GPS for early warning system

for disasters
 EARLY WARNINGS SYSTEM
The term 'early warning' is used in many fields to describe the provision of information on an
emerging dangerous circumstances where that information can enable action in advance to
reduce the risks involved. Early warning systems exist for natural geophysical and biological
hazards, complex socio-political emergencies, industrial hazards, personal health risks and many
other related hazards
An Early Warning System (EWS) can be
defined as a set of capacities needed to
generate and disseminate timely and
meaningful warning information of the
possible extreme events or disasters (e.g.
floods, drought, fire, earthquake and
tsunamis) that threatens people‘s lives.
The purpose of this information is to
enable individuals, communities and
organizations threatened to prepare and
act appropriately and in sufficient time to
reduce the possibility of harm, loss or risk.
 Elements of Early warning
1. Risk Knowledge: Risk assessment provides
essential information to set priorities for mitigation
and prevention strategies and designing early warning
systems.
2. Monitoring and Predicting: Systems with
monitoring and predicting capabilities provide timely
estimates of the potential risk faced by communities,
economies and the environment.
3. Disseminating Information: Communication
systems are needed for delivering warning messages
to the potentially affected locations to alert local and
regional governmental agencies. The messages need
to be reliable, synthetic and simple to be understood
by authorities and public.
4. Response: Coordination, good governance and
appropriate action plans are a key point in effective
early warning. Likewise, public awareness and
education are critical aspects of disaster mitigation.
 GPS for Earthquake and Volcanoes Early warning
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are some of nature’s scariest demonstrations of power.
From the ground shaking, causing bookshelves to topple and entire buildings to crumble,
to a volcano emitting a hot, raging torrent of debris, water, and rocks that wipes out
everything in its path. These terrifying events regularly occur in many parts of the world,
including the portion of the Ring of Fire called the. Some large cities like Seattle, Portland,
San Francisco, and Los Angeles are at constant high risk of these disasters. The burning
question: how should one respond and ultimately stay safe given that a monster
earthquake or volcanic eruption happens. Luckily two proposed warning systems that
would deal with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are already working in many
developed countries and beginning to take form in developing countries: 1. Earthquake
Early Warning (EEW, which currently has a prototype called ShakeAlert in USA) and
National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS). The main purpose of EEW and NVEWS is
to notify people of a disaster’s characteristics and what to expect as fast as possible in
order to ultimately minimize the number of human casualties, and economic losses. While
EEW and NVEWS share other fundamental similarities such as a centralized structure, they
chiefly differ in the time to react to a disaster’s onslaught and methods of keeping people
and infrastructure as safe as possible.
Volcano-monitoring methods are designed to detect changes in the state of a volcano caused by magma movement
beneath the volcano. Rising magma typically triggers swarms of earthquakes and other types of seismicity, causes
swelling or subsidence of a volcano's edifice, and leads to the emission of volcanic gases. By monitoring these and
related phenomena, scientists can anticipate an eruption days to weeks ahead of time. Transmission of monitoring
data occurs via radios, phone lines, internet, and/or satellites from instruments installed at volcanoes to scientific
facilities for processing and analysis. Automatic, computer-based data processing systems make most data available
in real to near-real time for analysis by scientists that may be located in different facilities. Interpreting monitoring data
and assessing the future behavior and eruptive potential of a restless volcano, however, is far from automatic and
requires complex analysis by a variety of volcanological experts as soon as the data are received.
 GPS for Earthquake
It works on a simple principle: The
shake waves from an earthquake
travels at the speed of sound through
rock — which is slower than the
speed of today’s communications
systems.
For example, it would take more than
a minute for a magnitude 7.8
earthquake that starts at the Salton
Sea and travels up the state’s longest
fault, the San Andreas, to shake Los
Angeles, 150 miles away. An early
warning system would give L.A.
residents crucial seconds, and
perhaps even more than a minute, to
prepare.
GPS for Tsunami warning
GITEWS GPS locations in Indonesia [numbers in
squared brackets indicate installation status of
December 2009]: GPS real-time reference
stations (green triangles), GPS at tide gauges
(yellow squares), buoys with GPS (red circles),
buoys with GPS (red circles)
Floods
GPS for Landslides