Review on Near-Field Tsunami Forecasting from Offshore Tsunami Data and Onshore GNSS Data for Tsunami Early Warning

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroaki Tsushima ◽  
◽  
Yusaku Ohta ◽  

This paper reviews recent studies on methods of realtime forecasting for near-field tsunamis that use either offshore tsunami data or onshore global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data. Tsunami early warning systems for near-field coastal communities are vital because evacuation time before tsunami arrival is usually very short. We focus on forecasting between the occurrence of a tsunamigenic earthquake and the arrival of the first tsunami at a near-field coast – typically a few tens of minutes or less after the earthquake. Offshore tsunami measurement that provides coastal communities with direct information on impending tsunamis is very effective in providing reliable tsunami predictions. Crustal deformation due to coseismic slips at an earthquake fault detected by real-time GNSS analysis is quite useful in estimating fault expansion and the amount of slip, which in turn contributes to timely tsunami warnings, e.g., within 10 minutes, even for huge interplate earthquakes. Our review encompasses methods on the leading edge of research and those already in the process of being applied practically. We also discuss an effective combination of methods developed for mitigating tsunami disasters.

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1085-1100 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Behrens ◽  
A. Androsov ◽  
A. Y. Babeyko ◽  
S. Harig ◽  
F. Klaschka ◽  
...  

Abstract. A new tsunami forecasting method for near-field tsunami warning is presented. This method is applied in the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System, as part of the Indonesian Tsunami Warning Center in Jakarta, Indonesia. The method employs a rigorous approach to minimize uncertainty in the assessment of tsunami hazard in the near-field. Multiple independent sensors are evaluated simultaneously in order to achieve an accurate estimation of coastal arrival times and wave heights within very short time after a submarine earthquake event. The method is validated employing a synthetic (simulated) tsunami event, and in hindcasting the minor tsunami following the Padang 30 September 2009 earthquake.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerassimos A. Papadopoulos ◽  
Anna Fokaefs

The new European project <em>Near-field Tsunami Early Warning and Emergency Planning in the Mediterranean Sea</em> (NEARTOWARN) faces the need to develop operational tsunami early warning systems in near-field (local) conditions where the travel time of the first tsunami wave is very short, that is less than 30 min, which is a typical case in the North East Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea region but also elsewhere around the globe. The operational condition that should be fulfilled is that the time of tsunami detection, plus the time of warning transmitting, plus the time of evacuation should not exceed the travel time of the first tsunami wave from its source to the closest evacuation zone. To this goal the time to detect of the causative earthquake should be compressed at the very minimum. In this context the core of the proposed system is a network of seismic early warning devices, which activate and send alert in a few seconds after the generation of a near-field earthquake, when a seismic ground motion exceeding a prescribed threshold is detected. Then civil protection mobilizes to manage the earthquake crisis but also to detect and manage a possible tsunami through a geographical risk management system. For the tsunami detection the system is supported by tide-gauges of radar type, a database of presimulated tsunami scenarios, and a local tsunami decision matrix. The island of Rhodes in the eastern termination of the Hellenic Arc and Trench has been selected for a pilot and operational development of the local tsunami warning system given that the island is a highly popular tourist destination, historically it was hit by large tsunamigenic earthquakes and was recently the master test-site for the pan-European FP6 tsunami research project <em>Tsunami Risk ANd Strategies For the European Region</em> (TRANSFER).


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusaku Ohta ◽  
Takuya Inoue ◽  
Shunichi Koshimura ◽  
Satoshi Kawamoto ◽  
Ryota Hino ◽  
...  

