TY - JOUR
T1 - Citizen earthquake science in Taiwan
T2 - From science to Hazard mitigation
AU - Liang, Wen Tzong
AU - Lee, Jian Cheng
AU - Chen, Kate Huihsuan
AU - Hsiao, Nai Chi
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the office of the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center (TEC) for maintaining these developed systems and applications under the leadership of Prof. Kuo-Fong Ma. This work was supported in part by the “Open Information System for Disaster Management, OpenISDM” and “Disaster Resiliency through Big Open Data and Smart Things, DRBoast” projects (Funding agency: Center for Sustainability Science, Academia Sinica), as well as the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center program (TEC) (Grant Numbers: MOST 106-2119-M-001-021 and 105-2119-M-001-034; TEC Contribution Number for this article is 00139.) (Funding agency: Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology, MOST).
Funding Information:
The Taiwan Earthquake Research Center (TEC) [27] is a virtual organization that is sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan and is now based at the IES. The missions of TEC are to (1) initiate research in new fields and to implement research outcomes in Taiwan, (2) integrate all available resources for the research community, and (3) promote earthquake science education and outreach to better prepare citizens for future earthquake impacts. TEC has closely collaborated with universities and research institutions to provide online materials for educational and outreach purposes. Below, we introduce some recent major achievements of TEC.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Fuji Technology Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/12
Y1 - 2017/12
N2 - Taiwan is located at the convergent plate boundary between the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea plates. As a result, intense earthquake activity and associated surface deformation are manifesting in this region. To implement and promote citizen earthquake science in Taiwan, we have developed several web-based platforms with multi-purpose themes, such as earthquake science information, popular science education, and crowdsourcing systems. First, with the rapid earthquake report issued from the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau (CWB), the available near real-time scientific results obtained from the Taiwanese seismology community are collected and published to a platform, the Taiwan Earthquake Science Information System (TESIS). The scientific information archived at TESIS includes CWB earthquake reports, focal mechanisms, shake maps, and finite source models (for strong earthquakes). All real-time results are integrated into a GIS system with background geospatial information, such as geological maps, traces of active faults, background seismicity, and inter-seismic GPS velocity fields. Second, by collaborating with Stanford University to maintain a regional Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) server in Taiwan, we have promoted citizen seismology in Asia by bringing earthquake information and scientific knowledge to the public. More than 200 school teachers have already installed the QCN sensors in Internet-enabled computers. Through two web-based educational platforms, users are able to access the guidelines and further interact with the recorded waveforms. Third, we also developed an earthquake damage reporting system - the Taiwan Scientific Earthquake Reporting (TSER) system - to encourage the citizen to collect field observation for significant earthquake-induced ground damages such as surface fault rupture, landslide, rock fall, liquefaction, and landslide-triggered dam or lake. The TSER system is constructed under the Ushahidi mapping platform, which has been widely used in crowdsourcing for the geospatial archiving of events. Trained high school teachers and public volunteers can send their ground damage observations, including photographs, through the TSER system. Most of these products and online systems are now being operated by the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center (TEC). With these newly developed platforms and materials, we aim to not only raise earthquake awareness and preparedness, but also encourage public participation in earthquake science in Taiwan.
AB - Taiwan is located at the convergent plate boundary between the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea plates. As a result, intense earthquake activity and associated surface deformation are manifesting in this region. To implement and promote citizen earthquake science in Taiwan, we have developed several web-based platforms with multi-purpose themes, such as earthquake science information, popular science education, and crowdsourcing systems. First, with the rapid earthquake report issued from the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau (CWB), the available near real-time scientific results obtained from the Taiwanese seismology community are collected and published to a platform, the Taiwan Earthquake Science Information System (TESIS). The scientific information archived at TESIS includes CWB earthquake reports, focal mechanisms, shake maps, and finite source models (for strong earthquakes). All real-time results are integrated into a GIS system with background geospatial information, such as geological maps, traces of active faults, background seismicity, and inter-seismic GPS velocity fields. Second, by collaborating with Stanford University to maintain a regional Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) server in Taiwan, we have promoted citizen seismology in Asia by bringing earthquake information and scientific knowledge to the public. More than 200 school teachers have already installed the QCN sensors in Internet-enabled computers. Through two web-based educational platforms, users are able to access the guidelines and further interact with the recorded waveforms. Third, we also developed an earthquake damage reporting system - the Taiwan Scientific Earthquake Reporting (TSER) system - to encourage the citizen to collect field observation for significant earthquake-induced ground damages such as surface fault rupture, landslide, rock fall, liquefaction, and landslide-triggered dam or lake. The TSER system is constructed under the Ushahidi mapping platform, which has been widely used in crowdsourcing for the geospatial archiving of events. Trained high school teachers and public volunteers can send their ground damage observations, including photographs, through the TSER system. Most of these products and online systems are now being operated by the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center (TEC). With these newly developed platforms and materials, we aim to not only raise earthquake awareness and preparedness, but also encourage public participation in earthquake science in Taiwan.
KW - Citizen earthquake science
KW - Crowdsourcing
KW - Earthquake school in the cloud
KW - Taiwan
KW - Taiwan Earthquake Science Information System (TESIS)
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U2 - 10.20965/jdr.2017.p1174
DO - 10.20965/jdr.2017.p1174
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85037541940
SN - 1881-2473
VL - 12
SP - 1174
EP - 1181
JO - Journal of Disaster Research
JF - Journal of Disaster Research
IS - 6
ER -