text Available Computerized, continuous monitoring environmental early warning systems are complex networks that merge measurements with the information technology. Accuracy, consistency, reliability and data quality are their most important features. Several effects may disturb their characteristics: hostile environment, unreliable communications, poor quality of equipment nonqualified users or service personnel. According to our experiences, a number of measures should be taken to enhance system performances and to maintain them at the desired level. In the paper, we are presenting an analysis of system requirements, possible disturbances and corrective measures that give the main directives for the design, construction and exploitation of the environmental early warning systems. Procedures which ensure data integrity and quality are mentioned. Finally, the contemporary system approach based on the LAN/WAN network topology with Intranet/Internet software is proposed, together with case descriptions of two already operating systems, based on computer-network principle.

Safety early warning research for highway construction based on case-based reasoning and variable fuzzy sets.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yan; Yi, Ting-Hua; Xu, Zhen-Jun

2013-01-01

As a high-risk subindustry involved in construction projects, highway construction safety has experienced major developments in the past 20 years, mainly due to the lack of safe early warnings in Chinese construction projects. By combining the current state of early warning technology with the requirements of the State Administration of Work Safety and using case-based reasoning (CBR), this paper expounds on the concept and flow of highway construction safety early warnings based on CBR. The present study provides solutions to three key issues, index selection, accident cause association analysis, and warning degree forecasting implementation, through the use of association rule mining, support vector machine classifiers, and variable fuzzy qualitative and quantitative change criterion modes, which fully cover the needs of safe early warning systems. Using a detailed description of the principles and advantages of each method and by proving the methods' effectiveness and ability to act together in safe early warning applications, effective means and intelligent technology for a safe highway construction early warning system are established.

Safety Early Warning Research for Highway Construction Based on Case-Based Reasoning and Variable Fuzzy Sets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan Liu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available As a high-risk subindustry involved in construction projects, highway construction safety has experienced major developments in the past 20 years, mainly due to the lack of safe early warnings in Chinese construction projects. By combining the current state of early warning technology with the requirements of the State Administration of Work Safety and using case-based reasoning (CBR, this paper expounds on the concept and flow of highway construction safety early warnings based on CBR. The present study provides solutions to three key issues, index selection, accident cause association analysis, and warning degree forecasting implementation, through the use of association rule mining, support vector machine classifiers, and variable fuzzy qualitative and quantitative change criterion modes, which fully cover the needs of safe early warning systems. Using a detailed description of the principles and advantages of each method and by proving the methods’ effectiveness and ability to act together in safe early warning applications, effective means and intelligent technology for a safe highway construction early warning system are established.

The Evaluation of Cone Capsule as an Alternative Hull form for Portable Tsunami Lifeboat to Support Evacuation System in the Coastal Regions and Small Islands

Science.gov (United States)

Fauzan Zakki, Ahmad; Suharto; Windyandari, Aulia

2018-03-01

Several attempts have been made to reduce the risk of tsunami disasters such as the development of early warning systems, evacuation procedures training, coastal protection and coastal spatial planning. Although many efforts to mitigate the impact of the tsunami in Indonesia was made, no one has developed a portable disaster rescue vehicle/shelter as well as a lifeboat on ships and offshore building, which is always available when a disaster occurs. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the performance of cone capsule shaped hull form that would be used for the portable tsunami lifeboat. The investigation of the boat resistance, intact stability, and seakeeping characteristics was made. The numerical analysis results indicate that the cone capsule is reliable as an alternative hull form for the portable tsunami lifeboat.

Flood early warning system: sensors and internet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pengel, B.E.; Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Melnikova, N.B.; Shirshov, G.S.; Koelewijn, A.R.; Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Chavoshian, A.; Takeuchi, K.

2013-01-01

The UrbanFlood early warning system (EWS) is designed to monitor data from very large sensornetworks in flood defences such as embankments, dikes, levees, and dams. The EWS, based on the internet, uses real-time sensor information and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to immediately calculate the

When is a Tsunami a Mega-Tsunami?

Science.gov (United States)

Chague-Goff, C.; Goff, J. R.; Terry, J. P.; Goto, K.

2014-12-01

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami is commonly called a mega-tsunami, and this attribute has also been linked to the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami. However, since this term was first coined in the early 1990's there have been very few attempts to define it. As such it has been applied in a rather arbitrary fashion to a number of tsunami characteristics, such as wave height or amplitude at both the source and at distant locations, run-up height, geographical extent and impact. The first use of the term is related to a tsunami generated by a large bolide impact and indeed it seems entirely appropriate that the term should be used for such rare events on geological timescales. However, probably as a result of media-driven hyperbole, scientists have used this term at least twice in the last decade, which is hardly a significant portion of the geological timescale. It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that these recent unexpectedly large events do not fall in the category of mega-tsunami but into a category of exceptional events within historical experience and local perspective. The use of the term mega-tsunami over the past 14 years is discussed and a definition is provided that marks the relative uniqueness of these events and a new term, appropriately Japanese in origin, namely that of souteigai-tsunami, is proposed. Examples of these tsunamis will be provided.

Elders recall an earlier tsunami on Indian Ocean shores

Science.gov (United States)

Kakar, Din Mohammad; Naeem, Ghazala; Usman, Abdullah; Hasan, Haider; Lohdi, Hira; Srinivasalu, Seshachalam; Andrade, Vanessa; Rajendran, C.P.; Naderi Beni, Abdolmajid; Hamzeh, Mohammad Ali; Hoffmann, Goesta; Al Balushi, Noora; Gale, Nora; Kodijat, Ardito; Fritz, Hermann M.; Atwater, Brian F.

2014-01-01

Ten years on, the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 still looms large in efforts to reduce coastal risk. The disaster has spurred worldwide advances in tsunami detection and warning, tsunami-risk assessment, and tsunami awareness [Satake, 2014]. Nearly a lifetime has passed since the northwestern Indian Ocean last produced a devastating tsunami. Documentation of this tsunami, in November 1945, was hindered by international instability in the wake of the Second World War and, in British India, by the approach of independence and partition. The parent earthquake, of magnitude 8.1, was widely recorded, and the tsunami registered on tide gauges, but intelligence reports and newspaper articles say little about inundation limits while permitting a broad range of catalogued death tolls. What has been established about the 1945 tsunami falls short of what's needed today for ground-truthing inundation models, estimating risk to enlarged populations, and anchoring awareness campaigns in local facts. Recent efforts to reduce coastal risk around the Arabian Sea include a project in which eyewitnesses to the 1945 tsunami were found and interviewed (Fig. 1), and related archives were gathered. Results are being made available through UNESCO's Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Center in hopes of increasing scientific understanding and public awareness of the region's tsunami hazards.

Near-Field Population Response During the 2 April 2007 Solomon Islands Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

McAdoo, B. G.; Moore, A. L.; Baumwoll, J.

2007-12-01

When the magnitude 8.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Solomon Islands on 2 April 2007 it killed 52 people. On Ghizo Island, home of the capital of the Western Province, Gizo, waves approaching 4 m in height inundated the south coast villages. Eyewitness accounts supported by geologic data from the offshore coral reef and sediment deposited on land suggest a wave that came in as the shaking stopped as a rapidly-rising tide rather than a turbulent bore- vehicles and houses were floated inland with very little damage. Those that survived in villages affected by the tsunami had indigenous knowledge of prior events, whereas immigrant populations died in higher proportions. While buoy-based early warning systems are necessary to mitigate the effects of teletsunamis, they would have done little good in this near-field environment. In Pailongge, a village of 76 indigenous Solomon Islanders on Ghizo's south coast, there were no deaths. Village elders directed the people inland following the shaking and the almost immediate withdrawal of water from the lagoon, and heads of household made sure that children were accounted for and evacuated. Of the 366 Gilbertese living in Titiana, however, 13 people died, 8 of which were children who were exploring the emptied lagoon. A large proportion of the dead were children (24) as they were likely too weak to swim against the non-bore flow. The Gilbertese migrated from Kiribati in the 1950"s, and had not experienced a major earthquake and tsunami, hence had no cultural memory. In the case of the Solomon Islands tsunami, as was the case in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, indigenous knowledge served the people in the near-field well. In the case of the Indian Ocean where there was 10-20 minutes separation between the time the shaking began and the waves arrived, the combination of an in-place plan and a suitable physical geography allowed the population of Simeulue Island and the Moken people of Thailand to escape before the

Design of flood early warning system with wifi network based on smartphone

Science.gov (United States)

Supani, Ahyar; Andriani, Yuli; Taqwa, Ahmad

2017-11-01

Today, the development using internet of things enables activities surrounding us to be monitored, controlled, predicted and calculated remotely through connections to the internet network such as monitoring activities of long-distance flood warning with information technology. Applying an information technology in the field of flood early warning has been developed in the world, either connected to internet network or not. The internet network that has been done in this paper is the design of WiFi network to access data of rainfall, water level and flood status at any time with a smartphone coming from flood early warning system. The results obtained when test of data accessing with smartphone are in form of rainfall and water level graphs against time and flood status indicators consisting of 3 flood states: Standby 2, Standby 1 and Flood. It is concluded that data are from flood early warning system has been able to accessed and displayed on smartphone via WiFi network in any time and real time.

The maternal early warning criteria: a proposal from the national partnership for maternal safety.

Science.gov (United States)

Mhyre, Jill M; D'Oria, Robyn; Hameed, Afshan B; Lappen, Justin R; Holley, Sharon L; Hunter, Stephen K; Jones, Robin L; King, Jeffrey C; D'Alton, Mary E

2014-01-01

Case reviews of maternal death have revealed a concerning pattern of delay in recognition of hemorrhage, hypertensive crisis, sepsis, venous thromboembolism, and heart failure. Early-warning systems have been proposed to facilitate timely recognition, diagnosis, and treatment for women developing critical illness. A multidisciplinary working group convened by the National Partnership for Maternal Safety used a consensus-based approach to define The Maternal Early Warning Criteria, a list of abnormal parameters that indicate the need for urgent bedside evaluation by a clinician with the capacity to escalate care as necessary in order to pursue diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. This commentary reviews the evidence supporting the use of early-warning systems, describes The Maternal Early Warning Criteria, and provides considerations for local implementation. © 2014 AWHONN, the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.

Drought early warning and risk management in a changing environment

Science.gov (United States)

Pulwarty, R. S.

2011-12-01

Drought has long been recognized as falling into the category of incremental but long-term and cumulative environmental changes, also termed slow-onset or creeping events. These event types would include: air and water quality decline, desertification processes, deforestation and forest fragmentation, loss of biodiversity and habitats, and nitrogen overloading, among others. Climate scientists continue to struggle with recognizing the onset of drought and scientists and policy makers continue to debate the basis (i.e., criteria) for declaring an end to a drought. Risk-based management approaches to drought planning at the national and regional levels have been recommended repeatedly over the years but their prototyping, testing and operational implementation have been limited. This presentation will outline two avenues for disaster risk reduction in the context of drought (1) integrated early warning information systems, and (2) linking disaster risk reduction to climate change adaptation strategies. Adaptation involves not only using operational facilities and infrastructure to cope with the immediate problems but also leaving slack or reserve for coping with multiple stress problems that produce extreme impacts and surprise. Increasing the 'anticipatability' of an event, involves both monitoring of key indicators from appropriate baseline data, and observing early warning signs that assumptions in risk management plans are failing and critical transitions are occurring. Illustrative cases will be drawn from the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters (2011), the UN Global Assessment of Disaster Risk Reduction (2011) and implementation activities in which the author has been engaged. Most drought early warning systems have tended to focus on the development and use of physical system indicators and forecasts of trends and thresholds. We show that successful early warning systems that meet expectations of risk management also have

Early-Ming Era tsunami destruction along the Northern Coast of Aceh, Indonesia: New evidence from Archeology

Science.gov (United States)

Sieh, K.; Daly, P.; McKinnon, E. E.; Tai, Y. S.; Feener, R. M.; Ishmail, N.

2017-12-01

Our colleagues and we have reconstructed partial earthquake and tsunami histories along the coast of Aceh, Sumatra. Chlieh et al (2006) documented and modeled deformation of offshore islands associated with the 2004 rupture. Meltzner et al (2010) found coral evidence of uplifts in 1394±2 and 1450±3 CE. Sieh et al. (2015) documented associated tsunami that destroyed a structure built in 1366±3 CE, 40 km east of Banda Aceh at Lamreh. Since 2015, our landscape archaeology survey of 43 coastal villages over a 40-km reach of the coast has revealed 995 archaeological sites ranging from 10th century to present and containing over 5,000 carved gravestones and 50,000 ceramic sherds. The distribution of ceramic material suggests 7 discrete areas of cultural activity before the 1394 tsunami. Six of these appear to be villages that used imported ceramics and have been populated since the 10th century. However, detailed analysis indicates a clear reduction in activity between 1360 and 1450 CE. This suggests that one or both of the 1394 and 1450 tsunami disrupted the villages. The distribution of post-1500 CE ceramic material shows a gradual repopulation of pre-tsunami sites and a significant expansion of activity starting at the end of the 16th Century, for all areas except Lamreh. Only at on the elevated Lambaro highlands, above modern Lamreh, does material conclusively date between the 1394 and 1450 CE tsunamis. This historic trading site of "Lambri" contains large quantities of ceramics ranging from the early 11th century until the early 16th century, including precisely dated early-Ming (1403-1425 CE) material, some of which is distinctive imperial trade ceramics. We suspect that after the 1394 tsunami destroyed the other coastal settlements, the relatively safe highlands of Lambri were the only areas of the coast utilized for at least 50 years. After about 1450 CE, however, these highlands were abandoned, while the low-lying coastal communities began once again to

Information systems in a changing climate: Early warnings and drought risk management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roger S. Pulwarty

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Drought is among the most damaging, and least understood, of all “natural” hazards. Although some droughts last a single season and affect only small areas, the instrumental and paleoclimate records show that droughts have sometimes continued for decades and have impacted millions of square kilometers in North America, West Africa, and East Asia. To cross the spectrum of potential drivers and impacts, drought information systems have multiple sub-systems which include an integrated risk assessment, communication and decision support system of which early warning is a central component and output. An early warning system is much more than a forecast – it is a linked risk information (including people׳s perception of risk and communication system that actively engages communities involved in preparedness. There are numerous drought systems warning systems being implemented at different scales of governance. We draw on the lessons of over 21 drought early warning systems around the world, in both developing and developed countries and at regional, national and community levels. The successes illustrate that effective early warning depends upon a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among all concerned actors at each stage in the warning process from monitoring to response and evaluation. However, the links between the community-based approach and the national and global EWSs are relatively weak. Using the rich experience of information systems across the globe, this paper identifies pathways for knowledge management and action at the relevant scales for decision-making in response to a changing climate.

Research on early-warning index of the spatial temperature field in concrete dams.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Guang; Gu, Chongshi; Bao, Tengfei; Cui, Zhenming; Kan, Kan

2016-01-01

Warning indicators of the dam body's temperature are required for the real-time monitoring of the service conditions of concrete dams to ensure safety and normal operations. Warnings theories are traditionally targeted at a single point which have limitations, and the scientific warning theories on global behavior of the temperature field are non-existent. In this paper, first, in 3D space, the behavior of temperature field has regional dissimilarity. Through the Ward spatial clustering method, the temperature field was divided into regions. Second, the degree of order and degree of disorder of the temperature monitoring points were defined by the probability method. Third, the weight values of monitoring points of each regions were explored via projection pursuit. Forth, a temperature entropy expression that can describe degree of order of the spatial temperature field in concrete dams was established. Fifth, the early-warning index of temperature entropy was set up according to the calculated sequential value of temperature entropy. Finally, project cases verified the feasibility of the proposed theories. The early-warning index of temperature entropy is conducive to the improvement of early-warning ability and safety management levels during the operation of high concrete dams.

Assessment of the Initial Response from Tsunami Monitoring Services Provided to the Northeastern Caribbean

Science.gov (United States)

Soto-Cordero, L.; Meltzer, A.

2014-12-01

A mag 6.4 earthquake offshore northern Puerto Rico earlier this year (1/13/14) is a reminder of the high risk of earthquakes and tsunamis in the northeastern Caribbean. Had the magnitude of this event been 0.1 larger (M 6.5) a tsunami warning would have been issued for the Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands (PRVI) region based on the West Coast Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) and Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) response procedures at the time. Such an alert level would have led local authorities to issue evacuation orders for all PRVI coastal areas. Since the number of deaths associated with tsunamis in the Caribbean region is greater than the total casualties from tsunamis in the entire US (including Hawaii and Alaska coasts) having an effective and redundant warning system is critical in order to save lives and to minimize false alarms that could result in significant economic costs and loss of confidence of Caribbean residents. We are evaluating three fundamental components of tsunami monitoring protocols currently in place in the northeastern Caribbean: 1) preliminary earthquake parameters (used to determine the potential that a tsunami will be generated and the basis of tsunami alert levels), 2) adequacy of the tsunami alert levels, and 3) tsunami message dissemination. We compiled a catalog of earthquake locations (2007-2014) and dissemination times from the PTWC, WCATWC and NEIC (final locations). The events were classified into 3 categories: local [17°-20°N, 63.5°-69°W], regional (Caribbean basin) and distant/teleseismic (Atlantic basin). A total of 104 local earthquakes, 31 regional and 25 distant events were analyzed. We found that in general preliminary epicentral locations have an accuracy of 40 km. 64% of local events were located with an accuracy of 20 km. The depth accuracy of local events shallower than 50 km, regional and distant earthquakes is usually smaller than 30 km. For deeper local events the error distribution shows more variability

Signalling fiscal stress in the euro area - a country-specific early warning system

OpenAIRE

Hernández de Cos, Pablo; Koester, Gerrit B.; Moral-Benito, Enrique; Nickel, Christiane

2014-01-01

The sovereign debt crisis in the euro area has increased the interest in early warning indicators, with the aim to indicate the build?up of fiscal stress early on and to facilitate crisis prevention by a timely counteraction of fiscal and macroeconomic policies. This paper presents possible improvements to enhance existing early warning indicators for fiscal stress, especially for the euro area. We show that a country?specific approach could strongly increase the signalling power of early war...

