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Earthquake Early Warning Systems in Taiwan: Current Status

  • Published:
Journal of the Geological Society of India

Abstract

The earthquake early warning (EEW) system in Taiwan is the outcome of rigorous research work carried out at various levels after the occurrence of the 1986 Hualien earthquake that caused destruction. After more than 25 years of development, three different EEW systems exist in Taiwan. Currently, the nation wide regional EEW system is operated by the Central Weather Bureau (CWB), whereas, a hybrid (regional & onsite) system based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical System sensors is run by National Taiwan University (NTU). The third EEW (onsite system) is run by the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). Both CWB and NTU systems are capable of reporting the EEW warnings within 20 seconds of earthquake occurrence. The CWB system is incharge of providing earthquake alerts in Taiwan via text message through mobile phone, TV, and directly broadcasting system to schools and is providing earthquake alarms to the general public since 2016. During recently damaging earthquakes in Taiwan, the NTU system provided 2–8 seconds onsite warning (lead time) in the blind zone around the epicenter. The NTU system also can generate near real-time shake maps for rapid response purposes. The NCREE system consists of about 98 stations and can provide several seconds lead time in the area near the epicenter. The NCREE system also can receive CWB regional EEW messages for warning the regions away from the epicenter. Individually every system has its advantage, however, the hybrid approach will be one of the future systems for real operation.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Prof. Harsh Gupta for providing the opportunity to present the development of Taiwan earthquake early warning systems. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan for sponsoring the project, under which this study was carried out. Our work was also supported by the Research Center of Future Earth of the National Taiwan University (NTU) and the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, Taiwan (NCREE). This work was also financially supported by the NTU Research Center for Future Earth from the Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan. The author (HM) is thankful to Dr. O.P. Mishra, Director, National Centre for Seismology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, India for providing necessary support to participate in present work.The GMT software from Wessel and Smith (1998) was used in plotting most of the figures and is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan

    Yih-Min Wu

  2. Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan

    Yih-Min Wu

  3. Research Center for Future Earth, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan

    Yih-Min Wu

  4. National Center for Seismology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, New Delhi, 110003, India

    Himanshu Mittal

  5. Central Weather Bureau, Taipei, 10048, Taiwan

    Da-Yi Chen

  6. Department of Earth and Life, University of Taipei, Taipei, 10048, Taiwan

    Da-Yi Chen

  7. Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, 10607, Taiwan

    Ting-Yu Hsu

  8. National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, Taipei, 106219, Taiwan

    Ting-Yu Hsu & Pei-Yang Lin

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  1. Yih-Min Wu
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  2. Himanshu Mittal
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Correspondence to Yih-Min Wu.

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Wu, YM., Mittal, H., Chen, DY. et al. Earthquake Early Warning Systems in Taiwan: Current Status. J Geol Soc India 97, 1525–1532 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-021-1909-6

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