A Newly Installed Seismic and Geodetic Observational System at Five Indonesian Volcanoes as Part of the SATREPS Project

Abstract

“Integrated Study on Mitigation of Multimodal Disasters Caused by Ejection of Volcanic Products” Project was launched in March 2014 for the Galunggung, Guntur, Kelud, Merapi, and Semeru volcanoes. The objectives of the project include the development of an observational system for the prediction and real-time estimations of the discharge rate of volcanic products. Under the project, a team from the Sakurajima Volcano Research Center, Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (CVGHM) and the Balai Penyelidikan dan Pengembangan Teknologi Kebencanaan Geologi (BPPTKG) initiated the installation of a digital seismic and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) observational network for the volcanoes in December 2014, and finished the installation in September 2015. The seismic and GNSS data are transmitted by wireless local area networks (WLANs) from the stations to an observatory at each target volcano. We introduced three Windows PC software for data analysis: the first for estimating the equivalent rate of ejected ash from a volcano, the second for continuous smoothing of tilt data and detecting inflation and deflation in the volcanic sources, and the third for continuously evaluating eruption urgency to predict the eruption time. The seismic and GNSS data were routinely transmitted to the Support Systems of Decision Making (SSDM) at CVGHM or BPPTKG. Data completeness varied from volcano to volcano; for example, the data acquired for Kelud volcano were relatively stable, while those for Merapi volcano were problematic, owing to a communication disruption in the WLAN. We obtained the seismic and GNSS data at the target volcanoes in the observation period since 2015 when they have been relatively quiet.