Exploring the utility of real-time hydrologic data for landslide early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Mirus, B. B.; Smith, J. B.; Becker, R.; Baum, R. L.; Koss, E.

2017-12-01

Early warning systems can provide critical information for operations managers, emergency planners, and the public to help reduce fatalities, injuries, and economic losses due to landsliding. For shallow, rainfall-triggered landslides early warning systems typically use empirical rainfall thresholds, whereas the actual triggering mechanism involves the non-linear hydrological processes of infiltration, evapotranspiration, and hillslope drainage that are more difficult to quantify. Because hydrologic monitoring has demonstrated that shallow landslides are often preceded by a rise in soil moisture and pore-water pressures, some researchers have developed early warning criteria that attempt to account for these antecedent wetness conditions through relatively simplistic storage metrics or soil-water balance modeling. Here we explore the potential for directly incorporating antecedent wetness into landslide early warning criteria using recent landslide inventories and in-situ hydrologic monitoring near Seattle, WA, and Portland, OR. We use continuous, near-real-time telemetered soil moisture and pore-water pressure data measured within a few landslide-prone hillslopes in combination with measured and forecasted rainfall totals to inform easy-to-interpret landslide initiation thresholds. Objective evaluation using somewhat limited landslide inventories suggests that our new thresholds based on subsurface hydrologic monitoring and rainfall data compare favorably to the capabilities of existing rainfall-only thresholds for the Seattle area, whereas there are no established rainfall thresholds for the Portland area. This preliminary investigation provides a proof-of-concept for the utility of developing landslide early warning criteria in two different geologic settings using real-time subsurface hydrologic measurements from in-situ instrumentation.

Financial distress in Brazilian banks: an early warning model,

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Paulo Sérgio Rosa

2017-12-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT This study aims to propose an early warning model for predicting financial distress events in Brazilian banking institutions. Initially, a set of economic-financial indicators is evaluated, suggested by the risk management literature for identifying situations of bank insolvency and exclusively taking public information into account. For this, multivariate logistic regressions are performed, using as independent variables financial indicators involving capital adequacy, asset quality, management quality, earnings, and liquidity. The empirical analysis was based on a sample of 142 financial institutions, including privately and publicly held and state-owned companies, using monthly data from 2006 to 2014, which resulted in panel data with 12,136 observations. In the sample window there were nine cases of Brazilian Central Bank intervention or mergers and acquisitions motivated by financial distress. The results were evaluated based on the estimation of the in-sample parameters, out-of-sample tests, and the early warning model signs for a 12-month forecast horizon. These obtained true positive rates of 81%, 94%, and 89%, respectively. We conclude that typical balance-sheet indicators are relevant for the early warning signs of financial distress in Brazilian banks, which contributes to the literature on financial intermediary credit risk, especially from the perspective of bank supervisory agencies acting towards financial stability.

A short history of tsunami research and countermeasures in Japan.

Science.gov (United States)

Shuto, Nobuo; Fujima, Koji

2009-01-01

The tsunami science and engineering began in Japan, the country the most frequently hit by local and distant tsunamis. The gate to the tsunami science was opened in 1896 by a giant local tsunami of the highest run-up height of 38 m that claimed 22,000 lives. The crucial key was a tide record to conclude that this tsunami was generated by a "tsunami earthquake". In 1933, the same area was hit again by another giant tsunami. A total system of tsunami disaster mitigation including 10 "hard" and "soft" countermeasures was proposed. Relocation of dwelling houses to high ground was the major countermeasures. The tsunami forecasting began in 1941. In 1960, the Chilean Tsunami damaged the whole Japanese Pacific coast. The height of this tsunami was 5-6 m at most. The countermeasures were the construction of structures including the tsunami breakwater which was the first one in the world. Since the late 1970s, tsunami numerical simulation was developed in Japan and refined to become the UNESCO standard scheme that was transformed to 22 different countries. In 1983, photos and videos of a tsunami in the Japan Sea revealed many faces of tsunami such as soliton fission and edge bores. The 1993 tsunami devastated a town protected by seawalls 4.5 m high. This experience introduced again the idea of comprehensive countermeasures, consisted of defense structure, tsunami-resistant town development and evacuation based on warning.

Modeling of dengue occurrences early warning involving temperature and rainfall factors

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Prama Setia Putra

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Objective: To understand dengue transmission process and its vector dynamics and to develop early warning model of dengue occurrences based on mosquito population and host-vector threshold values considering temperature and rainfall. Methods: To obtain the early warning model, mosquito population and host-vector models are developed initially. Both are developed using differential equations. Basic offspring number (R0m and basic reproductive ratio (R0d which are the threshold values are derived from the models under constant parameters assumption. Temperature and rainfall effects on mosquito and dengue are performed in entomological and disease transmission parameters. Some of parameters are set as functions of temperature or rainfall while other parameters are set to be constant. Hereafter, both threshold values are computed using those parameters. Monthly dengue occurrences data are categorized as zero and one values which one means the outbreak does occur in that month. Logistics regression is chosen to bridge the threshold values and categorized data. Threshold values are considered as the input of early warning model. Semarang city is selected as the sample to develop this early waning model. Results: The derived threshold values which are R 0 m and R 0 d show to have relation that mosquito as dengue vector affects transmission of the disease. Result of the early warning model will be a value between zero and one. It is categorized as outbreak does occur when the value is larger than 0.5 while other is categorized as outbreak does not occur. By using single predictor, the model can perform 68% accuracy approximately. Conclusions: The extinction of mosquitoes will be followed by disease disappearance while mosquitoes existence can lead to disease free or endemic states. Model simulations show that mosquito population are more affected by weather factors than human. Involving weather factors implicitly in the threshold value and linking them

Toward a cross-border early-warning system for Central Asia

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Jacek Stankiewicz

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Rapidly expanding urban areas in Central Asia are increasingly vulnerable to seismic risk; but at present, no earthquake early warning (EEW systems exist in the region despite their successful implementation in other earthquake-prone areas. Such systems aim to provide short (seconds to tens of seconds warnings of impending disaster, enabling the first risk mitigation and damage control steps to be taken. This study presents the feasibility of a large scale cross-border regional system for Central Asian countries. Genetic algorithms are used to design efficient EEW networks, computing optimal station locations and trigger thresholds in recorded ground acceleration. Installation of such systems within 3 years aims to both reducing the endemic lack of strong motion data in Central Asia that is limiting the possibility of improving seismic hazard assessment, and at providing the first regional earthquake early warning system in the area.

Vrancea early warning system for Bucharest and industrial objectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ionescu, C.; Marmureanu, A.; Grigore, A.; Tataru, D.

2005-01-01

Romania is an earthquake prone area and it is of crucial importance to obtain quantitative information needed for seismic risk mitigation and related public policies and seismic safety measures. The most damaging earthquakes in Romania concentrate in the Vrancea region, located at the sharp bend of the Eastern Carpathians Arc, in a well confined focal volume at intermediate depths between 60 km and 200 km.Vrancea earthquakes are documented for at least a millennium (since 985 a.c.) and represent very peculiar characteristics. They are a permanent threat for large urban areas on the Romanian territory and extended areas in Europe. Bucharest is among the cities mostly affected by destructive earthquakes. The early warning system in Romania is to provide individuals and communities exposed to disaster risk given by strong Vrancea earthquakes, with accurate information about an impending hazard as early as possible, to act in a timely and appropriate manner to reduce probability of suffering, personal damage, death and property losses. The purpose of this early system is to issue messages at sites of interest before the destructive seismic energy arrives. Early warning system is a technological instrument to detect, monitor and submit warnings/alerts. It needs to become part of a management information system for decision - making in the context of national institutional frameworks for disaster management and as a part of national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction. (authors)

Vrancea early warning system for Bucharest and industrial objectives

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ionescu, Constantin; Marmureanu, Alexandru; Wenzel, Friedemann; Bonjer, K. P.

2004-01-01

Romania is an earthquake prone area and it is of crucial importance to obtain quantitative information needed for seismic risk mitigation and related public policies and seismic safety measures. The most damaging earthquakes in Romania concentrate in the Vrancea region, located at the sharp bend of the Eastern Carpathians Arc, in a well confined focal volume at intermediate depths between 60 km and 200 km. Vrancea earthquakes are documented for at least a millennium (since 985 a.c.) and represent very peculiar characteristics. They are a permanent threat for large urban areas on the Romanian territory and extended areas in Europe. Bucharest is among the mega cities mostly affected by destructive earthquakes. The early warning system in Romania is to provide individuals and communities exposed to disaster risk due to strong Vrancea earthquakes, with accurate information about an impending hazard as early as possible, to act in a timely and appropriate manner to reduce probability of suffering, personal damage, death and property losses. The purpose of this early system is to issue messages at sites of interest before the destructive seismic energy arrives. Early warning system is a technological instrument to detect, monitor and issue warnings/alerts. It needs to become part of a management information system for decision - making in the context of national institutional frameworks for disaster management and as a part of national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction. (authors)

Tsunamigenic Ratio of the Pacific Ocean earthquakes and a proposal for a Tsunami Index

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A. Suppasri

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The Pacific Ocean is the location where two-thirds of tsunamis have occurred, resulting in a great number of casualties. Once information on an earthquake has been issued, it is important to understand if there is a tsunami generation risk in relation with a specific earthquake magnitude or focal depth. This study proposes a Tsunamigenic Ratio (TR that is defined as the ratio between the number of earthquake-generated tsunamis and the total number of earthquakes. Earthquake and tsunami data used in this study were selected from a database containing tsunamigenic earthquakes from prior 1900 to 2011. The TR is calculated from earthquake events with a magnitude greater than 5.0, a focal depth shallower than 200 km and a sea depth less than 7 km. The results suggest that a great earthquake magnitude and a shallow focal depth have a high potential to generate tsunamis with a large tsunami height. The average TR in the Pacific Ocean is 0.4, whereas the TR for specific regions of the Pacific Ocean varies from 0.3 to 0.7. The TR calculated for each region shows the relationship between three influential parameters: earthquake magnitude, focal depth and sea depth. The three parameters were combined and proposed as a dimensionless parameter called the Tsunami Index (TI. TI can express better relationship with the TR and with maximum tsunami height, while the three parameters mentioned above cannot. The results show that recent submarine earthquakes had a higher potential to generate a tsunami with a larger tsunami height than during the last century. A tsunami is definitely generated if the TI is larger than 7.0. The proposed TR and TI will help ascertain the tsunami generation risk of each earthquake event based on a statistical analysis of the historical data and could be an important decision support tool during the early tsunami warning stage.

Long-term perspectives on giant earthquakes and tsunamis at subduction zones

Science.gov (United States)

Satake, K.; Atwater, B.F.; ,

2007-01-01

Histories of earthquakes and tsunamis, inferred from geological evidence, aid in anticipating future catastrophes. This natural warning system now influences building codes and tsunami planning in the United States, Canada, and Japan, particularly where geology demonstrates the past occurrence of earthquakes and tsunamis larger than those known from written and instrumental records. Under favorable circumstances, paleoseismology can thus provide long-term advisories of unusually large tsunamis. The extraordinary Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 resulted from a fault rupture more than 1000 km in length that included and dwarfed fault patches that had broken historically during lesser shocks. Such variation in rupture mode, known from written history at a few subduction zones, is also characteristic of earthquake histories inferred from geology on the Pacific Rim. Copyright ?? 2007 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.

Study on the early warning mechanism for the security of blast furnace hearths

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Hong-bo; Huo, Shou-feng; Cheng, Shu-sen

2013-04-01

The campaign life of blast furnace (BF) hearths has become the limiting factor for safety and high efficiency production of modern BFs. However, the early warning mechanism of hearth security has not been clear. In this article, based on heat transfer calculations, heat flux and erosion monitoring, the features of heat flux and erosion were analyzed and compared among different types of hearths. The primary detecting elements, mathematical models, evaluating standards, and warning methods were discussed. A novel early warning mechanism with the three-level quantificational standards was proposed for BF hearth security.

A culture of tsunami preparedness and applying knowledge from recent tsunamis affecting California

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, K. M.; Wilson, R. I.

2012-12-01

It is the mission of the California Tsunami Program to ensure public safety by protecting lives and property before, during, and after a potentially destructive or damaging tsunami. In order to achieve this goal, the state has sought first to use finite funding resources to identify and quantify the tsunami hazard using the best available scientific expertise, modeling, data, mapping, and methods at its disposal. Secondly, it has been vital to accurately inform the emergency response community of the nature of the threat by defining inundation zones prior to a tsunami event and leveraging technical expertise during ongoing tsunami alert notifications (specifically incoming wave heights, arrival times, and the dangers of strong currents). State scientists and emergency managers have been able to learn and apply both scientific and emergency response lessons from recent, distant-source tsunamis affecting coastal California (from Samoa in 2009, Chile in 2010, and Japan in 2011). Emergency managers must understand and plan in advance for specific actions and protocols for each alert notification level provided by the NOAA/NWS West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. Finally the state program has provided education and outreach information via a multitude of delivery methods, activities, and end products while keeping the message simple, consistent, and focused. The goal is a culture of preparedness and understanding of what to do in the face of a tsunami by residents, visitors, and responsible government officials. We provide an update of results and findings made by the state program with support of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program through important collaboration with other U.S. States, Territories and agencies. In 2009 the California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA) and the California Geological Survey (CGS) completed tsunami inundation modeling and mapping for all low-lying, populated coastal areas of California to assist local jurisdictions on

Survey of the July 17, 2006 Central Javan tsunami reveals 21m runup heights

Science.gov (United States)

Fritz, H.; Goff, J.; Harbitz, C.; McAdoo, B.; Moore, A.; Latief, H.; Kalligeris, N.; Kodjo, W.; Uslu, B.; Titov, V.; Synolakis, C.

2006-12-01

The Monday, July 17, 2006 Central Javan 7.7 earthquake triggered a substantial tsunami that killed 600 people along a 200km stretch of coastline. The earthquake was not reported felt along the coastline. While there was a warning issued by the PTWC, it did not trigger an evacuation warning (Synolakis, 2006). The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System announced by UNESCO as operational in a press release two weeks before the event did not function as promised. There were no seismic recordings transmitted to the PTWC, and two German tsunameter buoys had broken off their moorings and were not operational. Lifeguards along a tourist beach reported that while the observed the harbinger shoreline recession, they attributed to exteme storm waves that were pounding the beaches that day. Had the tsunami struck on the preceding Sunday, instead of Monday, the death toll would had been far higher. The International Tsunami Survey Team (ITST) surveyed the coastline measuring runup, inundation, flow depths and sediment deposition, with standard methods (Synolakis and Okal, 2004). Runup values ranged up to 21m with several readings over 10m, while sand sheets up to 15cm were deposited. The parent earthquake was similar, albeit of smaller magnitude, to the 1994 East Javan tsunami, which struck about 200km east (Synolakis, et al, 1995) and reached a maximum of 11m runup height only at one location on steep cliffs. The unusual distribution of runup heights, and the pronounced extreme values near Nusa Kambangan, suggest a local coseismic landslide may have triggered an additional tsunami (Okal and Synolakis, 2005). The ITST observed that many coastal villages were completely abandoned after the tsunami, even in locales where there were no casualties. Whether residents will return is uncertain, but it is clear that an education campaign in tsunami hazard mitigation is urgently needed. In the aftermath of the tsunami, the Government of Indonesia enforced urgent emergency preparedness

Extraction of two tsunamis signals generated by earthquakes around the Pacific rim

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chu Yonghai

2014-05-01

Full Text Available As one of the ocean sudden natural disasters, the tsunami is not easily to differentiate from the ocean variation in the open ocean due to the tsunami wave amplitude is lees than one meter with hundreds of kilometers wavelength. But the wave height will increases up to tens of meters with enormous energy when the tsunami aarives at the coast. It would not only devastate entire cities near coast, but also kill miilions of people. It is necessary to forecast and make warning before the tsunami aariving for many countries and regions around the Pacific rim. Two kinds of data were used in this study to extract the signals of 2011 Tohoku tsunami and 2014 Iquique tsunami. Wave undulations from DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis buoys and SLA from altimetry could extract the tsunami signals generated by this two earthquake. The signals of Tohoku tsunami were stronger than that of Iquique tsunami probably due to the 2011 Tohoku tsunami was generated by a magnitude 9. 0 earthquake and the 2014 Iquique tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 8. 2 earthquake.

Scenario-based tsunami risk assessment using a static flooding approach and high-resolution digital elevation data: An example from Muscat in Oman

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Bastian; Hoffmann, Gösta; Reicherter, Klaus

2016-04-01

Knowledge of tsunami risk and vulnerability is essential to establish a well-adapted Multi Hazard Early Warning System, land-use planning and emergency management. As the tsunami risk for the coastline of Oman is still under discussion and remains enigmatic, various scenarios based on historical tsunamis were created. The suggested inundation and run-up heights were projected onto the modern infrastructural setting of the Muscat Capital Area. Furthermore, possible impacts of the worst-case tsunami event for Muscat are discussed. The approved Papathoma Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment Model was used to model the structural vulnerability of the infrastructure for a 2 m tsunami scenario, depicting the 1945 tsunami and a 5 m tsunami in Muscat. Considering structural vulnerability, the results suggest a minor tsunami risk for the 2 m tsunami scenario as the flooding is mainly confined to beaches and wadis. Especially traditional brick buildings, still predominant in numerous rural suburbs, and a prevalently coast-parallel road network lead to an increased tsunami risk. In contrast, the 5 m tsunami scenario reveals extensively inundated areas and with up to 48% of the buildings flooded, and therefore consequently a significantly higher tsunami risk. We expect up to 60000 damaged buildings and up to 380000 residents directly affected in the Muscat Capital Area, accompanied with a significant loss of life and damage to vital infrastructure. The rapid urbanization processes in the Muscat Capital Area, predominantly in areas along the coast, in combination with infrastructural, demographic and economic growth will additionally increase the tsunami risk and therefore emphasizes the importance of tsunami risk assessment in Oman.

