Government Connection
G E O W O R L D / N O V E M B E R 2 O O 9 10 Government Special Issue Earthquake Monitoring Gets Boost from Grants Thirteen universities are receiving federal grants totaling $5 million to help upgrade critical earthquake-monitoring networks and increase public safety. The grants come under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and are being awarded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Universities receiving funding include the following: Montana Tech of the University of Montana; California Institute of Technology; University of Oregon; University of Utah; University of California, San Diego; University of Washington; Saint Louis University; University of Memphis; Boston College; University of Nevada, Reno; University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. These stimulus grants will save lives as well as cre-ate jobs, said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. More than 75 million Americans in 39 states face the risk of earthquakes. Through the modernization of seismic networks and data processing centers, sci-entists will be able to provide emergency responders with more reliable, robust information to save lives and reduce economic losses. Monitoring is a key component of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) overseen by the USGS. The system is a national network of shaking monitors that are located on the ground and in urban buildings. Strong motion instruments in the ANSS are used to develop real-time maps that show emergency-response personnel where severe ground shaking has occurred as well as provide engineers with information they can use to create sounder structures, from houses to bridges to utility networks. Stimulus funding should replace old instruments with much-needed modern systems across the high-est earthquake hazard areas in California, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Intermountain West, and the central and eastern United States. In California and other high-hazard regions, for example, some parts of the current system include 40-year-old technology, with some recent system upgrades dating back to 1997. The new monitoring systems also should offer greater energy efficiency than those they replace, with solar being the primary power source in remote loca-tions. USGS also predicts that the new technology should help lower future maintenance costs. Landsat Data Map Water Use Data from Earth-observing Landsat satellites are playing a role in a new type of mapping that tracks water use. The maps are considered especially important in dry western states, where irrigated agri-culture accounts for approximately 85 percent of all water consumption. Using Landsat imagery supplied by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in combination with ground-based water data, the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the University of Idaho developed a method to create water-use maps that are accurate to the scale of individual fields. The Landsat-based method can be as much as 80 percent more accurate than traditional measurement methods. The USGS Landsat archive, dating back to 1972, has proven to be a versatile source of consistent data about land-surface conditions, said Bryant Cramer, USGS associate director for Geography. This advance by the Idaho water-monitoring team is brilliant and prac-tical. Looking forward, it's indicative of what researchers in many countries can accomplish with the data. With initial assistance from NASA, the Idaho Department of Water Resources began cooperating with the University of Idaho in 2000 to develop a computer model to estimate and map water use in GOV ERNMENT CONNECTION A NASA image shows the San Andreas Fault, a major player in the West Coast earthquake zone. U S G S /N A S A