Gov. Davis's
proposed budget includes funds for UC Berkeley Seismological
Laboratory to improve northern state's earthquake monitoring
system
12
Jan 2001
By
Robert Sanders, Media Relations
Berkeley
- Gov. Gray Davis this week proposed spending $6.8 million
per year for the next five years to improve California's earthquake
monitoring network, with a major fraction of the funds going
to the University of California, Berkeley, to deploy more
earthquake sensors in the northern part of the state.
The funds,
requested in the 2001-2002 budget Davis sent to the state
legislature on Wednesday, also would replace some temporary
federal funds that have helped expand the seismic monitoring
network throughout southern California. The southern network,
called TriNet, provides emergency preparedness agencies and
Caltrans with real-time information on the magnitude and location
of a quake, plus maps pinpointing the areas of most severe
shaking.
With the
proposed state funds, UC Berkeley and the California Division
of Mines and Geology would expand the number of earthquake
monitor stations in the northern part of the state, so that
ShakeMaps in northern California can be as accurate as those
in the South.
"These
funds are really important for the earthquake monitoring infrastructure
in northern California, and will bring us close to parity
with southern California," said Lind Gee, a seismologist in
the Seismological Laboratory at UC Berkeley. "But they also
will help us do earthquake monitoring in a more integrated
way between the northern and southern parts of the state,
establish backup systems for one another, and in general improve
the network beyond where we are now."
Gee noted
that shake maps, provided as quickly as 5-10 minutes after
an earthquake, have helped agencies in southern California
deal with the aftermath of quakes, and in last September's
5.2 Napa quake were used extensively by various northern California
agencies.
"This kind
of information is very useful in order to know where to deploy
resources, pinpointing areas where the ground shook the hardest
and thus where the most damage may have occurred," she said.
"With computer software now available, shake map data also
can be combined with other information to project damage and
loss."
The budget
item directs the money to a new California Integrated Seismic
Network (CISN), composed of the US Geological Survey (USGS),
the California Division of Mines and Geology (CDMG), UC Berkeley
and Caltech. The state Office of Emergency Services would
lead the project and coordinate with other state agencies,
asking CISN partners to carry out technical development of
this statewide system. This includes deploying seismic stations
in northern California, implementing data processing and reporting
systems, and funding the operation, maintenance and further
improvement of the existing TriNet system in southern California.
As part
of the program in northern California, the Berkeley Seismological
Laboratory would significantly expand the Berkeley Digital
Seismic Network. The new seismic stations would include broadband
sensors to obtain good measurements of small to medium quakes,
plus strong motion sensors to accurately measure the largest
quakes. In addition, CDMG would deploy a number of strong-motion
sensors in the north as part of the California Strong-Motion
Instrumentation Program.
The proposed
funding would leverage the more than $20 million already invested
in TriNet from the federal and private sectors in California
as part of Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's)
disaster recovery program for the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
That money expires this year. The state funds also would leverage
funding from the federal Advanced National Seismic System,
which is expected to come to California through the USGS.
According
to Barbara Romanowicz, director of the Berkeley Seismological
Laboratory and chair of the CISN Steering Committee, "The
CISN is needed because the distribution of state of the art
seismic systems in northern California is not dense enough
to serve the needs of the emergency response, engineering,
and seismological communities. In particular, a dense network
combining weak motion and strong motion sensors, with real-time
data access, is needed to accurately map out the distribution
of shaking, identify the vulnerable spots in urban areas and
understand their relation to underlying soil and geological
structures as well as to the built environment.
The instrumentation
in remote areas of California also is insufficient to produce
reliable ShakeMaps for emergency response.
"California
has a lock on earthquake risk in this country," Gee said,
noting that a FEMA study published this year estimated an
annualized earthquake loss to building stock in the United
States of $4.4 billion, of which approximately $3.3 billion,
or 74 percent, is concentrated in California.
"CISN money
will go a long way toward upgrading our current earthquake
monitoring system to deal with this risk," she said, "and
we're thrilled that the governor has made it part of his budget
proposal."
###
Links:
California
Integrated Seismic Network
USGS
Menlo Park
USGS Pasadena
CDMG
Berkeley Seismological
Laboratory
Caltech
Seismological Laboratory
TriNet
Shake
Maps
Advanced
National Seismic System
.
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