Implementing paediatric early warning scores systems in the Netherlands: future implications.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Groot, J.F. de; Damen, N.; Loos, E. de; Steeg, L. van de; Rosias, P.; Bruijn, M.; Goorhuis, J.; Wagner, C.

2018-01-01

Background: Paediatric Early Warning Scores (PEWS) are increasingly being used for early identification and management of clinical deterioration in paediatric patients. A PEWS system includes scores, cut-off points and appropriate early intervention. In 2011, The Dutch Ministry of Health advised

Home seismometer for earthquake early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Horiuchi, Shigeki; Horiuchi, Yuko; Yamamoto, Shunroku; Nakamura, Hiromitsu; Wu, Changjiang; Rydelek, Paul A.; Kachi, Masaaki

2009-02-01

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has started the practical service of Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) and a very dense deployment of receiving units is expected in the near future. The receiving/alarm unit of an EEW system is equipped with a CPU and memory and is on-line via the internet. By adding an inexpensive seismometer and A/D converter, this unit is transformed into a real-time seismic observatory, which we are calling a home seismometer. If the home seismometer is incorporated in the standard receiving unit of EEW, then the number of seismic observatories will be drastically increased. Since the background noise inside a house caused by human activity may be very large, we have developed specialized software for on-site warning using the home seismometer. We tested our software and found that our algorithm can correctly distinguish between noise and earthquakes for nearly all the events.

Test of thermal shields for early warning station detectors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Jesper

1997-01-01

The properties of thermal shields around NaI crystal scintillators for early warning stations have been checked in order to assure that external temperature variations cannot influence the stability of the measurements....

Body size shifts and early warning signals precede the historic collapse of whale stocks.

Science.gov (United States)

Clements, Christopher F; Blanchard, Julia L; Nash, Kirsty L; Hindell, Mark A; Ozgul, Arpat

2017-06-22

Predicting population declines is a key challenge in the face of global environmental change. Abundance-based early warning signals have been shown to precede population collapses; however, such signals are sensitive to the low reliability of abundance estimates. Here, using historical data on whales harvested during the 20th century, we demonstrate that early warning signals can be present not only in the abundance data, but also in the more reliable body size data of wild populations. We show that during the period of commercial whaling, the mean body size of caught whales declined dramatically (by up to 4 m over a 70-year period), leading to early warning signals being detectable up to 40 years before the global collapse of whale stocks. Combining abundance and body size data can reduce the length of the time series required to predict collapse, and decrease the chances of false positive early warning signals.

Tsunami Forecasting in the Atlantic Basin

Science.gov (United States)

Knight, W. R.; Whitmore, P.; Sterling, K.; Hale, D. A.; Bahng, B.

2012-12-01

The mission of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) is to provide advance tsunami warning and guidance to coastal communities within its Area-of-Responsibility (AOR). Predictive tsunami models, based on the shallow water wave equations, are an important part of the Center's guidance support. An Atlantic-based counterpart to the long-standing forecasting ability in the Pacific known as the Alaska Tsunami Forecast Model (ATFM) is now developed. The Atlantic forecasting method is based on ATFM version 2 which contains advanced capabilities over the original model; including better handling of the dynamic interactions between grids, inundation over dry land, new forecast model products, an optional non-hydrostatic approach, and the ability to pre-compute larger and more finely gridded regions using parallel computational techniques. The wide and nearly continuous Atlantic shelf region presents a challenge for forecast models. Our solution to this problem has been to develop a single unbroken high resolution sub-mesh (currently 30 arc-seconds), trimmed to the shelf break. This allows for edge wave propagation and for kilometer scale bathymetric feature resolution. Terminating the fine mesh at the 2000m isobath keeps the number of grid points manageable while allowing for a coarse (4 minute) mesh to adequately resolve deep water tsunami dynamics. Higher resolution sub-meshes are then included around coastal forecast points of interest. The WCATWC Atlantic AOR includes eastern U.S. and Canada, the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are in very close proximity to well-known tsunami sources. Because travel times are under an hour and response must be immediate, our focus is on pre-computing many tsunami source "scenarios" and compiling those results into a database accessible and calibrated with observations during an event. Seismic source evaluation determines the order of model pre

ANALYSIS OF FORECASTING METHODS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF EARLY WARNING CONCEPT IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Florin POPESCU

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Early warning system (EWS based on a reliable forecasting process has become a critical component of the management of large complex industrial projects in the globalized transnational environment. The purpose of this research is to critically analyze the forecasting methods from the point of view of early warning, choosing those useful for the construction of EWS. This research addresses complementary techniques, using Bayesian Networks, which addresses both uncertainties and causality in project planning and execution, with the goal of generating early warning signals for project managers. Even though Bayesian networks have been widely used in a range of decision-support applications, their application as early warning systems for project management is still new.

Signal Processing Methods for Flood Early Warning Systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Kozionov, A.P.; Kusherbaeva, V.T.; Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Broekhuijsen, B.J.; Meijer, R.J.; Hinkelmann, R.; Nasermoaddeli, M.H.; Liong, S.Y.; Savic, D.; Fröhle, P.; Daemrich, K.F.

2012-01-01

We present in a data-driven approach for detection of anomalies in earthen dam (dike) behaviour that can indicate the onset of flood defence structure failure. This approach is implemented in the UrbanFlood early warning system's Artificial Intelligence component that processes dike measurements in

The Role of Cash Flow in Financial Early Warning of Agricultural Enterprises Based on Logistic Model

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Fengru

2018-01-01

This paper chooses the agricultural listed companies as the research object, compares the financial situation of the enterprise and the theory of financial early warning, combines the financial status of the agricultural listed companies, selects the relevant cash flow indicators, discusses the application of the Logistic financial early warning model in the agricultural listed companies, Agricultural enterprises get better development. Research on financial early warning of agricultural listed companies will help the agricultural listed companies to predict the financial crisis. Financial early warning model is simple to establish, operational and strong, the use of financial early warning model, to help enterprises in the financial crisis before taking rapid and effective measures, which can avoid losses. Help enterprises to discover signs of deterioration of the financial situation in time to maintain the sustainable development of agricultural enterprises. In addition, through the financial early warning model, investors can correctly identify the financial situation of agricultural enterprises, and can evaluate the financial situation of agricultural enterprises and to help investors to invest in scientific and rational, beneficial to investors to analyze the safety of investment. But also help the relevant regulatory agencies to effectively monitor the market and promote the healthy and stable development of the market.

Climate change implications and use of early warning systems for global dust storms

Science.gov (United States)

Harriman, Lindsey M.

2014-01-01

With increased changes in land cover and global climate, early detection and warning of dust storms in conjunction with effective and widespread information broadcasts will be essential to the prevention and mitigation of future risks and impacts. Human activities, seasonal variations and long-term climatic patterns influence dust storms. More research is needed to analyse these factors of dust mobilisation to create more certainty for the fate of vulnerable populations and ecosystems in the future. Early warning and communication systems, when in place and effectively implemented, can offer some relief to these vulnerable areas. As an issue that affects many regions of the world, there is a profound need to understand the potential changes and ultimately create better early warning systems for dust storms.

Establishing the fundamentals for an elephant early warning and monitoring system.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeppelzauer, Matthias; Stoeger, Angela S

2015-09-04

The decline of habitat for elephants due to expanding human activity is a serious conservation problem. This has continuously escalated the human-elephant conflict in Africa and Asia. Elephants make extensive use of powerful infrasonic calls (rumbles) that travel distances of up to several kilometers. This makes elephants well-suited for acoustic monitoring because it enables detecting elephants even if they are out of sight. In sight, their distinct visual appearance makes them a good candidate for visual monitoring. We provide an integrated overview of our interdisciplinary project that established the scientific fundamentals for a future early warning and monitoring system for humans who regularly experience serious conflict with elephants. We first draw the big picture of an early warning and monitoring system, then review the developed solutions for automatic acoustic and visual detection, discuss specific challenges and present open future work necessary to build a robust and reliable early warning and monitoring system that is able to operate in situ. We present a method for the automated detection of elephant rumbles that is robust to the diverse noise sources present in situ. We evaluated the method on an extensive set of audio data recorded under natural field conditions. Results show that the proposed method outperforms existing approaches and accurately detects elephant rumbles. Our visual detection method shows that tracking elephants in wildlife videos (of different sizes and postures) is feasible and particularly robust at near distances. From our project results we draw a number of conclusions that are discussed and summarized. We clearly identified the most critical challenges and necessary improvements of the proposed detection methods and conclude that our findings have the potential to form the basis for a future automated early warning system for elephants. We discuss challenges that need to be solved and summarize open topics in the context of

Lessons derived from two high-frequency sea level events in the Atlantic: implications for coastal risk analysis and tsunami detection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Begoña Pérez-Gómez

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The upgrade and enhancement of sea level networks worldwide for integration in sea level hazard warning systems have significantly increased the possibilities for measuring and analyzing high frequency sea level oscillations, with typical periods ranging from a few minutes to a few hours. Many tide gauges now afford 1 min or more frequent sampling and have shown such events to be a common occurrence. Their origins and spatial distribution are diverse and must be well understood in order to correctly design and interpret, for example, the automatic detection algorithms used by tsunami warning centers. Two events recorded recently in European Atlantic waters are analyzed here: possible wave-induced seiches that occurred along the North coast of Spain during the storms of January and February of 2014, and oscillations detected after an earthquake in the mid-Atlantic the 13th of February of 2015. The former caused significant flooding in towns and villages and a huge increase in wave-induced coastal damage that was reported in the media for weeks. The second was a smaller signal present in several tide gauges along the Atlantic coast that, that coincided with the occurrence of this earthquake, leading to a debate on the potential detection of a very small tsunami and how it might yield significant information for tsunami wave modelers and for the development of tsunami detection software. These kinds of events inform us about the limitations of automatic algorithms for tsunami warning and help to improve the information provided to tsunami warning centers, whilst also emphasizing the importance of other forcings in generating extreme sea levels and their associated potential for causing damage to infrastructure.

ShakeAlert—An earthquake early warning system for the United States west coast

Science.gov (United States)

Burkett, Erin R.; Given, Douglas D.; Jones, Lucile M.

2014-08-29

Earthquake early warning systems use earthquake science and the technology of monitoring systems to alert devices and people when shaking waves generated by an earthquake are expected to arrive at their location. The seconds to minutes of advance warning can allow people and systems to take actions to protect life and property from destructive shaking. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with several partners, has been working to develop an early warning system for the United States. ShakeAlert, a system currently under development, is designed to cover the West Coast States of California, Oregon, and Washington.

Tohoku-Oki Earthquake Tsunami Runup and Inundation Data for Sites Around the Island of Hawaiʻi

Science.gov (United States)

Trusdell, Frank A.; Chadderton, Amy; Hinchliffe, Graham; Hara, Andrew; Patenge, Brent; Weber, Tom

2012-01-01

At 0546 U.t.c. March 11, 2011, a Mw 9.0 ("great") earthquake occurred near the northeast coast of Honshu Island, Japan, generating a large tsunami that devastated the east coast of Japan and impacted many far-flung coastal sites around the Pacific Basin. After the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami alert for the State of Hawaii, followed by a tsunami-warning notice from the local State Civil Defense on March 10, 2011 (Japan is 19 hours ahead of Hawaii). After the waves passed the islands, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) measured inundation (maximum inland distance of flooding), runup (elevation at maximum extent of inundation) and took photographs in coastal areas around the Island of Hawaiʻi. Although the damage in West Hawaiʻi is well documented, HVO's mapping revealed that East Hawaiʻi coastlines were also impacted by the tsunami. The intent of this report is to provide runup and inundation data for sites around the Island of Hawaiʻi.

Reliability and effectiveness of early warning systems for natural hazards: Concept and application to debris flow warning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sättele, Martina; Bründl, Michael; Straub, Daniel

2015-01-01

Early Warning Systems (EWS) are increasingly applied to mitigate the risks posed by natural hazards. To compare the effect of EWS with alternative risk reduction measures and to optimize their design and operation, their reliability and effectiveness must be quantified. In the present contribution, a framework approach to the evaluation of threshold-based EWS for natural hazards is presented. The system reliability is classically represented by the Probability of Detection (POD) and Probability of False Alarms (PFA). We demonstrate how the EWS effectiveness, which is a measure of risk reduction, can be formulated as a function of POD and PFA. To model the EWS and compute the reliability, we develop a framework based on Bayesian Networks, which is further extended to a decision graph, facilitating the optimization of the warning system. In a case study, the framework is applied to the assessment of an existing debris flow EWS. The application demonstrates the potential of the framework for identifying the important factors influencing the effectiveness of the EWS and determining optimal warning strategies and system configurations. - Highlights: • Warning systems are increasingly applied measures to reduce natural hazard risks. • Bayesian Networks (BN) are powerful tools to quantify warning system's reliability. • The effectiveness is defined to assess the optimality of warning systems. • By extending BNs to decision graphs, the optimal warning strategy is identified. • Sensors positioning significantly influence the effectiveness of warning systems

Crisis management of tohoku; Japan earthquake and tsunami, 11 march 2011.

Science.gov (United States)

Zaré, M; Afrouz, S Ghaychi

2012-01-01

The huge earthquake in 11 March 2012 which followed by a destructive tsunami in Japan was largest recorded earthquake in the history. Japan is pioneer in disaster management, especially earthquakes. How this developed country faced this disaster, which had significant worldwide effects? The humanitarian behavior of the Japanese people amazingly wondered the word's media, meanwhile the management of government and authorities showed some deficiencies. The impact of the disaster is followed up after the event and the different impacts are tried to be analyzed in different sectors. The situation one year after Japan 2011 earthquake and Tsunami is overviewed. The reason of Japanese plans failure was the scale of tsunami, having higher waves than what was assumed, especially in the design of the Nuclear Power Plant. Japanese authorities considered economic benefits more than safety and moral factors exacerbate the situation. Major lessons to be learnt are 1) the effectiveness of disaster management should be restudied in all hazardous countries; 2) the importance of the high-Tech early-warning systems in reducing risk; 3) Reconsidering of extreme values expected/possible hazard and risk levels is necessary; 4) Morality and might be taken as an important factor in disaster management; 5) Sustainable development should be taken as the basis for reconstruction after disaster.

Application of τc*Pd in earthquake early warning

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Po-Lun; Lin, Ting-Li; Wu, Yih-Min

2015-03-01

Rapid assessment of damage potential and size of an earthquake at the station is highly demanded for onsite earthquake early warning. We study the application of τc*Pd for its estimation on the earthquake size using 123 events recorded by the borehole stations of KiK-net in Japan. The new type of earthquake size determined by τc*Pd is more related to the damage potential. We find that τc*Pd provides another parameter to measure the size of earthquake and the threshold to warn strong ground motion.

The Food Early Warning System Project in Somalia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leblanc, M.

1992-01-01

Full Text Available The article describes shortly the objectives of a Food Early Warning System (FEWS project, as well as its organisation. The specifie case of Somalia, where the project had to evolve in increasingly difficult situations, and the solutions used so as to preserve the output, are described.

Evolution of an Early Illness Warning System to Monitor Frail Elders in Independent Living

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gregory L. Alexander

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the evolution of an early illness warning system used by an interdisciplinary team composed of clinicians and engineers in an independent living facility. The early illness warning system consists of algorithms which analyze resident activity patterns obtained from sensors embedded in residents' apartments. The engineers designed an automated reasoning system to generate clinically relevant alerts which are sent to clinicians when significant changes occur in the sensor data, for example declining activity levels. During January 2010 through July 2010, clinicians and engineers conducted weekly iterative review cycles of the early illness warning system to discuss concerns about the functionality of the warning system, to recommend solutions for the concerns, and to evaluate the implementation of the solutions. A total of 45 concerns were reviewed during this period. Iterative reviews resulted in greater efficiencies and satisfaction for clinician users who were monitoring elder activity patterns.

Diagnosis and Early Warning of Wind Turbine Faults Based on Cluster Analysis Theory and Modified ANFIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Quan Zhou

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The construction of large-scale wind farms results in a dramatic increase of wind turbine (WT faults. The failure mode is also becoming increasingly complex. This study proposes a new model for early warning and diagnosis of WT faults to solve the problem of Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA systems, given that the traditional threshold method cannot provide timely warning. First, the characteristic quantity of fault early warning and diagnosis analyzed by clustering analysis can obtain in advance abnormal data in the normal threshold range by considering the effects of wind speed. Based on domain knowledge, Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS is then modified to establish the fault early warning and diagnosis model. This approach improves the accuracy of the model under the condition of absent and sparse training data. Case analysis shows that the effect of the early warning and diagnosis model in this study is better than that of the traditional threshold method.

