"Last mile" challenges to in situ volcanic data transmission

Abstract

Abstract. Scientists play a key role in volcanic risk management, but rely heavily on fast access to data acquired in the vicinity of an active volcano. Hazardous volcanoes are often located in remote areas were telecommunications infrastructure is fragile. Besides being exposed directly to the volcanic hazard, the infrastructure in such remote areas can also suffer from "last mile" limitations derived from lack of market demand for data transmission services. In this paper, we report on the findings of the FP7 MIAVITA project in the topic of volcanic data transmission. We draw on the contribution of partners from emergent or developing countries to identify the main bottlenecks and fragilities. We also present the results of an experiment conducted on Fogo Island, Cape Verde, to test the availability of VSAT services adequate for volcanic monitoring. We warn against the false sense of security resulting from increasingly ubiquitous connectivity, and point out the lack of reliability of many consumer-type services, particularly during emergencies when such services are likely to crash due to excess of demand from the public. Finally, we propose guidelines and recommend best practices for the design of volcanic monitoring networks in what concerns data transmission. In particular, we advise that the data transmission equipment close to the exposed area should be owned, operated and maintained by the volcanic monitoring institution. We exemplify with the set-up of the Fogo telemetric interface, which uses low-power licence-free radio modems to reach a robust point of entry into the public network at a suitable distance from the volcano.

Investigating volcanic hazard in Cape Verde Islands through geophysical monitoring: network description and first results

“…Three tilt stations, equipped with Applied Geomechanics AGI-701-2A instruments, were installed in November 2012 on Fogo Island. The data recorded by the tilt stations are also received at INMG in real time (see Fonseca et al, 2013, for the details on the strategy adopted for the telemetry of Fogo and Brava data).…”

“…The locations of Brava seismic stations were chosen taking into account previous seismicity results from temporary networks (Heleno, 2001;Helffrich et al, 2006;Faria, 2010;Grevemeyer et al, 2010), the local geology and the requirement of line of sight to the radio repeaters installed on Fogo (see Fonseca et al, 2013).…”

Preface: Approaches and methods to improve risk management in volcanic areas

“…1). Gehl et al (2013, in this special issue) have devised a tool to calculate damage caused by a given potential eruption, using eruptive scenarios fed by a hypothesized chronology of adverse events. Then, they use state of the art fragility functions (e.g., Jenkins et al, 2014) to evaluate the damage to vulnerable infrastructures (buildings, agriculture, roads, water or electrical networks).…”

LoRa Network Performance Analysis on Landslide Monitor for Landslide Disaster Mitigation in the Greater Malang Area

“…[https://bpbd.madiunkota.go.id/pentingnya-komunikasi-pada-pengelolaan-bencana/] [3]. Tetapi pada kenyataannya, seringkali sistem mitigasi bencana yang berkaitan dengan sektor perlindungan masyarakat, merupakan mata rantai yang lemah dalam hal telekomunikasi [4] [5]. Ketidak tersedianya layanan karena faktor kurangnya permintaan pasar, menyebabkan jaringan pada daerah rawan bencana menjadi buruk.…”