Geo spatial technology solution for Indian national tsunami early warning system

Abstract

Tsunami is a system of ocean gravity waves formed as a result of large scale disturbance of the sea floor that occurs in a relatively short duration of time. The Indian Ocean is likely to be affected by tsunamis generated mainly by earthquakes from the two potential source regions, the Andaman¬ Nicobar ¬Sumatra Island Arc and the Makran Subduction Zone. A state of the art warning centre has been established at INCOIS with all the necessary computational and communication infrastructure that enables reception of real¬ time data from the network of national and international seismic stations, tide gauges and Bottom Pressure Recorders (BPRs). Earthquake parameters are computed in the less than 15 minutes of occurrence. A database of pre¬ run scenarios for travel times and run¬up height has been created using Tunami N2 model. At the time of event, the closest scenario is picked from the database for generating advisories. Water level data enables confirmation or cancellation of a tsunami. Tsunami bulletins are then generated based on decision support rules and disseminated to the concerned authorities for action, following a standard operating procedure. One of the key components of the early warning centre is the development of application software around GIS technology that performs end to end 24 X 7 operations right from data reception, display, analysis, modeling and decision support system for generation of tsunami advisories following a standard operating procedure.