Monitoring earthquakes and warning of tsunamis
Image: gempa
The Challenge
When natural hazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis threaten, every second counts: the sooner the population receives a warning, the more people will survive, as they can reach safety or mitigate damage. Every little bit of time is valuable, for example, to inform rescue services and hospitals, shut off gas lines, or stop trains and elevators. Even small earthquakes are of interest for assessing tectonic changes and volcanic activity, as well as for regulating geothermal plants and oil and natural gas production rates. Monitoring and warning systems are therefore necessary. They use sensors to measure seismic movements on land and on the seabed. Data are transmitted via the Internet immediately to data centers, where they are automatically processed, with the results forwarded to the relevant authorities. However, many regions of the world lack such real-time systems. For example, at the beginning of the millennium, the Mediterranean countries and Southeast Asia had not established an early warning system for tsunamis despite being located in high-risk areas for undersea earthquakes. The devastating 2004 tsunami, triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, caught the coastal states of this region completely unprepared.
Our Solution
In response to this devastating natural disaster, researchers at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences developed the SeisComP seismological software package. SeisComP can analyze data from hundreds of earthquake monitoring stations simultaneously and in real-time, identifying hazards such as strong earthquakes that can trigger tsunamis. In 2008, two developers of SeisComP founded the company gempa (Indonesian for earthquake), also for Global Earthquake Monitoring, Processing and Analysis). This spin-off from the GFZ has been continuously developing the software ever since, distributing and installing it, and training people worldwide in its use. Originally developed for monitoring earthquakes in the Indian Ocean, SeisComP now forms the backbone of monitoring and early warning systems at research institutions and companies worldwide. SeisComP is open-source software and available free of charge. The software package can be adapted flexibly to local needs and functionally expanded with commercial modules from Gempa GmbH.
How are we already benefiting from it today
Every year, SeisComP systems record several thousand earthquakes, and more than a dozen tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific have been successfully detected, with warnings issued. The supplementary modules from Gempa GmbH provide additional key data on earthquakes and tsunamis, assist in assessing affected areas, and monitor volcanoes and critical infrastructure in earthquake-prone regions. The information obtained is made available in real time to the population, local authorities, and scientists. Thus, the population benefits directly from earthquake monitoring with SeisComP.
