On the development and introduction of a territorial anti-seismic early warning and protection system in Armenia

Abstract

The study of international experience shows that the advances in designing and introducing earthquake early warning systems (EEWS) significantly improved the effectiveness and feasibility of short-term early warnings of upcoming earthquake shakes and the use of territorial EEWSs in many countries. Despite the universal recognition of the EEWSs' efficiency in many countries and their encouraging experiences, no any territorial EEWS has yet been designed and implemented in the Republic of Armenia (RA), although the RA has painful statistics on the terrible human losses and immense material damages caused by previous devastating earthquakes, country's continues high seismicity and seismic risks, and the low seismic resistance of many objects.

Thus, from the point of view of increasing the RA seismic safety, the designing, creation, and introduction of a combined integrated territorial EEWS allowing advanced anti-seismic protection of the most important objects and public early warning is an important issue which was included in the IAPP NAS RA scientific research activities. On the other side, the comparative analyses of the specifics of the RA territory, including the distribution of seismic sources and the network of seismic stations with the operating EEWSs' various working principles, algorithms, and architectures show that none of the EEWSs’ on-site (local) or regional (network) algorithms and architectures used can be applied in the proposed Armenian EEWS.

Due to the above we started initial studies on designing an appropriate hybrid algorithm and architecture for the proposed desirable EEWS effective operation adapted to the RA specifics. In this context, we have begun particularly to study the international experience of the EEWSs’ designing, introduction, and operation, assessment of the need, possibility, and feasibility of creating a territorial effective EEW system for Armenia, comparison of algorithms and principles used in existing EEW systems and their capabilities with the specifics of Armenia.