AIDA – Seismic data acquisition, processing, storage and distribution at the National Earthquake Center, INGV

On May 4, 2012, a new system, known as the AIDA (Advanced Information and Data Acquisition) system for seismology, became operational as the primary tool to monitor, analyze, store and distribute seismograms from the Italian National Seismic Network. Only 16 days later, on May 20, 2012, northern Italy was struck by a Ml 5.9 earthquake that caused seven casualties. This was followed by numerous small to moderate earthquakes, with some over Ml 5. Then, on May 29, 2012, a Ml 5.8 earthquake resulted in 17 more victims and left about 14,000 people homeless. This sequence produced more than 2,100 events over 40 days, and it was still active at the end of June 2012, with minor earthquakes at a rate of about 20 events per day. The new AIDA data management system was designed and implemented, among other things, to exploit the recent huge upgrade of the Italian Seismic Network (in terms of the number and quality of stations) and to overcome the limitations of the previous system.