Development of Application Systems for Earthquake Early Warning

Abstract

In Japan, governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and private companies cooperated to develop the Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system from 2003 to 2007. It is for overall use in the country to mitigate earthquake disasters. Real-time Earthquake Information Consortium (REIC) is in charge of developing the application system for EEW. All data are from the networks of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED). Those data are collected and analyzed in real time using the system developed by the NIED and JMA. The JMA officially issues two kinds of EEW: one for general public and one for advanced users. Once earthquakes occur, the focal parameters are calculated as quickly as possible after sufficient number of observation sites detect seismic waves, and are transmitted to the advanced users, generally within seconds. The parameters disseminated can be used by any private party or organization for their own purposes. We have developed 14 particular application systems to help with various countermeasures, including automated and/or semi-automated responses in each field. The systems are being adopted gradually for earthquake disaster mitigation.