The pathway to earthquake early warning in the US

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, R. M.; Given, D. D.; Heaton, T. H.; Vidale, J. E.; West Coast Earthquake Early Warning Development Team

2013-05-01

The development of earthquake early warning capabilities in the United States is now accelerating and expanding as the technical capability to provide warning is demonstrated and additional funding resources are making it possible to expand the current testing region to the entire west coast (California, Oregon and Washington). Over the course of the next two years we plan to build a prototype system that will provide a blueprint for a full public system in the US. California currently has a demonstrations warning system, ShakeAlert, that provides alerts to a group of test users from the public and private sector. These include biotech companies, technology companies, the entertainment industry, the transportation sector, and the emergency planning and response community. Most groups are currently in an evaluation mode, receiving the alerts and developing protocols for future response. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system is the one group who has now implemented an automated response to the warning system. BART now stops trains when an earthquake of sufficient size is detected. Research and development also continues to develop improved early warning algorithms to better predict the distribution of shaking in large earthquakes when the finiteness of the source becomes important. The algorithms under development include the use of both seismic and GPS instrumentation and integration with existing point source algorithms. At the same time, initial testing and development of algorithms in and for the Pacific Northwest is underway. In this presentation we will review the current status of the systems, highlight the new research developments, and lay out a pathway to a full public system for the US west coast. The research and development described is ongoing at Caltech, UC Berkeley, University of Washington, ETH Zurich, Southern California Earthquake Center, and the US Geological Survey, and is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the US Geological

Radiation early warning system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schmitzer, C.; Kloesch, W.; Stadtmann, H.

1993-01-01

A prototype station for a Radiation Early Warning Network has been designed and set up at the Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf. This unit was developed to measure all relevant parameters necessary to detect and track radioactive contamination at an early stage. The station consists of the following components: Radiation measuring channel for ambient gamma dose rate. Meteorological measurement channels for air temperature and humidity, wind direction and wind speed, and precipitation. Data processing and storage unit. The system is capable of unattended operation and data acquisition even under adverse environmental conditions. Connection to a central processing platform may be achieved via leased line, dial up over public switched telephone network (PSTN), or radio-frequency transmission. The remote station will continue acquiring and storing data for at least a month, even if the communications link is broken. Multiple stations can be combined to form a network, providing detailed information about radiological and meteorological data at each site. Thus increased ambient radiation levels may be discovered, tracked, and forecasted based on calculations using current and local weather data

HRAS: a webserver for early warning of human health risk brought by aflatoxin.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Ruifeng; Zeng, Xu; Gao, Weiwei; Wang, Qian; Liu, Zhihua

2013-02-01

Most people are aware that outdoor air pollution can damage their health, but many do not know that indoor air pollution can also exhibit significant negative health effects. Fungi parasitizing in air conditioning and ventilation systems can be one of indoor air pollution sources. Aflatoxin produced by Aspergillus flavus (A. flavus) became a central focus of indoor air pollution, especially in farmer markets. Therefore we developed an early warning system, Health Risk Assessment System, to estimate the growth rate of A. flavus, predict the amount of aflatoxin and provide early warning information. Firstly, the growth of A. flavus and the production of aflatoxin under different conditions were widely obtained through a comprehensive literature review. Secondly, three mathematical models were established to predict the A. flavus colony growth rate, lag phase duration and aflatoxin content, as functions of temperature and water activity based on present studies. Finally, all the results were evaluated by the user-supplied data using PHP programming language. We utilized the web page to show the results and display warning information. The JpGraph library was used to create a dynamic line chart, refreshing the warning information dynamically in real-time. The HARS provides accurate information for early warning purposes to let us take timely steps to protect ourselves.

Numerical Procedure to Forecast the Tsunami Parameters from a Database of Pre-Simulated Seismic Unit Sources

Science.gov (United States)

Jiménez, César; Carbonel, Carlos; Rojas, Joel

2018-04-01

We have implemented a numerical procedure to forecast the parameters of a tsunami, such as the arrival time of the front of the first wave and the maximum wave height in real and virtual tidal stations along the Peruvian coast, with this purpose a database of pre-computed synthetic tsunami waveforms (or Green functions) was obtained from numerical simulation of seismic unit sources (dimension: 50 × 50 km2) for subduction zones from southern Chile to northern Mexico. A bathymetry resolution of 30 arc-sec (approximately 927 m) was used. The resulting tsunami waveform is obtained from the superposition of synthetic waveforms corresponding to several seismic unit sources contained within the tsunami source geometry. The numerical procedure was applied to the Chilean tsunami of April 1, 2014. The results show a very good correlation for stations with wave amplitude greater than 1 m, in the case of the Arica tide station an error (from the maximum height of the observed and simulated waveform) of 3.5% was obtained, for Callao station the error was 12% and the largest error was in Chimbote with 53.5%, however, due to the low amplitude of the Chimbote wave (<1 m), the overestimated error, in this case, is not important for evacuation purposes. The aim of the present research is tsunami early warning, where speed is required rather than accuracy, so the results should be taken as preliminary.

Building regional early flood warning systems by AI techniques

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, F. J.; Chang, L. C.; Amin, M. Z. B. M.

2017-12-01

Building early flood warning system is essential for the protection of the residents against flood hazards and make actions to mitigate the losses. This study implements AI technology for forecasting multi-step-ahead regional flood inundation maps during storm events. The methodology includes three major schemes: (1) configuring the self-organizing map (SOM) to categorize a large number of regional inundation maps into a meaningful topology; (2) building dynamic neural networks to forecast multi-step-ahead average inundated depths (AID); and (3) adjusting the weights of the selected neuron in the constructed SOM based on the forecasted AID to obtain real-time regional inundation maps. The proposed models are trained, and tested based on a large number of inundation data sets collected in regions with the most frequent and serious flooding in the river basin. The results appear that the SOM topological relationships between individual neurons and their neighbouring neurons are visible and clearly distinguishable, and the hybrid model can continuously provide multistep-ahead visible regional inundation maps with high resolution during storm events, which have relatively small RMSE values and high R2 as compared with numerical simulation data sets. The computing time is only few seconds, and thereby leads to real-time regional flood inundation forecasting and make early flood inundation warning system. We demonstrate that the proposed hybrid ANN-based model has a robust and reliable predictive ability and can be used for early warning to mitigate flood disasters.

Flood Monitoring and Early Warning System Using Ultrasonic Sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Natividad, J. G.; Mendez, J. M.

2018-03-01

The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time flood monitoring and early warning system in the northern portion of the province of Isabela, particularly the municipalities near Cagayan River. Ultrasonic sensing techniques have become mature and are widely used in the various fields of engineering and basic science. One of advantage of ultrasonic sensing is its outstanding capability to probe inside objective non-destructively because ultrasound can propagate through any kinds of media including solids, liquids and gases. This study focuses only on the water level detection and early warning system (via website and/or SMS) that alerts concern agencies and individuals for a potential flood event. Furthermore, inquiry system is also included in this study to become more interactive wherein individuals in the community could inquire the actual water level and status of the desired area or location affected by flood thru SMS keyword. The study aims in helping citizens to be prepared and knowledgeable whenever there is a flood. The novelty of this work falls under the utilization of the Arduino, ultrasonic sensors, GSM module, web-monitoring and SMS early warning system in helping stakeholders to mitigate casualties related to flood. The paper envisions helping flood-prone areas which are common in the Philippines particularly to the local communities in the province. Indeed, it is relevant and important as per needs for safety and welfare of the community.

Validation of a Pediatric Early Warning Score in Hospitalized Pediatric Oncology and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Agulnik, Asya; Forbes, Peter W; Stenquist, Nicole; Rodriguez-Galindo, Carlos; Kleinman, Monica

2016-04-01

To evaluate the correlation of a Pediatric Early Warning Score with unplanned transfer to the PICU in hospitalized oncology and hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients. We performed a retrospective matched case-control study, comparing the highest documented Pediatric Early Warning Score within 24 hours prior to unplanned PICU transfers in hospitalized pediatric oncology and hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients between September 2011 and December 2013. Controls were patients who remained on the inpatient unit and were matched 2:1 using age, condition (oncology vs hematopoietic stem cell transplant), and length of hospital stay. Pediatric Early Warning Scores were documented by nursing staff at least every 4 hours as part of routine care. Need for transfer was determined by a PICU physician called to evaluate the patient. A large tertiary/quaternary free-standing academic children's hospital. One hundred ten hospitalized pediatric oncology patients (42 oncology, 68 hematopoietic stem cell transplant) requiring unplanned PICU transfer and 220 matched controls. None. Using the highest score in the 24 hours prior to transfer for cases and a matched time period for controls, the Pediatric Early Warning Score was highly correlated with the need for PICU transfer overall (area under the receiver operating characteristic = 0.96), and in the oncology and hematopoietic stem cell transplant groups individually (area under the receiver operating characteristic = 0.95 and 0.96, respectively). The difference in Pediatric Early Warning Score results between the cases and controls was noted as early as 24 hours prior to PICU admission. Seventeen patients died (15.4%). Patients with higher Pediatric Early Warning Scores prior to transfer had increased PICU mortality (p = 0.028) and length of stay (p = 0.004). We demonstrate that our institution's Pediatric Early Warning Score is highly correlated with the need for unplanned PICU transfer in hospitalized oncology and

New Perspective of Tsunami Deposit Investigations: Insight from the 1755 Lisbon Tsunami in Martinique, Lesser Antilles.

Science.gov (United States)

Roger, J.; Clouard, V.; Moizan, E.

2014-12-01

The recent devastating tsunamis having occurred during the last decades have highlighted the essential necessity to deploy operationnal warning systems and educate coastal populations. This could not be prepared correctly without a minimum knowledge about the tsunami history. That is the case of the Lesser Antilles islands, where a few handfuls of tsunamis have been reported over the past 5 centuries, some of them leading to notable destructions and inundations. But the lack of accurate details for most of the historical tsunamis and the limited period during which we could find written information represents an important problem for tsunami hazard assessment in this region. Thus, it is of major necessity to try to find other evidences of past tsunamis by looking for sedimentary deposits. Unfortunately, island tropical environments do not seem to be the best places to keep such deposits burried. In fact, heavy rainfalls, storms, and all other phenomena leading to coastal erosion, and associated to human activities such as intensive sugarcane cultivation in coastal flat lands, could caused the loss of potential tsunami deposits. Lots of places have been accurately investigated within the Lesser Antilles (from Sainte-Lucia to the British Virgin Islands) the last 3 years and nothing convincing has been found. That is when archeaological investigations excavated a 8-cm thick sandy and shelly layer in downtown Fort-de-France (Martinique), wedged between two well-identified layers of human origin (Fig. 1), that we found new hope: this sandy layer has been quickly attributed without any doubt to the 1755 tsunami, using on one hand the information provided by historical reports of the construction sites, and on the other hand by numerical modeling of the tsunami (wave heights, velocity fields, etc.) showing the ability of this transoceanic tsunami to wrap around the island after ~7 hours of propagation, enter Fort-de-France's Bay with enough energy to carry sediments, and

Earthquake Early Warning ShakeAlert System: Testing and certification platform

Science.gov (United States)

Cochran, Elizabeth S.; Kohler, Monica D.; Given, Douglas; Guiwits, Stephen; Andrews, Jennifer; Meier, Men-Andrin; Ahmad, Mohammad; Henson, Ivan; Hartog, Renate; Smith, Deborah

2017-01-01

Earthquake early warning systems provide warnings to end users of incoming moderate to strong ground shaking from earthquakes. An earthquake early warning system, ShakeAlert, is providing alerts to beta end users in the western United States, specifically California, Oregon, and Washington. An essential aspect of the earthquake early warning system is the development of a framework to test modifications to code to ensure functionality and assess performance. In 2016, a Testing and Certification Platform (TCP) was included in the development of the Production Prototype version of ShakeAlert. The purpose of the TCP is to evaluate the robustness of candidate code that is proposed for deployment on ShakeAlert Production Prototype servers. TCP consists of two main components: a real‐time in situ test that replicates the real‐time production system and an offline playback system to replay test suites. The real‐time tests of system performance assess code optimization and stability. The offline tests comprise a stress test of candidate code to assess if the code is production ready. The test suite includes over 120 events including local, regional, and teleseismic historic earthquakes, recentering and calibration events, and other anomalous and potentially problematic signals. Two assessments of alert performance are conducted. First, point‐source assessments are undertaken to compare magnitude, epicentral location, and origin time with the Advanced National Seismic System Comprehensive Catalog, as well as to evaluate alert latency. Second, we describe assessment of the quality of ground‐motion predictions at end‐user sites by comparing predicted shaking intensities to ShakeMaps for historic events and implement a threshold‐based approach that assesses how often end users initiate the appropriate action, based on their ground‐shaking threshold. TCP has been developed to be a convenient streamlined procedure for objectively testing algorithms, and it has

Checking of seismic and tsunami hazard for coastal NPP of Chinese continent after Fukushima nuclear accident

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Chang Xiangdong; Zhou Bengang; Zhao Lianda

2013-01-01

A checking on seismic and tsunami hazard for coastal nuclear power plant (NPP) of Chinese continent has been made after Japanese Fukushima nuclear accident caused by earthquake tsunami.The results of the checking are introduced briefly in this paper,including the evaluations of seismic and tsunami hazard in NPP siting period,checking results on seismic and tsunami hazard.Because Chinese coastal area belongs to the continental shelf and far from the boundary of plate collision,the tsunami hazard is not significant for coastal area of Chinese continent.However,the effect from tsunami still can' t be excluded absolutely since calculated result of Manila trench tsunami source although the tsunami wave is lower than water level from storm surge.The research about earthquake tsunami will continue in future.The tsunami warning system and emergency program of NPP will be established based on principle of defense in depth in China.

Human Response to Emergency Warning

Science.gov (United States)

Sorensen, J.

2009-12-01

Almost every day people evacuate from their homes, businesses or other sites, even ships, in response to actual or predicted threats or hazards. Evacuation is the primary protective action utilized in large-scale emergencies such as hurricanes, floods, tornados, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, or wildfires. Although often precautionary, protecting human lives by temporally relocating populations before or during times of threat remains a major emergency management strategy. One of the most formidable challenges facing emergency officials is evacuating residents for a fast-moving and largely unpredictable event such as a wildfire or a local tsunami. How to issue effective warnings to those at risk in time for residents to take appropriate action is an on-going problem. To do so, some communities have instituted advanced communications systems that include reverse telephone call-down systems or other alerting systems to notify at-risk residents of imminent threats. This presentation examines the effectiveness of using reverse telephone call-down systems for warning San Diego residents of wildfires in the October of 2007. This is the first systematic study conducted on this topic and is based on interviews with 1200 households in the evacuation areas.

Software for ASS-500 based early warning system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lipinski, P.; Isajenko, K.

1998-01-01

The article describes the software for the management of early warning system based on ASS-500 station. The software can communicate with the central computer using TCP/IP protocol. This allows remote control of the station through modem or local area network connection. The article describes Windows based user interface of the program

Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS). "Technical Descriptions of Risk Model Development": Early and Late Elementary Age Groupings (Grades 1-6)

Science.gov (United States)

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2013

2013-01-01

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Department) created the grades 1-12 Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) in response to district interest in the Early Warning Indicator Index (EWII) that the Department previously created for rising grade 9 students. Districts shared that the EWII data were helpful, but also…

Earthquake Early Warning Beta Users: Java, Modeling, and Mobile Apps

Science.gov (United States)

Strauss, J. A.; Vinci, M.; Steele, W. P.; Allen, R. M.; Hellweg, M.

2014-12-01

Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) is a system that can provide a few to tens of seconds warning prior to ground shaking at a user's location. The goal and purpose of such a system is to reduce, or minimize, the damage, costs, and casualties resulting from an earthquake. A demonstration earthquake early warning system (ShakeAlert) is undergoing testing in the United States by the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, Caltech, ETH Zurich, University of Washington, the USGS, and beta users in California and the Pacific Northwest. The beta users receive earthquake information very rapidly in real-time and are providing feedback on their experiences of performance and potential uses within their organization. Beta user interactions allow the ShakeAlert team to discern: which alert delivery options are most effective, what changes would make the UserDisplay more useful in a pre-disaster situation, and most importantly, what actions users plan to take for various scenarios. Actions could include: personal safety approaches, such as drop cover, and hold on; automated processes and procedures, such as opening elevator or fire stations doors; or situational awareness. Users are beginning to determine which policy and technological changes may need to be enacted, and funding requirements to implement their automated controls. The use of models and mobile apps are beginning to augment the basic Java desktop applet. Modeling allows beta users to test their early warning responses against various scenarios without having to wait for a real event. Mobile apps are also changing the possible response landscape, providing other avenues for people to receive information. All of these combine to improve business continuity and resiliency.

The Telemetric Early Warning Environmental Radiation Monitoring System of Cyprus

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Christofides, S [Medical Physics Department, Nicosia General Hospital, Nicosia (Cyprus)

1998-12-31

This paper presents the hardware design, the development of the software and the use of the Telemetric Early Warning Environmental Radiation Monitoring System (TEWERMS) of Cyprus. (author). 3 refs, 6 figs.

TRMM Applications for Rainfall-Induced Landslide Early Warning

Science.gov (United States)

Dok, A.; Fukuoka, H.; Hong, Y.

2012-04-01

Early warning system (EWS) is the most effective method in saving lives and reducing property damages resulted from the catastrophic landslides if properly implemented in populated areas of landslide-prone nations. For predicting the occurrence of landslides, it requires examination of empirical relationship between rainfall characteristics and past landslide occurrence. In developed countries like Japan and the US, precipitation is monitored by rain radars and ground-based rain gauge matrix. However, in developing regions like Southeast Asian countries, very limited number of rain gauges is available, and there is no implemented methodology for issuing effective warming of landslides yet. Correspondingly, satellite precipitation monitoring could be therefore a possible and promising solution for launching landslide quasi-real-time early warning system in those countries. It is due to the fact that TMPA (TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis) can provides a globally calibration-based sequential scheme for combining precipitation estimates from multiple satellites, and gauge analyses where feasible, at fine scales (3-hourly with 0.25°x0.25° spatial resolution). It is available both after and in quasi-real time, calibrated by TRMM Combined Instrument and TRMM Microwave Imager precipitation product. However, validation of ground based rain gauge and TRMM satellite data in the vulnerable regions is still not yet operative. Snake-line/Critical-line and Soil Water Index (SWI) are used for issuing warning of landslide occurrence in Japan; whereas, Caine criterion is preferable in Europe and western nations. Herewith, it presents rainfall behavior which took place in Beichuan city (located on the 2008 Chinese Wenchuan earthquake fault), Hofu and Shobara cities in Japan where localized heavy rainfall attacked in 2009 and 2010, respectively, from TRMM 3B42RT correlated with ground based rain gauge data. The 1-day rainfall intensity and 15-day cumulative rainfall

A real two-phase submarine debris flow and tsunami

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pudasaini, Shiva P.; Miller, Stephen A.