This short paper reviews the role of real-time global navigation satellite system (GNSS) in near-field tsunami forecasting. Recent efforts highlight that coseismic fault model estimation based on real-time GNSS has contributed substantially to our understanding of large magnitude earthquakes and their fault expansions. We briefly introduce the history of use of real-time GNSS processing in the rapid estimation of the coseismic finite fault model. Additionally, we discuss our recent trials on the estimation of quasi real-time tsunami inundation based on real-time GNSS data. Obtained results clearly suggest the effectiveness of real-time GNSS for tsunami inundation estimation as the GNSS can capture fault expansion and its slip amount in a relatively accurate manner within a short time period. We also discuss the future prospects of using real-time GNSS data for tsunami warning including effective combination of different methods for more reliable forecasting.


2013 ◽  
Vol 805-806 ◽  
pp. 851-854
Author(s):  
Zhi Ge Jia ◽  
Zhao Sheng Nie ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Xiao Guan ◽  
Di Jin Wang

This work describes the field testing process of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver under 220KV, 500KV UHV transmission line and standard calibration field. Analysis for GNSS data results shows that the radio interference generated by EHV transmission lines have no effect on GNSS receiver internal noise levels and valid GNSS observation rate. Within 50 meters of the EHV transmission lines, the multi-path effects (mp1 and mp2 value) significantly exceeded the normal range and becomes larger with the increase of the voltage .outside 50 meters of the EHV transmission line, the multi-path effects have almost no effect on the high-precision GNSS observations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Armigliato ◽  
Martina Zanetti ◽  
Stefano Tinti ◽  
Filippo Zaniboni ◽  
Glauco Gallotti ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;It is well known that for earthquake-generated tsunamis impacting near-field coastlines the focal mechanism, the position of the fault with respect to the coastline and the on fault slip distribution are key factors in determining the efficiency of the generation process and the distribution of the maximum run-up and inundation along the nearby coasts. The time needed to obtain the aforementioned information from the analysis of seismic records is usually too long compared to the time required to issue a timely tsunami warning/alert to the nearest coastlines. In the context of tsunami early warning systems, a big challenge is hence to be able to define 1) the relative position of the hypocenter and of the fault and 2) the earthquake focal mechanism, based only on the preliminary earthquake localization and magnitude estimation, which are made available by seismic networks soon after the earthquake occurs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this study, the intrinsic unpredictability of the position of the hypocenter on the fault plane is studied through a probabilistic approach based on the analysis of two finite fault model datasets (SRCMOD and USGS) and by limiting the analysis to moderate-to-large shallow earthquakes (Mw &amp;#160;6 and depth &amp;#160;50 km). After a proper homogenization procedure needed to define a common geometry for all samples in the two datasets, the hypocentral positions are fitted with different probability density functions (PDFs) separately in the along-dip and along-strike directions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regarding the focal mechanism determination, different approaches have been tested: the most successful is restricted to subduction-type earthquakes. It defines average values and uncertainties for strike, dip and rake angles based on a combination of a proper zonation of the main tsunamigenic subduction areas worldwide and of subduction zone geometries available from publicdatabases.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The general workflow that we propose can be schematically outlined as follows. Once an earthquake occurs and the magnitude and hypocentral solutions are made available by seismic networks, it is possible to assign the focal mechanism by selecting the characteristic values for strike, dip and rake of the zone where the hypocenter falls into. Fault length and width, as well as the slip distribution on the fault plane, are computed through regression laws against magnitude proposed by previous studies. The resulting rectangular fault plane can be discretized into a matrix of subfaults: the position of the center of each subfault can be considered as a &amp;#8220;realization&amp;#8221; of the hypocenter position, which can then be assigned a probability. In this way, we can define a number of earthquake fault scenarios, each of which is assigned a probability, and we can run tsunami numerical simulations for each scenario to quantify the classical observables, such as water elevation time series in selected offshore/coastal tide-gauges, flow depth, run-up, inundation distance. The final results can be provided as probabilistic distributions of the different observables.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The general approach, which is still in a proof-of-concept stage, is applied to the 16 September 2015 Illapel (Chile) tsunamigenic earthquake (Mw = 8.2). The comparison with the available tsunami observations is discussed with special attention devoted to the early-warning perspective.&lt;/p&gt;


