New Kiwi Research Uncovers Important Gap In Knowledge About Early Earthquake Warning

New Zealand researchers have discovered that while scientists have made huge technological progress on earthquake early warning (EEW) systems worldwide, most neglect to prioritise the question on how it would be understood and used by the communities they are trying to protect.

The ground-breaking study by the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR) at Massey University, which was funded by Toka Tū Ake EQC, was published in the international science publication Frontiers and received global plaudits from the science community.

“Our research showed that there has been a lot of technological advances in the field of EEW systems, but how people will respond to an early warning signal is not that well understood,” says lead researcher Dr Marion Tan.

The team at Massey University conducted a literature study of 70 globally available research papers on EEW systems and found that most research is technology ‘top-down’ driven and social aspects of EEW are investigated retrospectively.

This study is a key component of a larger project by Massey University to explore the feasibility of developing a low-cost EEW system for New Zealand, which is also funded by Toka Tū Ake EQC and Massey University and led by Dr Raj Prasanna.

“The findings of this literature review provide essential inputs to improve significant next steps of the technology development,” says Prasanna.

Toka Tū Ake EQC Chief Resilience and Research Officer Dr Jo Horrocks says that an EEW system would be an amazing tool to reduce the impact of earthquakes.

“Unfortunately, we do not have the financial resources of some other countries, so the Massey project is incredibly exciting to explore a low-cost system, but also to understand how New Zealanders would respond to early alerts,” says Dr Horrocks.

The New Zealand project started nearly two years ago with community workshops throughout the country to explore if Kiwis want an EEW system and what they expect of it.

With that feedback in mind, the team started testing low-cost seismometers and develop algorithms to optimise the sensors.

“Our latest research has underlined that our approach to EEW was something new, because we first asked the community what they wanted before we embarked on the technical work,” says Dr Tan. “Considering the importance of social impacts may be a reflection of the culture in New Zealand towards inclusivity.”

Dr Tan says that the technical knowledge is vital to develop early warning systems, but scientists worldwide increasingly recognise the importance of the social aspects.

“For an early warning system to be successful, it needs people to recognise, trust and know how to respond when they get an alert,” says Dr Tan, who says that the research has highlighted the gap, but a lot more work is required to provide the solutions.

“There is so much we don’t know about what needs to be done before an early warning system will be effectively used by the public.”

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