2012-01-01

submarine debris speed can be faster than the tsunami speed. This information can be useful for early warning strategies in the coastal regions. These findings substantially increase our understanding of complex multi-phase systems and multi-physics and flows, and allows for the proper modeling of landslide and debris induced tsunami, the dynamics of turbidity currents and sediment transport, and the associated applications to hazard mitigation, geomorphology and sedimentology.

A real two-phase submarine debris flow and tsunami

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pudasaini, Shiva P.; Miller, Stephen A. [Department of Geodynamics and Geophysics, Steinmann Institute, University of Bonn Nussallee 8, D-53115, Bonn (Germany)

2012-09-26

submarine debris speed can be faster than the tsunami speed. This information can be useful for early warning strategies in the coastal regions. These findings substantially increase our understanding of complex multi-phase systems and multi-physics and flows, and allows for the proper modeling of landslide and debris induced tsunami, the dynamics of turbidity currents and sediment transport, and the associated applications to hazard mitigation, geomorphology and sedimentology.

Basic study for tsunami detection with DBF ocean radar

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sakai, Shin'ichi; Matsuyama, Masafumi; Okuda, Kouzou; Uehara, Fumihiro

2015-01-01

To develop early tsunami warning system utilizing ocean radars, the evaluation of the variety of measuring coverage and data accuracy is indispensable in real oceans. The field observation was carried out at 5 minutes interval with two digital beam forming ocean radars with VHF band from 2012 to 2014 in the sea of Enshu. The high data acquisition areas are found in the extent of 17 km off the coast on a hill site and of 13 km on a low ground site. The measured current by the ocean radar were well correlated with that by the current-meter in the depth of 2 m near the coast with the correlation coefficient of ∼0.6. It is inferred that the main factor of difference in both data sets was due to the presence of wind-driven current through the multi-regression analysis with both current data and wind data. In addition, the order of the temporal current deviations as to the representative time-scale of one hour is about 5 cm/s under the ordinary sea conditions, which suggest that ocean radars could sufficiently detect the current deviation due to grant tsunami. (author)

Flood early warning system : Design, implementation and computational modules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Shirshov, G.S.; Melnikova, N.B.; Belleman, R.G.; Rusadi, F.I.; Broekhuijsen, B.J.; Gouldby, B.P.; Lhomme, J.; Balis, B.; Bubak, M.; Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Ozhigin, A.V.; Lang, B.; Meijer, R.J.

2011-01-01

We present a prototype of the flood early warning system (EWS) developed within the UrbanFlood FP7 project. The system monitors sensor networks installed in flood defenses (dikes, dams, embankments, etc.), detects sensor signal abnormalities, calculates dike failure probability, and simulates

Dynamic Critical Rainfall-Based Flash Flood Early Warning and Forecasting for Medium-Small Rivers

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Z.; Yang, D.; Hu, J.

2012-04-01

China is extremely frequent food disasters hit countries, annual flood season flash floods triggered by rainfall, mudslides, landslides have caused heavy casualties and property losses, not only serious threaten the lives of the masses, but the majority of seriously restricting the mountain hill areas of economic and social development and the people become rich, of building a moderately prosperous society goals. In the next few years, China will focus on prevention and control area in the flash flood disasters initially built "for the surveillance, communications, forecasting, early warning and other non-engineering measure based, non-engineering measures and the combinations of engineering measures," the mitigation system. The latest progresses on global torrential flood early warning and forecasting techniques are reviewed in this paper, and then an early warning and forecasting approach is proposed on the basis of a distributed hydrological model according to dynamic critical rainfall index. This approach has been applied in Suichuanjiang River basin in Jiangxi province, which is expected to provide valuable reference for building a national flash flood early warning and forecasting system as well as control of such flooding.

SAFRR Tsunami Scenarios and USGS-NTHMP Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, S.; Wood, N. J.; Cox, D. A.; Jones, L.; Cheung, K. F.; Chock, G.; Gately, K.; Jones, J. L.; Lynett, P. J.; Miller, K.; Nicolsky, D.; Richards, K.; Wein, A. M.; Wilson, R. I.

2015-12-01

Hazard scenarios provide emergency managers and others with information to help them prepare for future disasters. The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario, published in 2013, modeled a hypothetical but plausible tsunami, created by an Mw9.1 earthquake occurring offshore from the Alaskan peninsula, and its impacts on the California coast. It presented the modeled inundation areas, current velocities in key ports and harbors, physical damage and repair costs, economic consequences, environmental impacts, social vulnerability, emergency management, and policy implications for California associated with the scenario tsunami. The intended users were those responsible for making mitigation decisions before and those who need to make rapid decisions during future tsunamis. It provided the basis for many exercises involving, among others, NOAA, the State of Washington, several counties in California, and the National Institutes of Health. The scenario led to improvements in the warning protocol for southern California and highlighted issues that led to ongoing work on harbor and marina safety. Building on the lessons learned in the SAFRR Tsunami Scenario, another tsunami scenario is being developed with impacts to Hawaii and to the source region in Alaska, focusing on the evacuation issues of remote communities with primarily shore parallel roads, and also on the effects of port closures. Community exposure studies in Hawaii (Ratliff et al., USGS-SIR, 2015) provided background for selecting these foci. One complicated and important aspect of any hazard scenario is defining the source event. The USGS is building collaborations with the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) to consider issues involved in developing a standardized set of tsunami sources to support hazard mitigation work. Other key USGS-NTHMP collaborations involve population vulnerability and evacuation modeling.

Environmental Change & Fragile States Early Warning and Intervention

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-12

Natural Resources and Ecosystem Services] Sources: Adapted from Maslow , 1943; Butts as reported by Damonte, 2006 8  Research...how positions of competing interests will evolve. Synthesizes political science, microeconomics, game theory , decision theory , and spatial...explanation of why outcomes occur (actor motivations ) Senturion Software 19 Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS)  Developed By DARPA

Upgrade of the early warning system in Slovenia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sarvari, A.; Cindro, M.; Krizman, M.; Mitic, D.

2003-01-01

The main task of the Early Warning System in Slovenia is to warn the competent authorities of the increase of external radiation. Only an efficient Ewes can cope with the situation that we have in case of nuclear or radiation accident. For such purposes the measuring locations have to fulfil some basic radiation monitoring criteria (population density, distance from NPP, precipitation, land use). In this article the results of each criterion as well as the total set is described. The results of the applied criteria are presented with colour contour images. The purpose of this article is to allocate the critical areas on the territory of Slovenia that have to be considered in final determination of the appropriate measuring locations. (author)

Challenges for operational forecasting and early warning of rainfall induced landslides

Science.gov (United States)

Guzzetti, Fausto

2017-04-01

In many areas of the world, landslides occur every year, claiming lives and producing severe economic and environmental damage. Many of the landslides with human or economic consequences are the result of intense or prolonged rainfall. For this reason, in many areas the timely forecast of rainfall-induced landslides is of both scientific interest and social relevance. In the recent years, there has been a mounting interest and an increasing demand for operational landslide forecasting, and for associated landslide early warning systems. Despite the relevance of the problem, and the increasing interest and demand, only a few systems have been designed, and are currently operated. Inspection of the - limited - literature on operational landslide forecasting, and on the associated early warning systems, reveals that common criteria and standards for the design, the implementation, the operation, and the evaluation of the performances of the systems, are lacking. This limits the possibility to compare and to evaluate the systems critically, to identify their inherent strengths and weaknesses, and to improve the performance of the systems. Lack of common criteria and of established standards can also limit the credibility of the systems, and consequently their usefulness and potential practical impact. Landslides are very diversified phenomena, and the information and the modelling tools used to attempt landslide forecasting vary largely, depending on the type and size of the landslides, the extent of the geographical area considered, the timeframe of the forecasts, and the scope of the predictions. Consequently, systems for landslide forecasting and early warning can be designed and implemented at several different geographical scales, from the local (site or slope specific) to the regional, or even national scale. The talk focuses on regional to national scale landslide forecasting systems, and specifically on operational systems based on empirical rainfall threshold

An early warning system for groundwater pollution based on the assessment of groundwater pollution risks.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Weihong.; Zhao, Yongsheng; Hong, Mei; Guo, Xiaodong

2009-04-01

Groundwater pollution usually is complex and concealed, remediation of which is difficult, high cost, time-consuming, and ineffective. An early warning system for groundwater pollution is needed that detects groundwater quality problems and gets the information necessary to make sound decisions before massive groundwater quality degradation occurs. Groundwater pollution early warning were performed by considering comprehensively the current groundwater quality, groundwater quality varying trend and groundwater pollution risk . The map of the basic quality of the groundwater was obtained by fuzzy comprehensive evaluation or BP neural network evaluation. Based on multi-annual groundwater monitoring datasets, Water quality state in sometime of the future was forecasted using time-sequenced analyzing methods. Water quality varying trend was analyzed by Spearman's rank correlative coefficient.The relative risk map of groundwater pollution was estimated through a procedure that identifies, cell by cell,the values of three factors, that is inherent vulnerability, load risk of pollution source and contamination hazard. DRASTIC method was used to assess inherent vulnerability of aquifer. Load risk of pollution source was analyzed based on the potential of contamination and pollution degree. Assessment index of load risk of pollution source which involves the variety of pollution source, quantity of contaminants, releasing potential of pollutants, and distance were determined. The load risks of all sources considered by GIS overlay technology. Early warning model of groundwater pollution combined with ComGIS technology organically, the regional groundwater pollution early-warning information system was developed, and applied it into Qiqiha'er groundwater early warning. It can be used to evaluate current water quality, to forecast water quality changing trend, and to analyze space-time influencing range of groundwater quality by natural process and human activities. Keywords

An Envelope Based Feedback Control System for Earthquake Early Warning: Reality Check Algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Heaton, T. H.; Karakus, G.; Beck, J. L.

2016-12-01

Earthquake early warning systems are, in general, designed to be open loop control systems in such a way that the output, i.e., the warning messages, only depend on the input, i.e., recorded ground motions, up to the moment when the message is issued in real-time. We propose an algorithm, which is called Reality Check Algorithm (RCA), which would assess the accuracy of issued warning messages, and then feed the outcome of the assessment back into the system. Then, the system would modify its messages if necessary. That is, we are proposing to convert earthquake early warning systems into feedback control systems by integrating them with RCA. RCA works by continuously monitoring and comparing the observed ground motions' envelopes to the predicted envelopes of Virtual Seismologist (Cua 2005). Accuracy of magnitude and location (both spatial and temporal) estimations of the system are assessed separately by probabilistic classification models, which are trained by a Sparse Bayesian Learning technique called Automatic Relevance Determination prior.

Flood and landslide warning based on rainfall thresholds and soil moisture indexes: the HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System) for Sicily

Science.gov (United States)

Brigandì, Giuseppina; Tito Aronica, Giuseppe; Bonaccorso, Brunella; Gueli, Roberto; Basile, Giuseppe

2017-09-01

The main focus of the paper is to present a flood and landslide early warning system, named HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System), specifically developed for the Civil Protection Department of Sicily, based on the combined use of rainfall thresholds, soil moisture modelling and quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF). The warning system is referred to 9 different Alert Zones in which Sicily has been divided into and based on a threshold system of three different increasing critical levels: ordinary, moderate and high. In this system, for early flood warning, a Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) model provides daily soil moisture conditions, which allow to select a specific set of three rainfall thresholds, one for each critical level considered, to be used for issue the alert bulletin. Wetness indexes, representative of the soil moisture conditions of a catchment, are calculated using a simple, spatially-lumped rainfall-streamflow model, based on the SCS-CN method, and on the unit hydrograph approach, that require daily observed and/or predicted rainfall, and temperature data as input. For the calibration of this model daily continuous time series of rainfall, streamflow and air temperature data are used. An event based lumped rainfall-runoff model has been, instead, used for the derivation of the rainfall thresholds for each catchment in Sicily characterised by an area larger than 50 km2. In particular, a Kinematic Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph based lumped rainfall-runoff model with the SCS-CN routine for net rainfall was developed for this purpose. For rainfall-induced shallow landslide warning, empirical rainfall thresholds provided by Gariano et al. (2015) have been included in the system. They were derived on an empirical basis starting from a catalogue of 265 shallow landslides in Sicily in the period 2002-2012. Finally, Delft-FEWS operational forecasting platform has been applied to link input data, SMA model and rainfall threshold models to produce

Flood and landslide warning based on rainfall thresholds and soil moisture indexes: the HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System for Sicily

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Brigandì

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The main focus of the paper is to present a flood and landslide early warning system, named HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System, specifically developed for the Civil Protection Department of Sicily, based on the combined use of rainfall thresholds, soil moisture modelling and quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF. The warning system is referred to 9 different Alert Zones in which Sicily has been divided into and based on a threshold system of three different increasing critical levels: ordinary, moderate and high. In this system, for early flood warning, a Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA model provides daily soil moisture conditions, which allow to select a specific set of three rainfall thresholds, one for each critical level considered, to be used for issue the alert bulletin. Wetness indexes, representative of the soil moisture conditions of a catchment, are calculated using a simple, spatially-lumped rainfall–streamflow model, based on the SCS-CN method, and on the unit hydrograph approach, that require daily observed and/or predicted rainfall, and temperature data as input. For the calibration of this model daily continuous time series of rainfall, streamflow and air temperature data are used. An event based lumped rainfall–runoff model has been, instead, used for the derivation of the rainfall thresholds for each catchment in Sicily characterised by an area larger than 50 km2. In particular, a Kinematic Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph based lumped rainfall–runoff model with the SCS-CN routine for net rainfall was developed for this purpose. For rainfall-induced shallow landslide warning, empirical rainfall thresholds provided by Gariano et al. (2015 have been included in the system. They were derived on an empirical basis starting from a catalogue of 265 shallow landslides in Sicily in the period 2002–2012. Finally, Delft-FEWS operational forecasting platform has been applied to link input data, SMA model and rainfall

Strategic framework for socioeconomic viability of community-based early warning system

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Homberg, M.J.C. van den; Posthumus, A.L.

2014-01-01

Christian Aid, Cordaid, PVGS and Practical Action established a community-based early warning system for cross-border floods between India and Nepal in 45 Indian villages. The project will scale to 95 villages early 2016. The number of stakeholders and organizational levels of this system with four

Early warnings : a phenomenon in project management

OpenAIRE

Nikander, Ilmari O.

2002-01-01

The emergence of Concurrent Engineering has caused growing demands on project management. The classic project management methods are often slow: problems may already exist when those methods are applied. The objective of the present study is to improve the opportunities of those responsible for a project's operational management to receive advance information about potential problems and final results through early warnings typical of the theory of weak signals by Igor Ansoff. The researc...

Global Drought Services: Collaborations Toward an Information System for Early Warning

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, M. J.; Pulwarty, R. S.; Svoboda, M.

2014-12-01

Drought is a hazard that lends itself well to diligent, sustained monitoring and early warning. However, unlike most hazards, the fact that droughts typically evolve slowly, can last for months or years and cover vast areas spanning multiple political boundaries/jurisdictions and economic sectors can make it a daunting task to monitor, develop plans for, and identify appropriate, proactive mitigation strategies. The National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) have been working together to reduce societal vulnerability to drought by helping decision makers at all levels to: 1) implement drought early warning/forecasting and decision support systems; 2) support and advocate for better collection of, and understanding of drought impacts; and 3) increase long-term resilience to drought through proactive planning. The NDMC and NIDIS risk management approach has been the basis from which many partners around the world are developing a collaboration and coordination nexus with an ultimate goal of building comprehensive global drought early warning information systems (GDEWIS). The core emphasis of this model is on developing and applying useful and usable information that can be integrated and transferred freely to other regions around the globe. The High-Level Ministerial Declaration on Drought, the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) co-led by the WMO and the Global Water Partnership (GWP), and the Global Framework for Climate Services are drawing extensively from the integrated NDMC-NIDIS risk management framework. This presentation will describe, in detail, the various drought resources, tools, services, and collaborations already being provided and undertaken at the national and regional scales by the NDMC, NIDIS, and their partners. The presentation will be forward-looking, identifying improvements in existing and proposed mechanisms to help strengthen national and international drought early

Main components and characteristics of landslide early warning systems operational worldwide

Science.gov (United States)

Piciullo, Luca; Cepeda, José

2017-04-01

During the last decades the number of victims and economic losses due to natural hazards are dramatically increased worldwide. The reason can be mainly ascribed to climate changes and urbanization in areas exposed at high level of risk. Among the many mitigation measures available for reducing the risk to life related to natural hazards, early warning systems certainly constitute a significant cost-effective option available to the authorities in charge of risk management and governance. The aim is to help and protect populations exposed to natural hazards, reducing fatalities when major events occur. Landslide is one of the natural hazards addressed by early warning systems. Landslide early warning systems (LEWSs) are mainly composed by the following four components: set-up, correlation laws, decisional algorithm and warning management. Within this framework, the set-up includes all the preliminary actions and choices necessary for designing a LEWS, such as: the area covered by the system, the types of landslides and the monitoring instruments. The monitoring phase provides a series of important information on different variables, considered as triggering factors for landslides, in order to define correlation laws and thresholds. Then, a decisional algorithm is necessary for defining the: number of warning levels to be employed in the system, decision making procedures, and everything else system managers may need for issuing warnings in different warning zones. Finally the warning management is composed by: monitoring and warning strategy; communication strategy; emergency plan and, everything connected to the social sphere. Among LEWSs operational worldwide, two categories can be defined as a function of the scale of analysis: "local" and "territorial" systems. The scale of analysis influences several actions and aspects connected to the design and employment of the system, such as: the actors involved, the monitoring systems, type of landslide phenomena

A European precipitation index for extreme rain-storm and flash flood early warning

OpenAIRE

ALFIERI LORENZO; THIELEN DEL POZO Jutta

2012-01-01

Extreme rain-storms are known for triggering devastating flash floods in various regions of Europe and particularly along the Mediterranean coasts. Despite recent notable advances in weather forecasting, most operational early warning systems for extreme rainstorms and flash floods are based on rainfall estimation, rather than on forecasts. As a result, warning lead times are bounded to few hours and warnings are usually issued when the event is already taking place. This work proposes a n...

