Abstract
Losses due to strong seismic events can amount to millions or billions of US dollars and can affect regions for large periods of time, even severely undermining the economy. Earthquake early warning systems have proven to be helpful tools to mitigate the social and economic impact on communities and businesses. Recent case studies are briefly described, followed by examples of proactive measures for assets, infrastructure, citizens education and empowerment, complementary to earthquake early warning systems.
Highlights
During the last few decades, many efforts were made to create and develop efficient early warning systems for different hazards
This paper focuses on assessing the performance of earthquake early warning systems (EEWS) and their applicability as an asset risk management tool
This paper shows that EEWSs are valuable tools to be included in the decisionmaking process, that seeks to balance cost and performance throughout the full lifecycle of physical assets
Summary
During the last few decades, many efforts were made to create and develop efficient early warning systems for different hazards. Warnings for incoming S-waves can give people time to adopt the “Drop, Cover, Hold” safety protocol or for automated devices (e.g., chemical, and industrial factories) to prevent cascading events, like fire or toxic material spills [13] This EWS concept can be applied to earthquakes, and to floods, landslides, tsunamis, and volcano eruptions [14]. An EEWS is the combination of different elements, such as seismometers, sensors, communication appliances, computers, and alarm systems, able to detect and warm of the arrival of seismic waves It serves to mitigate damages and losses [16,19], to be used primarily in moderate and high seismically active regions. The applicability of these EEWSs can be limited: distance from the epicenter, hypocenter depth, and magnitude of the event can influence the alert time given to a population and to machines to act [25]
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