A Workshop joining together experts who are actively working on seismic
early warning problems in different parts of the world was held in
Naples 23-25 september 2004.
The title of the Workshop was: Seismic Early Warning For European
Cities
25 speakers from 12 countries contributed to the event. The meeting
has been attended by about 100 participants (many of them PhD students).
The main outcomes of the WS have been: assessment of the present state
of application of seismic early warning methods to decrease the probability
of accidents on infrastructures (fast railway lines, bridges, etc.);
review of the on going research activity in Europe, mainly that aimed
at applications to densely populated cities (Istanbul, Thessaloniki,
Napoli, Bucharest, Lisbon), in U.S. and Japan; identification of future
research direction and strengthen coordinated interdisciplinary activities
in seismology, seismic engineering; identification of law
and insurance problems.
Furthermore participants have agreed on the start-up of a European
research network in the field of seismic early warning.
The following document was released at the end of the meeting, summarizing
the main opinions which sprang out from the discussions:
Most of the groups dealing with seismological and seismic
engineering aspects of seismic early warning were represented at the
International Workshop on seismic early warning for European cities-a
way towards a coordinated effort, held in Napoli from September 23
to 25, 2004, in the framework of the SSA EC RTD “NaRAs Project”.
Researchers from 9 European countries (France, Germany, Greece, Iceland,
Italy, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey), United States, Japan
and Taiwan (see the annexed list) attending the meeting approved unanimously
the following recommendation to be submitted to EC.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE EC RTD:
A number of European highly populated cities are located
in areas of high seismic hazard. These cities include lifelines, hazardous
industries and critical infrastructures which increase the risk of
catastrophic events.
Real time seismology and the engineering techniques for early
warning are becoming an effective tool for mitigation of seismic risk.
Seismic early warning (SEW) allows to take actions seconds before
a destructive shaking occurs. In addition, the early warning infrastructure
could provide in a few minutes online maps of ground shaking for disaster
management and inferring immediate post event damage scenarios.
Early Warning is a typical multidisciplinary subject where
EU and international sharing of know how and practical experience
can widen the range of applicability and the impact on society; many
industries and insurance companies are interested in the application
of these methods.
At present, research aiming at improving seismic early warning
capabilities are scarcely supported at national level and some current
EU projects marginally include SEW.
Application to complex situations requires intensive multidisciplinary
research efforts on following topics:
Seismogenic faults and seismic rupture evolution (e.g., characterization
of seismic sources, estimate of earthquake size from the first phases,
etc.);
Analysis and comparison of different strategies of SEW (single station,
network, low cost, centralized/decentralized,…);
Optimization of technological systems (data acquisition, communication,
automatic processing of data,...);
Integration of various concepts of real-time seismology (local, national,
European);
Development of detailed information regarding the characteristics
of the ground motion (spectrum, mechanism …)
Utility of early warning information for damage reduction and structural
control;
Reliability of warning (false alarms minimization) including consequence
based analysis;
Structural Control systems and interface with SEW;
Data dissemination and public education and information.
The application of real-time seismology schemes requires
the availability and real-time access to high-quality seismic data.
The present distribution of seismic networks in Europe and in the
Mediterranean area is improving but still far from uniform. The homogenization
and completion of the present European distribution of seismic instrumentation
and the European-wide dissemination and processing of high-quality
data are prime steps of a future strategy for early warning at national
and European scale.
Early warning information must be viewed as a part of a management
information system for the decision making in the context of national
and European institutional framework for disaster management. It is
therefore important to investigate the legal and insurance implication
of the implementation of early warning system.
We do recommend that the future calls contain specific reference
to seismic early warning methods.
The speakers at the workshop have agreed to write extended articles
on their presentations for a book on “Seismic early warning”.