Waves of Hope: The U.S. Navy's Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Elleman, Bruce A

2007-01-01

The powerful underwater earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra on 26 December 2004 generated the most destructive tsunami ever recorded, drowning more than 150,000 people without warning...

Performance Analysis of a Citywide Real-time Landslide Early Warning System in Korea

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Joon-Young; Lee, Seung-Rae; Kang, Sinhang; Lee, Deuk-hwan; Nedumpallile Vasu, Nikhil

2017-04-01

Rainfall-induced landslide has been one of the major disasters in Korea since the beginning of 21st century when the global climate change started to give rise to the growth of the magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events. In order to mitigate the increasing damage to properties and loss of lives and to provide an effective tool for public officials to manage the landslide disasters, a real-time landslide early warning system with an advanced concept has been developed by taking into account for Busan, the second largest metropolitan city in Korea, as an operational test-bed. The system provides with warning information based on a five-level alert scheme (Normal, Attention, Watch, Alert, and Emergency) using the forecasted/observed rainfall data or the data obtained from ground monitoring (volumetric water content and matric suction). The alert levels are determined by applying seven different thresholds in a step-wise manner following a decision tree. In the pursuit of improved reliability of an early warning level assigned to a specific area, the system makes assessments repetitively using the thresholds of different theoretical backgrounds including statistical(empirical), physically-based, and mathematical analyses as well as direct measurement-based approaches. By mapping the distribution of the five early warning levels determined independently for each of tens of millions grids covering the entire mountainous area of Busan, the regional-scale system can also provide with the early warning information for a specific local area. The fact that the highest warning level is determined by using a concept of a numerically-modelled potential debris-flow risk is another distinctive feature of the system. This study tested the system performance by applying it for four previous rainy seasons in order to validate the operational applicability. During the rainy seasons of 2009, 2011, and 2014, the number of landslides recorded throughout Busan's territory

Development of Early Warning Methods for Electric Power Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jóhannsson, Hjörtur

This thesis concerns the development of methods that can provide, in realtime, an early warning for an emerging blackout in electric power systems. The blackout in E-Denmark and S-Sweden on September 23, 2003 is the main motivation for the method development. The blackout was caused by occurrence...

Sensitivity to selected contaminants in a biological early warning ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Several early warning systems for the monitoring of water quality are based on the assessment of valve opening/closing in bivalves. Tests were conducted to assess the sensitivity of the mussel Anodonta woodiana, installed on the Mosselmonitor, to seven contaminants and evaluate the usefulness of these sensors for ...

Ocean-bottom pressure changes above a fault area for tsunami excitation and propagation observed by a submarine dense network

Science.gov (United States)

Yomogida, K.; Saito, T.

2017-12-01

motions from near-fault pressure gauge data immediately after the earthquake occurs, in the sense of tsunami early warning systems.

Development of Generic Tools for Coastal Early Warning and Decision Support

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bogaard Tom

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Recent and historic high-impact events demonstrated coastal risk (Xynthia, Europe, 2010; Katrina, USA, 2005. This is only to get worse, because risk is increasing due to increase in both hazard intensity, frequency and increase in consequences (increased coastal development. Adaptation requires a re-evaluation of coastal disaster risk reduction (DRR strategies and a new mix of prevention, mitigation (e.g. limiting construction in flood-prone areas and preparedness (e.g. Early warning systems, EWS measures. Within the EU funded project RISC-KIT the focus is on preparedness measures and its aim is to demonstrate robustness and applicability of coastal EWS (Early Warning Systems and DSS (Decision Support Systems. Delft-FEWS, a generic tool for Early Warning Systems has been extended, to be applied at sites all across Europe. The challenges for developing a modern EWS are found in the integration of large data sets, specialised modules to process the data, and open interfaces to allow easy integration of existing modelling capacities. In response to these challenges, Delft-FEWS provides a state of the art EWS framework, which is highly customizable to the specific requirements of an individual organisation. For ten case study sites on all EU regional seas a EWS has been developed, to provide real-time (short-term forecasts and early warnings. The EWS component is a 2D model framework of hydro-meteo and morphological models which computes hazard intensities. The total expected impact of a hazard can be obtained by using a Bayesian network DSS. This DSS, which is incorporated in the Delft-FEWS platform is a tool that links coastal multi-hazards to their socioeconomic and environmental consequences. An important innovation of the EWS/DSS lies in its application in dual mode: as a forecast and warning system and as a consistent ex-ante planning tool to evaluate the long-term vulnerability due to multiple (low-frequency coastal hazards, under various

Integrating Caribbean Seismic and Tsunami Hazard into Public Policy and Action

Science.gov (United States)

von Hillebrandt-Andrade, C.

2012-12-01

processes. For example, earthquake and tsunami exercises are conducted separately, without taking into consideration the compounding effects. Recognizing this deficiency, the UNESCO IOC Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (CARIBE EWS) which was established in 2005, decided to include the tsunami and earthquake impacts for the upcoming March 20, 2013 regional CARIBE WAVE/LANTEX tsunami exercise. In addition to the tsunami wave heights predicted by the National Weather Service Tsunami Warning Centers in Alaska and Hawaii, the USGS PAGER and SHAKE MAP results for the M8.5 scenario earthquake in the southern Caribbean were also integrated into the manual. Additionally, in recent catastrophic planning for Puerto Rico, FEMA did request the local researchers to determine both the earthquake and tsunami impacts for the same source. In the US, despite that the lead for earthquakes and tsunamis lies within two different agencies, USGS and NOAA/NWS, it has been very beneficial that the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program partnership includes both agencies. By working together, the seismic and tsunami communities can achieve an even better understanding of the hazards, but also foster more actions on behalf of government officials and the populations at risk.

Research on the Risk Early Warning Method of Material Supplier Performance in Power Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Peng; Zhang, Xi

2018-01-01

The early warning of supplier performance risk is still in the initial stage interiorly, and research on the early warning mechanism to identify, analyze and prevent the performance risk is few. In this paper, a new method aiming at marerial supplier performance risk in power industry is proposed, firstly, establishing a set of risk early warning indexes, Then use the ECM method to classify the indexes to form different risk grades. Then, improving Crock Ford risk quantization model by considering three indicators, including the stability of power system, economic losses and successful bid ratio to form the predictive risk grade, and ultimately using short board effect principle to form the ultimate risk grade to truly reflect the supplier performance risk. Finally, making empirical analysis on supplier performance and putting forward the counter measures and prevention strategies for different risks.

Early warning scores: a sign of deterioration in patients and systems

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Fox, A

2015-02-01

The early warning score is a decision-making tool that has a simple design, yet its implementation in healthcare organisations is proving complex. This article reports the results of a survey that evaluated the nurses’ experiences of using the NEWS (National Early Warning Score) in an acute hospital in Ireland. Staff reported that the NEWS was easy to use, did not increase workload and enhanced their ability to identify deteriorating patients. However, they also identified problems related to doctors’ delayed response times, doctors lack of training in the use of the tool, and a failure by doctors to modify parameters for patients with chronic conditions. NEWS enhances nurses’ role in early detection of patient deterioration but delays in response times by doctors, exposes systematic flaws in healthcare. This suggests that it is not only an indicator of patient deterioration but also of deteriorating healthcare systems.

Recent Advances in Optical Biosensors for Environmental Monitoring and Early Warning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Zhu

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The growing number of pollutants requires the development of innovative analytical devices that are precise, sensitive, specific, rapid, and easy-to-use to meet the increasing demand for legislative actions on environmental pollution control and early warning. Optical biosensors, as a powerful alternative to conventional analytical techniques, enable the highly sensitive, real-time, and high-frequency monitoring of pollutants without extensive sample preparation. This article reviews important advances in functional biorecognition materials (e.g., enzymes, aptamers, DNAzymes, antibodies and whole cells that facilitate the increasing application of optical biosensors. This work further examines the significant improvements in optical biosensor instrumentation and their environmental applications. Innovative developments of optical biosensors for environmental pollution control and early warning are also discussed.

Effect of Variable Manning Coefficients on Tsunami Inundation

Science.gov (United States)

Barberopoulou, A.; Rees, D.

2017-12-01

Numerical simulations are commonly used to help estimate tsunami hazard, improve evacuation plans, issue or cancel tsunami warnings, inform forecasting and hazard assessments and have therefore become an integral part of hazard mitigation among the tsunami community. Many numerical codes exist for simulating tsunamis, most of which have undergone extensive benchmarking and testing. Tsunami hazard or risk assessments employ these codes following a deterministic or probabilistic approach. Depending on the scope these studies may or may not consider uncertainty in the numerical simulations, the effects of tides, variable friction or estimate financial losses, none of which are necessarily trivial. Distributed manning coefficients, the roughness coefficients used in hydraulic modeling, are commonly used in simulating both riverine and pluvial flood events however, their use in tsunami hazard assessments is primarily part of limited scope studies and for the most part, not a standard practice. For this work, we investigate variations in manning coefficients and their effects on tsunami inundation extent, pattern and financial loss. To assign manning coefficients we use land use maps that come from the New Zealand Land Cover Database (LCDB) and more recent data from the Ministry of the Environment. More than 40 classes covering different types of land use are combined into major classes such as cropland, grassland and wetland representing common types of land use in New Zealand, each of which is assigned a unique manning coefficient. By utilizing different data sources for variable manning coefficients, we examine the impact of data sources and classification methodology on the accuracy of model outputs.

Worse, Not Better?’ Reinvigorating Early Warning For Conflict Prevention In The Post Lisbon European Union

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

de Franco, Chiara; Meyer, Christoph O.; Brante, John

it right all of the time. However, we advance a number of recommendations addressed primarily to the EU, which could help to mitigate some of the problems obstructing warning for early action: • to reinvigorate its commitments to conflict prevention and ring-fence institutional resources against competing...... Representatives to avoid the bottleneck problem; • to lend more financial and intelligence support to regional and local early warning systems/NGOs, particularly those which integrate warning and response under one roof. Our paper also addresses the growing importance of the news media and nongovernmental...... in order to challenge some of the disincentives to act on the part of governments and the EU. NGOs also play an important role in holding decisionmakers to account for failing to act despite early, clear and well-substantiated warnings. In order to enhance the role of NGOs and the news media we recommend...

PRESSCA: A regional operative Early Warning System for landslides risk scenario assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Ponziani, Francesco; Stelluti, Marco; Berni, Nicola; Brocca, Luca; Moramarco, Tommaso

2013-04-01

The Italian national alert system for the hydraulic and hydrogeological risk is ensured by the National Civil Protection Department, through the "Functional Centres" Network, together with scientific/technical Support Centres, named "Competence Centres". The role of the Functional Centres is to alert regional/national civil protection network, to manage the prediction and the monitoring phases, thus ensuring the flow of data for the management of the emergency. The Umbria regional alerting procedure is based on three increasing warning levels of criticality for 6 sub-areas (~1200 km²). Specifically, for each duration (from 1 to 48 hours), three criticality levels are assigned to the rainfall values corresponding to a recurrence interval of 2, 5, and 10 years. In order to improve confidence on the daily work for hydrogeological risk assessment and management, a simple and operational early warning system for the prediction of shallow landslide triggering on regional scale was implemented. The system is primarily based on rainfall thresholds, which represent the main element of evaluation for the early-warning procedures of the Italian Civil Protection system. Following previous studies highlighting that soil moisture conditions play a key role on landslide triggering, a continuous physically-based soil water balance model was implemented for the estimation of soil moisture conditions over the whole regional territory. In fact, a decreasing trend between the cumulated rainfall values over 24, 36 and 48 hours and the soil moisture conditions prior to past landslide events was observed. This trend provides an easy-to-use tool to dynamically adjust the operational rainfall thresholds with the soil moisture conditions simulated by the soil water balance model prior to rainfall events. The application of this procedure allowed decreasing the uncertainties tied to the application of the rainfall thresholds only. The system is actually operational in real-time and it was

The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario: from Publication to Implementation

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, S.; Jones, L.; Miller, K.; Wilson, R. I.; Burkett, E. R.; Bwarie, J.; Campbell, N. M.; Johnson, L. A.; Long, K.; Lynett, P. J.; Perry, S. C.; Plumlee, G. S.; Porter, K.; Real, C. R.; Ritchie, L. A.; Wein, A. M.; Whitmore, P.; Wood, N. J.

2014-12-01

The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario modeled a hypothetical but plausible tsunami, created by an Mw9.1 earthquake occurring offshore from the Alaskan peninsula, and its impacts on the California coast. We presented the likely inundation areas, current velocities in key ports and harbors, physical damage and repair costs, economic consequences, environmental impacts, social vulnerability, emergency management, and policy implications for California associated with the scenario tsunami. The intended users were those responsible for making mitigation decisions before and those who need to make rapid decisions during future tsunamis. The Tsunami Scenario process is being evaluated by the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Center; this is the first time that a USGS scenario of this scale has been formally and systematically evaluated by an external party. The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario was publicly introduced in September, 2013, through a series of regional workshops in California that brought together emergency managers, maritime authorities, first responders, elected officials and staffers, the business sector, state agencies, local media, scientific partners, and special districts such as utilities (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2013/1170/). In March, 2014, NOAA's annual tsunami warning exercise, PACIFEX, was based on the SAFRR Tsunami Scenario. Many groups conducted exercises associated with PACIFEX including the State of Washington and several counties in California. San Francisco had the most comprehensive exercise with a 3-day functional exercise based on the SAFRR Tsunami Scenario. In addition, the National Institutes of Health ran an exercise at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in April, 2014, building on the Tsunami Scenario, focusing on the recovery phase and adding a refinery fire. The benefits and lessons learned include: 1) stimulating dialogue among practitioners to solve problems; 2) seeing groups add extra components to their exercises that best address their

Recommendations to harmonize European early warning dosimetry network systems

Science.gov (United States)

Dombrowski, H.; Bleher, M.; De Cort, M.; Dabrowski, R.; Neumaier, S.; Stöhlker, U.

2017-12-01

After the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986, followed by the Fukushima Nuclear power plant accident 25 years later, it became obvious that real-time information is required to quickly gain radiological information. As a consequence, the European countries established early warning network systems with the aim to provide an immediate warning in case of a major radiological emergency, to supply reliable information on area dose rates, contamination levels, radioactivity concentrations in air and finally to assess public exposure. This is relevant for governmental decisions on intervention measures in an emergency situation. Since different methods are used by national environmental monitoring systems to measure area dose rate values and activity concentrations, there are significant differences in the results provided by different countries. Because European and neighboring countries report area dose rate data to a central data base operated on behalf of the European Commission, the comparability of the data is crucial for its meaningful interpretation, especially in the case of a nuclear accident with transboundary implications. Only by harmonizing measuring methods and data evaluation, is the comparability of the dose rate data ensured. This publication concentrates on technical requirements and methods with the goal to effectively harmonize area dose rate monitoring data provided by automatic early warning network systems. The requirements and procedures laid down in this publication are based on studies within the MetroERM project, taking into account realistic technical approaches and tested procedures.

The Making of a Tsunami Hazard Map: Lessons Learned from the TSUMAPS-NEAM Project

Science.gov (United States)

Basili, R.

2017-12-01

Following the worldwide surge of awareness toward tsunami hazard and risk in the last decade, Europe has promoted a better understanding of the tsunami phenomenon through research projects (e.g. TRANSFER, ASTARTE) and started programs for preventing the tsunami impact along the coastlines of the North-East Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected Seas (NEAM) region (e.g. the Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System, NEAMTWS, coordinated by IOC/UNESCO). An indispensable tool toward long-term coastal planning and an effective design and subsequent use of TWS is the availability of a comprehensive Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA). The TSUMAPS-NEAM project took the pledge of producing the first region-wide long-term homogenous PTHA map from earthquake sources. The hazard assessment was built upon state-of-the-art procedures and standards, enriched by some rather innovative/experimental approaches such as: (1) the statistical treatment of potential seismic sources, combining all the available information (seismicity, moment tensors, tectonics), and considering earthquakes occurring on major crustal faults and subduction interfaces; (2) an intensive computational approach to tsunami generation and linear propagation across the sea up to an offshore fixed depth; (3) the use of approximations for shoaling and inundation, based on local bathymetry, and for tidal stages; and (4) the exploration of several alternatives for the basic input data and their parameters which produces a number of models that are treated through an ensemble uncertainty quantification. This presentation will summarize the TSUMAPS-NEAM project goals, implementation, and achieved results, as well as the humps and bumps we run into during its development. The TSUMAPS-NEAM Project (http://www.tsumaps-neam.eu/) is co-financed by the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, Agreement Number: ECHO/SUB/2015/718568/PREV26.

The comparison of modified early warning score and Glasgow coma ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2016-02-08

Feb 8, 2016 ... 4‑week mortality, for the patients being in the triage category 1 and 2 who refer to Emergency ... early warning scoring system (EWS) was defined by Morgan et al. on .... method in identifying the risky patients, since there are.