Author(s):  
Juh-Whan Lee ◽  
Jennifer L. Irish ◽  
Robert Weiss

Since near-field-generated tsunamis can arrive within a few minutes to coastal communities and cause immense damage to life and property, tsunami forecasting systems should provide not only accurate but also rapid tsunami run-up estimates. For this reason, most of the tsunami forecasting systems rely on pre-computed databases, which can forecast tsunamis rapidly by selecting the most closely matched scenario from the databases. However, earthquakes not included in the database can occur, and the resulting error in the tsunami forecast may be large for these earthquakes. In this study, we present a new method that can forecast near-field tsunami run-up estimates for any combination of earthquake fault parameters on a real topography in near real-time, hereafter called the Tsunami Run-up Response Function (TRRF).Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/tw1D29dDxmY


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 827-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Girod ◽  
Christopher Nuth ◽  
Andreas Kääb ◽  
Bernd Etzelmüller ◽  
Jack Kohler

Abstract. Acquiring data to analyse change in topography is often a costly endeavour requiring either extensive, potentially risky, fieldwork and/or expensive equipment or commercial data. Bringing the cost down while keeping the precision and accuracy has been a focus in geoscience in recent years. Structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetric techniques are emerging as powerful tools for surveying, with modern algorithm and large computing power allowing for the production of accurate and detailed data from low-cost, informal surveys. The high spatial and temporal resolution permits the monitoring of geomorphological features undergoing relatively rapid change, such as glaciers, moraines, or landslides. We present a method that takes advantage of light-transport flights conducting other missions to opportunistically collect imagery for geomorphological analysis. We test and validate an approach in which we attach a consumer-grade camera and a simple code-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver to a helicopter to collect data when the flight path covers an area of interest. Our method is based and builds upon Welty et al. (2013), showing the ability to link GNSS data to images without a complex physical or electronic link, even with imprecise camera clocks and irregular time lapses. As a proof of concept, we conducted two test surveys, in September 2014 and 2015, over the glacier Midtre Lovénbreen and its forefield, in northwestern Svalbard. We were able to derive elevation change estimates comparable to in situ mass balance stake measurements. The accuracy and precision of our DEMs allow detection and analysis of a number of processes in the proglacial area, including the presence of thermokarst and the evolution of water channels.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Falck ◽  
M. Ramatschi ◽  
C. Subarya ◽  
M. Bartsch ◽  
A. Merx ◽  
...  

Abstract. GPS (Global Positioning System) technology is widely used for positioning applications. Many of them have high requirements with respect to precision, reliability or fast product delivery, but usually not all at the same time as it is the case for early warning applications. The tasks for the GPS-based components within the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System, Rudloff et al., 2009) are to support the determination of sea levels (measured onshore and offshore) and to detect co-seismic land mass displacements with the lowest possible latency (design goal: first reliable results after 5 min). The completed system was designed to fulfil these tasks in near real-time, rather than for scientific research requirements. The obtained data products (movements of GPS antennas) are supporting the warning process in different ways. The measurements from GPS instruments on buoys allow the earliest possible detection or confirmation of tsunami waves on the ocean. Onshore GPS measurements are made collocated with tide gauges or seismological stations and give information about co-seismic land mass movements as recorded, e.g., during the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 2004 (Subarya et al., 2006). This information is important to separate tsunami-caused sea height movements from apparent sea height changes at tide gauge locations (sensor station movement) and also as additional information about earthquakes' mechanisms, as this is an essential information to predict a tsunami (Sobolev et al., 2007). This article gives an end-to-end overview of the GITEWS GPS-component system, from the GPS sensors (GPS receiver with GPS antenna and auxiliary systems, either onshore or offshore) to the early warning centre displays. We describe how the GPS sensors have been installed, how they are operated and the methods used to collect, transfer and process the GPS data in near real-time. This includes the sensor system design, the communication system layout with real-time data streaming, the data processing strategy and the final products of the GPS-based early warning system components.


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