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Date: 4/20/2021

Session Time: 9:45 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific

Earthquake Early Warning System in the Americas: The On-Going Effort and the State of the Art

Latin America and the Caribbean constitute one of the most earthquake-prone regions of our planet, where an exponentially growing population undergoing rapid urbanization and living in mostly vulnerable structures is frequently exposed to extremely high ground accelerations from shallow large-continental and offshore-megathrust and tsunami earthquakes. In the last 20 years, a total of 143 earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 6.5 have struck the region. From these, 29% have occurred with moment magnitudes between 7 and 8, whereas ~4% are great earthquakes, with magnitudes larger than 8, generating in most cases, a negative socio-economic impact in the developing economies.
 
The urgent necessity for better assessment of earthquake hazards and mitigation of some of the consequences of these damaging events has led to the development of Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWs) across the Americas and the Caribbean. International collaborations for building capacities and sharing experiences are on-going, these efforts are accompanied by a continuous increase in data quality and accessibility, modern technology (low latency broadband and strong motion instruments, GNSS, cheap sensors including smartphones and social network data) and improved EEW methodologies.
 
The aim of this session is to provide the state-of-the-art overview of earthquake early warning and rapid response systems in the Americas. We expect to generate a space to share experiences, new techniques and opportunities, but also to identify challenges, pinpoint components requiring improvement and to establish new international collaborations. We welcome contributions on Earthquake Early Warning and rapid response development, that span an end-to-end EEW system, from development of EEW-ready networks and the application of EEW algorithms to tools for public alert dissemination and social science considerations.

Conveners

Esteban J. Chaves, Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica, Universidad Nacional (esteban.j.chaves@una.cr)
Marino Protti, Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica Universidad Nacional (marino.protti.quesada@una.cr)
Edmundo Norabuena, Instituto Geofísico del Perú (enorabuena@igp.gob.pe)
Gerardo Suarez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (gersua@yahoo.com)

Oral Presentations