Big data managing in a landslide early warning system: experience from a ground-based interferometric radar application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Intrieri

2017-10-01

Full Text Available A big challenge in terms or landslide risk mitigation is represented by increasing the resiliency of society exposed to the risk. Among the possible strategies with which to reach this goal, there is the implementation of early warning systems. This paper describes a procedure to improve early warning activities in areas affected by high landslide risk, such as those classified as critical infrastructures for their central role in society. This research is part of the project LEWIS (Landslides Early Warning Integrated System: An Integrated System for Landslide Monitoring, Early Warning and Risk Mitigation along Lifelines. LEWIS is composed of a susceptibility assessment methodology providing information for single points and areal monitoring systems, a data transmission network and a data collecting and processing center (DCPC, where readings from all monitoring systems and mathematical models converge and which sets the basis for warning and intervention activities. The aim of this paper is to show how logistic issues linked to advanced monitoring techniques, such as big data transfer and storing, can be dealt with compatibly with an early warning system. Therefore, we focus on the interaction between an areal monitoring tool (a ground-based interferometric radar and the DCPC. By converting complex data into ASCII strings and through appropriate data cropping and average, and by implementing an algorithm for line-of-sight correction, we managed to reduce the data daily output without compromising the capability for performing.

Big data managing in a landslide early warning system: experience from a ground-based interferometric radar application

Science.gov (United States)

Intrieri, Emanuele; Bardi, Federica; Fanti, Riccardo; Gigli, Giovanni; Fidolini, Francesco; Casagli, Nicola; Costanzo, Sandra; Raffo, Antonio; Di Massa, Giuseppe; Capparelli, Giovanna; Versace, Pasquale

2017-10-01

A big challenge in terms or landslide risk mitigation is represented by increasing the resiliency of society exposed to the risk. Among the possible strategies with which to reach this goal, there is the implementation of early warning systems. This paper describes a procedure to improve early warning activities in areas affected by high landslide risk, such as those classified as critical infrastructures for their central role in society. This research is part of the project LEWIS (Landslides Early Warning Integrated System): An Integrated System for Landslide Monitoring, Early Warning and Risk Mitigation along Lifelines. LEWIS is composed of a susceptibility assessment methodology providing information for single points and areal monitoring systems, a data transmission network and a data collecting and processing center (DCPC), where readings from all monitoring systems and mathematical models converge and which sets the basis for warning and intervention activities. The aim of this paper is to show how logistic issues linked to advanced monitoring techniques, such as big data transfer and storing, can be dealt with compatibly with an early warning system. Therefore, we focus on the interaction between an areal monitoring tool (a ground-based interferometric radar) and the DCPC. By converting complex data into ASCII strings and through appropriate data cropping and average, and by implementing an algorithm for line-of-sight correction, we managed to reduce the data daily output without compromising the capability for performing.

Early warning signals of abrupt temperature change in different regions of China over the past 50 years

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tong Ji-Long; Wu Hao; Hou Wei; He Wen-Ping; Zhou Jie

2014-01-01

In this paper, the early warning signals of abrupt temperature change in different regions of China are investigated. Seven regions are divided on the basis of different climate temperature patterns, obtained through the rotated empirical orthogonal function, and the signal-to-noise temperature ratios for each region are then calculated. Based on the concept of critical slowing down, the temperature data that contain noise in the different regions of China are preprocessed to study the early warning signals of abrupt climate change. First, the Mann–Kendall method is used to identify the instant of abrupt climate change in the temperature data. Second, autocorrelation coefficients that can identify critical slowing down are calculated. The results show that the critical slowing down phenomenon appeared in temperature data about 5–10 years before abrupt climate change occurred, which indicates that the critical slowing down phenomenon is a possible early warning signal for abrupt climate change, and that noise has less influence on the detection results of the early warning signals. Accordingly, this demonstrates that the model is reliable in identifying the early warning signals of abrupt climate change based on detecting the critical slowing down phenomenon, which provides an experimental basis for the actual application of the method. (geophysics, astronomy, and astrophysics)

Partial discharge early-warning through ultraviolet spectroscopic detection of SO2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao, Yu; Wang, Xianpei; Dai, Dangdang; Dong, Zhengcheng; Huang, Yunguang

2014-01-01

Surveillance of SF 6  decomposition products is significant for detection of partial discharge (PD) in gas insulation switchgear (GIS). As a basis in on-site detection and diagnosis, PD early-warning aims to quickly find the abnormalities using a simple and cheap device. In this paper, SO 2  is chosen as a feature product and detected through ultraviolet spectroscopy. The derivative method is employed for baseline correction and spectral enhancement. The standard gases of the main decomposition products are qualitatively and quantitatively detected. Then decomposition experiments with different defects are designed to further verify the feasibility. As a stable decomposition product under PD, SO 2  is proved to be applicable for PD early-warning in the field. By selecting the appropriate wavelength range, namely 290–310 nm, ultraviolet derivative spectroscopy is sensitive enough to the trace SO 2  in the decomposed gas and the interference of other products can be avoided. Fast Fourier transform could be used for feature extraction in qualitative detection. Concentrations of SO 2  and other by-products increase with increasing discharge time and could be affected by the discharge energy and PD type. Ultraviolet detection based on SO 2  is effective for PD early-warning but the threshold should still be carefully selected in practice. (paper)

Near-field hazard assessment of March 11, 2011 Japan Tsunami sources inferred from different methods

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Y.; Titov, V.V.; Newman, A.; Hayes, G.; Tang, L.; Chamberlin, C.

2011-01-01

Tsunami source is the origin of the subsequent transoceanic water waves, and thus the most critical component in modern tsunami forecast methodology. Although impractical to be quantified directly, a tsunami source can be estimated by different methods based on a variety of measurements provided by deep-ocean tsunameters, seismometers, GPS, and other advanced instruments, some in real time, some in post real-time. Here we assess these different sources of the devastating March 11, 2011 Japan tsunami by model-data comparison for generation, propagation and inundation in the near field of Japan. This study provides a comparative study to further understand the advantages and shortcomings of different methods that may be potentially used in real-time warning and forecast of tsunami hazards, especially in the near field. The model study also highlights the critical role of deep-ocean tsunami measurements for high-quality tsunami forecast, and its combination with land GPS measurements may lead to better understanding of both the earthquake mechanisms and tsunami generation process. ?? 2011 MTS.

The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates

Science.gov (United States)

Minson, Sarah E.; Meier, Men-Andrin; Baltay, Annemarie S.; Hanks, Thomas C.; Cochran, Elizabeth S.

2018-01-01

The basic physics of earthquakes is such that strong ground motion cannot be expected from an earthquake unless the earthquake itself is very close or has grown to be very large. We use simple seismological relationships to calculate the minimum time that must elapse before such ground motion can be expected at a distance from the earthquake, assuming that the earthquake magnitude is not predictable. Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are in operation or development for many regions around the world, with the goal of providing enough warning of incoming ground shaking to allow people and automated systems to take protective actions to mitigate losses. However, the question of how much warning time is physically possible for specified levels of ground motion has not been addressed. We consider a zero-latency EEW system to determine possible warning times a user could receive in an ideal case. In this case, the only limitation on warning time is the time required for the earthquake to evolve and the time for strong ground motion to arrive at a user’s location. We find that users who wish to be alerted at lower ground motion thresholds will receive more robust warnings with longer average warning times than users who receive warnings for higher ground motion thresholds. EEW systems have the greatest potential benefit for users willing to take action at relatively low ground motion thresholds, whereas users who set relatively high thresholds for taking action are less likely to receive timely and actionable information.

Geoethical considerations in early warning of flooding and landslides: Case study from Norway

Science.gov (United States)

Devoli, Graziella; Kleivane Krøgli, Ingeborg; Dahl, Mads Peter; Colleuille, Hervé; Nykjær Boje, Søren; Sund, Monica

2015-04-01

The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) runs the national early warning systems (EWS) for flooding and shallow landslides in Norway. The two EWSs have been operational since the late 1980s and 2013 respectively, and are based on weather forecasts, various hydro-meteorological prognosis and expert evaluation. Daily warning levels and related information to the public is prepared and presented through custom build internet platforms. In natural hazards sciences, the risk of a specific threat is defined as the product of hazard and consequence. In this context an EWS is intended to work as a mitigation measure in lowering the consequence and thus the risk of the threat. One of several factors determining the quality of such an EWS, is how warnings are communicated to the public. In contrary to what is common practice in some other countries, experts working with EWS in Norway cannot be held personally responsible for consequences of warnings being issued or not. However, the communication of warnings for flooding and landslides at NVE still implies many considerations of geoethical kind. Which are the consequences today for the forecasters when erroneous warning messages are sent because based on a poorly documented analysis? What is for example the most responsible way to describe uncertainties in warnings issued? What is the optimal compromise between avoiding false alarms and not sending out a specific warning? Is it responsible to rely on a "gut feeling"? Some authorities complain in receiving warning messages too often. Is it responsible to begin notifying these, only in cases of "high hazard level" and no longer in cases of "moderate hazard level"? Is it acceptable to issue general warnings for large geographical areas without being able to pinpoint the treat on local scale? What responsibility lies within the EWS in recommending evacuation or other practical measures to local authorities? By presenting how early warnings of flooding and

Early warning system realized by ENVINET a.s., domestic and abroad

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sury, J.; Skala, L.; Holcak, P.; Matousek, P.

2014-01-01

Within recent years, research and development has expanded the portfolio of applied results in the field of early warning systems - both stationary and mobile standalone. Their implementation in different areas all over the world in different climatic conditions and their coincidence of possible communication interface software, databases, data collection and assessment of the radiation situations allow the users to respond to possible events and thus significantly affect the decision-making level for the preventive countermeasures including their utilization during radiation accidents. Some of the results will be presented during the presentation: - Implementation of monitoring stations in Varazdin, Velika Gorica, Sisak, Virovitica, Beli Manastir, Zadar, Knin and Ploce in Croatia 2014. Other locations such as Plitvice, Sibenik and Koprivnica are also considered. Radiometric monitoring station NuEM RAMS, dose rate from 10 nSv h -1 to 1 Sv h -1 . - Implementation of radiation monitoring stations in Warszawa, Zagan, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Krakow, Lublin, Gdynia, Bydgoszcz, Rzeszow, Bartoszyce, Srem, Swinoujscie, and Ustka in Poland 2014-2015. Radiometric monitoring station NuEM RAMS, dose rate from 10 nSv h -1 to 9 Sv h -1 . Purpose of stations - for a radiation monitoring network in a given area and for integration into the networks of early warning system. Measurement by using smart probe with 2 (3) GM tubes according to a measuring range. Power supply from photo-voltaic panel for the standalone mode. Transmission of measured data is done by using a GSM network. Data are stored into database at a web server. - Early warning system in Latvia 2013-2014. 20 pcs of stationary spectrometric AGR or IGS type or equivalent stations, NaI (Tl) or LaBr detector for on-line identification of radionuclides based on integrated isotope base with at least 10 indicated radionuclides (K-40, Mo-99, Ru-103, Rh -106, Te-129, I-131, Te-132, I-133, Cs-134, Cs-137, and Ba-140). Objective

Implementation of the TsunamiReady Supporter Program in Puerto Rico

Science.gov (United States)

Flores Hots, V. E.; Vanacore, E. A.; Gonzalez Ruiz, W.; Gomez, G.

2016-12-01

The Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) manages the PR Tsunami Program (NTHMP), including the TsunamiReady Supporter Program. Through this program the PRSN helps private organizations, businesses, facilities or local government entities to willingly engage in tsunami planning and preparedness that meet some requirements established by the National Weather Service. TsunamiReady Supporter organizations are better prepared to respond to a tsunami emergency, developing a response plan (using a template that PRSN developed and provides), and reinforcing their communication systems including NOAA radio, RSS, and loud speakers to receive and disseminate the alerts issued by the NWS and the Tsunami Warning Centers (TWC). The planning and the communication systems added to the training that PRSN provides to the staff and employees, are intend to help visitors and employees evacuate the tsunami hazard zone to the nearest assembly point minimizing loss of life. Potential TsunamiReady Supporters include, but are not limited to, businesses, schools, churches, hospitals, malls, utilities, museums, beaches, and harbors. However, the traditional targets for such programs are primarily tourism sites and hotels where people unaware of the tsunami hazard may be present. In 2016 the Tsunami Ready Program guided four businesses to achieve the TsunamiReady Supporter recognition. Two facilities were hotels near or inside the evacuation zone. The other facilities were the first and only health center and supermarket to be recognized in the United States and US territories. Based on the experience of preparing the health center and supermarket sites, here we present two case studies of how the TsunamiReady Supporter Program can be applied to non-traditional facilities as well as how the application of this program to such facilities can improve tsunami hazard mitigation. Currently, we are working on expanding the application of this program to non-traditional facilities by working with a

Practical Application of Site-Specific Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kanda, Katsuhisa

2014-01-01

The development of an on-site warning system was reported. This system improves the timing of warnings and reduces the number of false alarms by improving the method of estimating the JMA seismic intensity using earthquake early warning system information based on site-specific data. Moreover, the development of an application for practical use in a construction company and an integrated system for realizing system shutdown was also reported. The concept of this system is based on the following. Seismic intensity is not distributed concentrically, and the attenuation relationship cannot explain the distribution of seismic intensity precisely. The standard method of seismic intensity prediction is construed as 'attenuation relationship + soil amplification factor', but this may be improved in the reformulation 'original attenuation relationship for each site + correction factors dependent on the epicenter location and depth' using a seismic intensity database that includes data on recent and historical earthquakes. (authors)

Continuous estimates on the earthquake early warning magnitude by use of the near-field acceleration records

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jun; Jin, Xing; Wei, Yongxiang; Zhang, Hongcai

2013-10-01

In this article, the seismic records of Japan's Kik-net are selected to measure the acceleration, displacement, and effective peak acceleration of each seismic record within a certain time after P wave, then a continuous estimation is given on earthquake early warning magnitude through statistical analysis method, and Wenchuan earthquake record is utilized to check the method. The results show that the reliability of earthquake early warning magnitude continuously increases with the increase of the seismic information, the biggest residual happens if the acceleration is adopted to fit earthquake magnitude, which may be caused by rich high-frequency components and large dispersion of peak value in acceleration record, the influence caused by the high-frequency components can be effectively reduced if the effective peak acceleration and peak displacement is adopted, it is estimated that the dispersion of earthquake magnitude obviously reduces, but it is easy for peak displacement to be affected by long-period drifting. In various components, the residual enlargement phenomenon at vertical direction is almost unobvious, thus it is recommended in this article that the effective peak acceleration at vertical direction is preferred to estimate earthquake early warning magnitude. Through adopting Wenchuan strong earthquake record to check the method mentioned in this article, it is found that this method can be used to quickly, stably, and accurately estimate the early warning magnitude of this earthquake, which shows that this method is completely applicable for earthquake early warning.

Current Status on Flood Forecasting and Early Warning in Africa

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Thiemig, V.; Roo, A.P.J. de

2011-01-01

An overview of the current state of flood forecasting and early warning in Africa is provided in order to identify future user needs and research. Information was collected by reviewing previously published research in the scientific literature and from institutional websites. This information was

Early warning network of the Czech Republic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Drabova, D.; Kuca, P.; Prouza, Z.

1998-01-01

The Early Warning Network encompasses 48 measuring sites covering the whole territory of the Czech Republic; 38 of them are located at observatories of the Czech Hydro-Meteorological Institute (28 at round-the-clock manned observatories, 10 at unmanned, automated observatories) and 10 are located at air contamination measuring points operated by the National Radiation Protection Institute and Regional Centres of the State Office for Nuclear Safety. The network operates in one of 3 modes: the standard mode, alert mode, and emergency mode. (P.A.)

An Intelligent Broadcasting Algorithm for Early Warning Message Dissemination in VANETs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ihn-Han Bae

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET has gained much attention recently to improve road safety, reduce traffic congestion, and enable efficient traffic management because of its many important applications in transportation. In this paper, an early warning intelligence broadcasting algorithm is proposed, EW-ICAST, to disseminate a safety message for VANETs. The proposed EW-ICAST uses not only the early warning system on the basis of time to collision (TTC but also the intelligent broadcasting algorithm on the basis of fuzzy logic. Thus, the EW-ICAST resolves effectively broadcast storm problem and meets time-critical requirement. The performance of EW-ICAST is evaluated through simulation and compared with that of other alert message dissemination algorithms. From the simulation results, we know that EW-ICAST is superior to Simple, P-persistence, and EDB algorithms.

Year in diabetes 2012: The diabetes tsunami.

Science.gov (United States)

Sherwin, R; Jastreboff, A M

2012-12-01

Diabetes affects more than 300 million individuals globally, contributing to significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. As the incidence and prevalence of diabetes continue to escalate with the force of an approaching tsunami, it is imperative that we better define the biological mechanisms causing both obesity and diabetes and identify optimal prevention and treatment strategies that will enable a healthier environment and calmer waters. New guidelines from the American Diabetes Association/European Association of the Study of Diabetes and The Endocrine Society encourage individualized care for each patient with diabetes, both in the outpatient and inpatient setting. Recent data suggest that restoration of normal glucose metabolism in people with prediabetes may delay progression to type 2 diabetes (T2DM). However, several large clinical trials have underscored the limitations of current treatment options once T2DM has developed, particularly in obese children with the disease. Prospects for reversing new-onset type 1 diabetes also appear limited, although recent clinical trials indicate that immunotherapy can delay the loss of β-cell function, suggesting potential benefits if treatment is initiated earlier. Research demonstrating a role for the central nervous system in the development of obesity and T2DM, the identification of a new hormone that simulates some of the benefits of exercise, and the development of new β-cell imaging techniques may provide novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers of early diabetes detection for optimization of interventions. Today's message is that a diabetes tsunami is imminent, and the only way to minimize the damage is to create an early warning system and improve interventions to protect those in its path.

