Special Mention: e-Gov Projects : INCOIS : Indian Tsunami Early Warning System

Natural disasters are a harsh reality that we all have to live with. While

their occurrence is beyond human control, the damage caused by them can be

minimized. We all remember the devastation caused by the tsunami that occurred

in the Indian Ocean on Dec 26th, 2004. Had there been an early warning system to

sound off the impacted Indian coastal areas, a lot of damage could have been

prevented. Though what has happened can't be reversed, that tragic incident has

served us a key lesson to prepare ourselves for the future. The Tsunami Early

Warning System (TEWS) was thus established on Oct 15, 2007.

TEWS has been established by the Ministry of Earth Sciences in collaboration

with Department of Science and Technology, Department of Space, and the Council

of Scientific and Industrial Research. The National Tsunami Early Warning Center

has been set up at INCOIS (Indian National Center for Ocean Information

Services),Hyderabad.

The implementation



The system uses GIS-based N2 modeling, and real time data monitoring

sub-systems for seismic data, tide gauge as well as BPR (bottom pressure

recorders) from various national and international sources. There's a decision

support system based on a data warehouse and data, for generating accurate

tsunami alerts to disseminate this information to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA),

Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and administrators though Fax, SMS, email and

pushing on a website.

The N2 model app displays output as layers on maps with appropriate symbology.

There's a WebGIS based website that displays real-time seismic activity on

INCOIS's website. For instance, as of writing this article, there was an

earthquake in the Irian Jaya region of Indonesia with a magnitude of 6.4. This

was promptly displayed on the INCOIS tsunami (www. tsunami.incois.gov.in)

website.

Apart from the above, there's a system in place for disseminating tsunami

warnings through emails and SMS alerts.

Overall impact



The impact of such a system is immense. It's helping INCOIS accurately

detect tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and alert potentially affected surrounding

countries. It can even predict the travel time for a tsunami to reach a

particular location along the coast, and disseminate tsunami alerts to  MHA,

MoES, administrators and the general public, thereby helping reduce the damage

to life and property. It can provide the location of impact, the key contact

persons, and areas of inundation with expected heights.

The system monitors all seismic activity in the Indian Ocean and reports 6.5+ earthquakes in real time and posts them on the INCOIS website.

TEWS was able to validate the September 12, 2007 earthquake off southern

Sumatra within 12 minutes. The tsunami warning center swung into action and

issued a tsunami alert for Andaman and a tsunami watch for main land within 13

minutes. In fact, further online watches of various data sources of the Early

Warning System have enabled the client to downgrade these warnings, thereby

saving huge revenue outflows required for evacuation and also proving the

effectiveness of this system should a high magnitude undersea earthquake occur

in the Indian Ocean region.

The key performance indicators for the system are also quite impressive. It

takes less than 10 minutes to issue an earthquake warning with 100% accuracy in

determining the location, depth, and magnitude. All countries in the Indian

Ocean receive timely watch. The system is intelligent enough to do self

corrections in case the wave height varies and can cancel a warning with

immediate verifications. It has recorded over a 1000 earthquake events ever

since its inception.

Also, the citizens can register for tsunami alerts from INCOIS tsunami

website, www. tsunami.incois.gov.in for receiving alerts through various media

like email & SMS. Lots of action is in store for further development of this

system as well, like developing this portal in local languages, generating mass

awareness amongst the people living in coastal areas, increasing the center's

capabilities to include warning mechanisms for cyclones and storm surges.