Predicting the Future

California is testing an early warning system for earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, using GPS technology and other sensors. It has already helped to alert emergency services to the risk of flash floods in Southern California. Even though it will only give a few minutes or seconds of warning, it will help emergency services to prepare and can give the public some vital information. The GPS stations use satellite technology to measure ground movement, whilst the seismic sensors and other instruments can help to track weather conditions. This allows displacements that occur during an earthquake or other event to measured, and can help to predict an earthquakes magnitude and whether or not it will cause a tsunami. The water vapour in the air can also be measured, allowing scientists to track the amount of moisture and determine whether heavy rain is likely. This means that flash flood alerts can go out quickly and efficiently. The emergency services can be alerted instantaneously, and the public can receive warnings straight to their phones. This kind of technology is relatively inexpensive, and could become a worldwide system.
These sort of systems aren't new. GPS satellite data has been used in the last year or so to give detailed information about the few minutes before an earthquake occurs, and whether or not this could cause a tsunami. Tsunamis can travel towards land in a few minutes, which means that evacuation plans need to be quick and efficient. In the past, seismoloigcal data has been used to measure the waves of energy that are created during an earthquake. However, this cannot always be reliable in the first stages. New GPS sensors around the coastlines of vulnerable countries can measure precise ground movements. This information can help to reconstruct the earthquake and calculate its magnitude, allowing for the accurate prediction of a tsunami, allowing the alerts to be issued quickly.
Phones have also been used previously to alert the public about earthquakes and tsunamis. People in high risk areas will often have survival kits with things such as water, food, blankets, medication, a torch, toiletries, money, matches, tool kit, and entertainment material (thanks to LA Times for the list). But getting to these survival kits every time there is an earthquake can prove to be tricky, and even annoying. If the public can be alerted to whether or not it is a serious quake, then it could help to save their lives as they know whether or not they should be accessing their kits. Small, cheap accelerometers have been given to hundreds of volunteers in Pasadena to plug into their PC's to pick up the vibrations caused by the earthquakes. The data is sent out to a processing centre to calculate the intensity and track its path, allowing alerts to be sent out. The next step was to try this with an app that can downloaded to people's phones. The acceleramoter, location and time are all built in to the phone. However, the sensor in the phone is not very accurate, and it would be tricky to tell the difference between normal movement and the vibrations from an earthquake. But if enough phones were stationary at the time, then it would be relatively easy to determine that an earthquake is underway and how intense it is. This can then lead to a prediction about whether or not a tsunami will hit. It can then tell the user how long it will be until the wave will arrive. This is still a prototype, but it is being developed. Other apps will just alert people to the possibility of an impending earthquake or tsunami, how long it will take to arrive, and how intense it will be.
So it looks like it's not all doom and gloom out there. Technology is being advanced to help us predict and prepare for hazards, and has already assisted in saving lives.