Flood early warning system in I.R. of Iran

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Samadi, Slina; Jamali, Javad B.; Javanmard, Soheila

2004-01-01

At the close of the twentieth century, natural hazards and disasters are one of the most common forms of disasters around the world. Natural disasters cause in significant loss of life and serious economic, environmental and social impacts that greatly retard the development process. Careful hazard assessment and planning, and a range of social, economic and political measures, can significantly contain these threats. Risk is defined as the potential for loss or damage as the result of a particular action or decision and Risk Management is a process consisting of well-defined steps which, when taken in sequence, support better decision making by contributing to a greater insight into risks and their impacts. Most commonly, there are three components in a natural disaster plan: monitoring and early warning; risk assessment; and mitigation and response. Given the improved tools and technologies available today, it is possible to provide disaster information and minimize the potential damage of disasters. In the following parts of the report, the national early warning systems for flood would be discussed, as one of the important component of natural disaster risk management. In 1. R. of Iran, also, different types of natural disasters occur, such as drought, flood, earthquake, sea-level rise, dust storm, hail, freezing and etc, but Flood hazard and disaster is one of the most frequent and damaging types of natural disasters. They have been the most common type of geophysical disaster in the latter half of the twentieth century in Iran, generating an estimated more than 20 percent of all disasters from 1950 to 2003. One of the hazardous floods of Iran occurred in Golestan and north of Khorasan provinces, located in north-east of the country, on August 2001 and 2002. In this regard, according to the responsibility of I. R. of Iran Meteorological Organization (IRIMO) on the flood forecasting, the early warning issue of the mentioned flood, issued within 48 hour's in

Landslide early warning system prototype with GIS analysis indicates by soil movement and rainfall

Science.gov (United States)

Artha, Y.; Julian, E. S.

2018-01-01

The aim of this paper is developing and testing of landslide early warning system. The early warning system uses accelerometersas ground movement and tilt-sensing device and a water flow sensor. A microcentroller is used to process the input signal and activate the alarm. An LCD is used to display the acceleration in x,y and z axis. When the soil moved or shifted and rainfall reached 100 mm/day, the alarm rang and signal were sentto the monitoring center via a telemetry system.Data logging information and GIS spatial data can be monitored remotely as tables and graphics as well as in the form of geographical map with the help of web-GIS interface. The system were tested at Kampung Gerendong, Desa Putat Nutug, Kecamatan Ciseeng, Kabupaten Bogor. This area has 3.15 cumulative score, which mean vulnerable to landslide. The results show that the early warning system worked as planned.

Development of a Low Cost Earthquake Early Warning System in Taiwan

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Y. M.

2017-12-01

The National Taiwan University (NTU) developed an earthquake early warning (EEW) system for research purposes using low-cost accelerometers (P-Alert) since 2010. As of 2017, a total of 650 stations have been deployed and configured. The NTU system can provide earthquake information within 15 s of an earthquake occurrence. Thus, this system may provide early warnings for cities located more than 50 km from the epicenter. Additionally, the NTU system also has an onsite alert function that triggers a warning for incoming P-waves greater than a certain magnitude threshold, thus providing a 2-3 s lead time before peak ground acceleration (PGA) for regions close to an epicenter. Detailed shaking maps are produced by the NTU system within one or two minutes after an earthquake. Recently, a new module named ShakeAlarm has been developed. Equipped with real-time acceleration signals and the time-dependent anisotropic attenuation relationship of the PGA, ShakingAlarm can provide an accurate PGA estimation immediately before the arrival of the observed PGA. This unique advantage produces sufficient lead time for hazard assessment and emergency response, which is unavailable for traditional shakemap, which are based on only the PGA observed in real time. The performance of ShakingAlarm was tested with six M > 5.5 inland earthquakes from 2013 to 2016. Taking the 2016 M6.4 Meinong earthquake simulation as an example, the predicted PGA converges to a stable value and produces a predicted shake map and an isocontour map of the predicted PGA within 16 seconds of earthquake occurrence. Compared with traditional regional EEW system, ShakingAlarm can effectively identify possible damage regions and provide valuable early warning information (magnitude and PGA) for risk mitigation.

Assessing the accuracy of forecasting: applying standard diagnostic assessment tools to a health technology early warning system.

Science.gov (United States)

Simpson, Sue; Hyde, Chris; Cook, Alison; Packer, Claire; Stevens, Andrew

2004-01-01

Early warning systems are an integral part of many health technology assessment programs. Despite this finding, to date, there have been no quantitative evaluations of the accuracy of predictions made by these systems. We report a study evaluating the accuracy of predictions made by the main United Kingdom early warning system. As prediction of impact is analogous to diagnosis, a method normally applied to determine the accuracy of diagnostic tests was used. The sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of the National Horizon Scanning Centre's prediction methods were estimated with reference to an (imperfect) gold standard, that is, expert opinion of impact 3 to 5 years after prediction. The sensitivity of predictions was 71 percent (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.36-0.92), and the specificity was 73 percent (95 percent CI, 0.64-0.8). The negative predictive value was 98 percent (95 percent CI, 0.92-0.99), and the positive predictive value was 14 percent (95 percent CI, 0.06-0.3). Forecasting is difficult, but the results suggest that this early warning system's predictions have an acceptable level of accuracy. However, there are caveats. The first is that early warning systems may themselves reduce the impact of a technology, as helping to control adoption and diffusion is their main purpose. The second is that the use of an imperfect gold standard may bias the results. As early warning systems are viewed as an increasingly important component of health technology assessment and decision making, their outcomes must be evaluated. The method used here should be investigated further and the accuracy of other early warning systems explored.

RED Alert – Early warning or detection of global re-emerging infectious disease (RED)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deshpande, Alina [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-07-13

This is the PDF of a presentation for a webinar given by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) on the early warning or detection of global re-emerging infectious disease (RED). First, there is an overview of LANL biosurveillance tools. Then, information is given about RED Alert. Next, a demonstration is given of a component prototype. RED Alert is an analysis tool that can provide early warning or detection of the re-emergence of an infectious disease at the global level, but through a local lens.

Flexible Early Warning Systems with Workflows and Decision Tables

Science.gov (United States)

Riedel, F.; Chaves, F.; Zeiner, H.

2012-04-01

An essential part of early warning systems and systems for crisis management are decision support systems that facilitate communication and collaboration. Often official policies specify how different organizations collaborate and what information is communicated to whom. For early warning systems it is crucial that information is exchanged dynamically in a timely manner and all participants get exactly the information they need to fulfil their role in the crisis management process. Information technology obviously lends itself to automate parts of the process. We have experienced however that in current operational systems the information logistics processes are hard-coded, even though they are subject to change. In addition, systems are tailored to the policies and requirements of a certain organization and changes can require major software refactoring. We seek to develop a system that can be deployed and adapted to multiple organizations with different dynamic runtime policies. A major requirement for such a system is that changes can be applied locally without affecting larger parts of the system. In addition to the flexibility regarding changes in policies and processes, the system needs to be able to evolve; when new information sources become available, it should be possible to integrate and use these in the decision process. In general, this kind of flexibility comes with a significant increase in complexity. This implies that only IT professionals can maintain a system that can be reconfigured and adapted; end-users are unable to utilise the provided flexibility. In the business world similar problems arise and previous work suggested using business process management systems (BPMS) or workflow management systems (WfMS) to guide and automate early warning processes or crisis management plans. However, the usability and flexibility of current WfMS are limited, because current notations and user interfaces are still not suitable for end-users, and workflows

Early-warning signals for an outbreak of the influenza pandemic

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Di; Gao, Jie

2011-12-01

Over the course of human history, influenza pandemics have been seen as major disasters, so studies on the influenza virus have become an important issue for many experts and scholars. Comprehensive research has been performed over the years on the biological properties, chemical characteristics, external environmental factors and other aspects of the virus, and some results have been achieved. Based on the chaos game representation walk model, this paper uses the time series analysis method to study the DNA sequences of the influenza virus from 1913 to 2010, and works out the early-warning signals indicator value for the outbreak of an influenza pandemic. The variances in the CGR walk sequences for the pandemic years (or + -1 to 2 years) are significantly higher than those for the adjacent years, while those in the non-pandemic years are usually smaller. In this way we can provide an influenza early-warning mechanism so that people can take precautions and be well prepared prior to a pandemic.

Development of a hybrid earthquake early warning system based on single sensor technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gravirov, V.V.; Kislov, K.V.

2012-01-01

There are two methods to earthquake early warning system: the method based on a network of seismic stations and the single-sensor method. Both have advantages and drawbacks. The current systems rely on high density seismic networks. Attempts at implementing techniques based on the single-station principle encounter difficulties in the identification of earthquake in noise. The noise may be very diverse, from stationary to impulsive. It seems a promising line of research to develop hybrid warning systems with single-sensors being incorporated in the overall early warning network. This will permit using all advantages and will help reduce the radius of the hazardous zone where no earthquake warning can be produced. The main problems are highlighted and the solutions of these are discussed. The system is implemented to include three detection processes in parallel. The first is based on the study of the co-occurrence matrix of the signal wavelet transform. The second consists in using the method of a change point in a random process and signal detection in a moving time window. The third uses artificial neural networks. Further, applying a decision rule out the final earthquake detection is carried out and estimate its reliability. (author)

[Evaluation and analysis of monitoring and early warning functions of the occupational disease reporting system in China].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Xiaojun; Li, Tao; Liu, Mengxuan

2015-06-01

To evaluate the monitoring and early warning functions of the occupational disease reporting system right now in China, and to analyze their influencing factors. An improved audit tool (ODIT) was used to score the monitoring and early warning functions with a total score of 10. The nine indices were completeness of information on the reporting form, coverage of the reporting system, accessibility of criteria or guidelines for diagnosis, education and training for physicians, completeness of the reporting system, statistical methods, investigation of special cases, release of monitoring information, and release of early warning information. According to the evaluation, the occupational disease reporting system in China had a score of 5.5 in monitoring existing occupational diseases with a low score for release of monitoring information; the reporting system had a score of 6.5 in early warning of newly occurring occupational diseases with low scores for education and training for physicians as well as completeness of the reporting system. The occupational disease reporting system in China still does not have full function in monitoring and early warning. It is the education and participation of physicians from general hospitals in the diagnosis and treatment of occupational diseases and suspected occupational diseases that need to be enhanced. In addition, the problem of monitoring the incidence of occupational diseases needs to be solved as soon as possible.

An evaluation of the Triage Early Warning Score in an urban ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2013-12-03

Dec 3, 2013 ... Original Research: An evaluation of the Triage Early Warning Score in an urban accident and emergency department. 69 ... This can potentially improve the gap .... were defined as “discharge within 24 hours of admission,.

Early warning signals of simulated Amazon dieback

OpenAIRE

Boulton, Chris; Good, Peter; Lenton, Tim

2013-01-01

Dieback of the Amazon rainforest has been considered a potential tipping point in the Earth system due to the belief that there is more than one stable attractor in its dynamics and for future projections within global climate models (GCMs), in some cases a huge amount of forest is lost abruptly. The rainforest is a huge carbon sink, playing a critical role in the global carbon cycle and so if dieback is going to happen over a short period of time, it is important to have some early warning t...

Implementing an Inpatient Social Early Warning System for Child Maltreatment

Science.gov (United States)

Atabaki, Armita; Heddaeus, Daniela; Metzner, Franka; Schulz, Holger; Siefert, Sonke; Pawils, Silke

2013-01-01

Objectives: The current article describes the process evaluation of a social early warning system (SEWS) for the prevention of child maltreatment in the federal state of Hamburg. This prevention initiative targets expectant mothers and their partners including an initial screening of risk factors for child maltreatment, a subsequent structured…

Tsunami Hazard Analysis for the Eastern Mediterranean and its Connected Seas

Science.gov (United States)

Necmioglu, Ocal; Meral Ozel, Nurcan

2015-04-01

Accurate earthquake source parameters are essential for any tsunami hazard assessment and mitigation, including early warning systems. Complex tectonic setting makes the a priori accurate assumptions of earthquake source parameters difficult and characterization of the faulting type is a challenge. Information on tsunamigenic sources is of crucial importance in the Eastern Mediterranean and its Connected Seas, especially considering the short arrival times and lack of offshore sea-level measurements. In addition, the scientific community have had to abandon the paradigm of a ''maximum earthquake'' predictable from simple tectonic parameters (Ruff and Kanamori, 1980) in the wake of the 2004 Sumatra event (Okal, 2010) and one of the lessons learnt from the 2011 Tohoku event was that tsunami hazard maps may need to be prepared for infrequent gigantic earthquakes as well as more frequent smaller-sized earthquakes (Satake, 2011). We have initiated an extensive modeling study to perform a deterministic Tsunami Hazard Analysis for the Eastern Mediterranean and its Connected Seas. Characteristic earthquake source parameters (strike, dip, rake, depth, Mwmax) at each 0.5° x 0.5° size bin for 0-40 km depth (total of 310 bins) and for 40-100 km depth (total of 92 bins) in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Sea region (30°N-48°N and 22°E-44°E) have been assigned from the harmonization of the available databases and previous studies. These parameters have been used as input parameters for the deterministic tsunami hazard modeling. Nested Tsunami simulations of 6h duration with a coarse (2 arc-min) grid resolution have been simulated at EC-JRC premises for Black Sea and Eastern and Central Mediterranean (30°N-41.5°N and 8°E-37°E) for each source defined using shallow water finite-difference SWAN code (Mader, 2004) for the magnitude range of 6.5 - Mwmax defined for that bin with a Mw increment of 0.1. Results show that not only the earthquakes resembling the

Enhancing Famine Early Warning Systems with Improved Forecasts, Satellite Observations and Hydrologic Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Funk, C. C.; Verdin, J.; Thiaw, W. M.; Hoell, A.; Korecha, D.; McNally, A.; Shukla, S.; Arsenault, K. R.; Magadzire, T.; Novella, N.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Robjohn, M.; Pomposi, C.; Galu, G.; Rowland, J.; Budde, M. E.; Landsfeld, M. F.; Harrison, L.; Davenport, F.; Husak, G. J.; Endalkachew, E.

2017-12-01

Drought early warning science, in support of famine prevention, is a rapidly advancing field that is helping to save lives and livelihoods. In 2015-2017, a series of extreme droughts afflicted Ethiopia, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa in OND and Eastern Africa in MAM, pushing more than 50 million people into severe food insecurity. Improved drought forecasts and monitoring tools, however, helped motivate and target large and effective humanitarian responses. Here we describe new science being developed by a long-established early warning system - the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). FEWS NET is a leading provider of early warning and analysis on food insecurity. FEWS NET research is advancing rapidly on several fronts, providing better climate forecasts and more effective drought monitoring tools that are being used to support enhanced famine early warning. We explore the philosophy and science underlying these successes, suggesting that a modal view of climate change can support enhanced seasonal prediction. Under this modal perspective, warming of the tropical oceans may interact with natural modes of variability, like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, to enhance Indo-Pacific sea surface temperature gradients during both El Niño and La Niña-like climate states. Using empirical data and climate change simulations, we suggest that a sequence of droughts may commence in northern Ethiopia and Southern Africa with the advent of a moderate-to-strong El Niño, and then continue with La Niña/West Pacific related droughts in equatorial eastern East Africa. Scientifically, we show that a new hybrid statistical-dynamic precipitation forecast system, the FEWS NET Integrated Forecast System (FIFS), based on reformulations of the Global Ensemble Forecast System weather forecasts and National Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) seasonal climate predictions, can effectively anticipate recent East and Southern African drought events. Using cross-validation, we

Leading Wave Amplitude of a Tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Kanoglu, U.

2015-12-01

Okal and Synolakis (EGU General Assembly 2015, Geophysical Research Abstracts-Vol. 17-7622) recently discussed that why the maximum amplitude of a tsunami might not occur for the first wave. Okal and Synolakis list observations from 2011 Japan tsunami, which reached to Papeete, Tahiti with a fourth wave being largest and 72 min later after the first wave; 1960 Chilean tsunami reached Hilo, Hawaii with a maximum wave arriving 1 hour later with a height of 5m, first wave being only 1.2m. Largest later waves is a problem not only for local authorities both in terms of warning to the public and rescue efforts but also mislead the public thinking that it is safe to return shoreline or evacuated site after arrival of the first wave. Okal and Synolakis considered Hammack's (1972, Ph.D. Dissertation, Calif. Inst. Tech., 261 pp., Pasadena) linear dispersive analytical solution with a tsunami generation through an uplifting of a circular plug on the ocean floor. They performed parametric study for the radius of the plug and the depth of the ocean since these are the independent scaling lengths in the problem. They identified transition distance, as the second wave being larger, regarding the parameters of the problem. Here, we extend their analysis to an initial wave field with a finite crest length and, in addition, to a most common tsunami initial wave form of N-wave as presented by Tadepalli and Synolakis (1994, Proc. R. Soc. A: Math. Phys. Eng. Sci., 445, 99-112). We compare our results with non-dispersive linear shallow water wave results as presented by Kanoglu et al. (2013, Proc. R. Soc. A: Math. Phys. Eng. Sci., 469, 20130015), investigating focusing feature. We discuss the results both in terms of leading wave amplitude and tsunami focusing. Acknowledgment: The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 603839 (Project ASTARTE - Assessment, Strategy and Risk

Field survey of the 16 September 2015 Chile tsunami

Science.gov (United States)

Lagos, Marcelo; Fritz, Hermann M.

2016-04-01

tsunami was characterized by rapid arrival within minutes in the nearfield requiring spontaneous self-evacuation as warning messages did not reach some of the hardest hit fishing villages prior to tsunami arrival. The absence of a massive tsunami outside of the 4th region may mislead evacuated residents in the adjacent 3rd and 5th regions of Chile in potential future events. This event poses significant challenges to community-based education raising tsunami awareness. The team educated residents about tsunami hazards since awareness programs are essential to save lives in locales at risk from near-field tsunamis.