Tsunami technology project

最近对不列颠哥伦比亚省海岸的研究表明，在未来50年内，沿卡斯卡迪亚俯冲带发生大型逆冲地震的可能性很大。下一次大地震和随之而来的海啸可能会造成大量人员死亡，并给不列颠哥伦比亚省西海岸带来重大经济损失。加拿大保险局最近的一份报告估计，这类事件对不列颠哥伦比亚省海岸的经济影响约为750亿加元。不列颠哥伦比亚省审计长办公室2014年的另一份报告指出“……不列颠哥伦比亚省应急管理局（EMBC）无法证明它已做好充分准备来管理灾难性地震的影响……”。防备这类事件的一些主要限制来自该地区缺乏可靠的海啸探测和到达时间预报系统。如果发生远场海啸（即海啸从太平洋遥远的地方到达），不列颠哥伦比亚省会通过美国国家海洋和大气局（NOAA）运营的阿拉斯加和夏威夷海啸预警中心接收警报，警报是基于它们运行的海啸探测系统。不幸的是，美国国家海洋和大气管理局的探测系统并不是为解决近海不到1000公里的近场海啸的产生和传播而设计的。建议推进不列颠哥伦比亚省沿海近场海啸探测预警系统建设。该项目利用IBM硬件的计算能力、维多利亚大学的学术知识和加拿大海洋网络天文台基础设施收集的“大数据”，结合其他数据源，为加拿大西海岸量身定制软件和建模开发。这些关于近场海啸的首次发展可以在将来适用于其他感兴趣的领域，使加拿大处于近场海啸科学的前沿，并有助于拯救生命。

Recent studies for the coast of British Columbia indicate that there is a significant probability of a large megathrust earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone within the next 50 years. The next great earthquake and subsequent tsunami could cause a significant number of fatalities and result in major economic losses along the west coast of British Columbia (BC). A recent report to the Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates the economic impact of such an event on the coast of BC to be approximately ~ $75 Billion CDN. Another report from the Office of the Auditor General of BC in 2014 indicates "...Emergency Management BC (EMBC) cannot demonstrate that it is adequately prepared to manage the effects of a catastrophic earthquake...". Some of the major limitations for the preparedness for such an event come from the lack of reliable tsunami detection and time of arrival forecast systems for the area. In the event of far-field tsunamis (i.e. tsunamis arriving from distant locations in the Pacific Ocean), British Columbia receives alerts through the Alaska and Hawaii Tsunami Warning Centers operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) in the United States based on the tsunami detection system that they operate. Unfortunately, the NOAA detection system is not designed for addressing the generation and propagation of near-field tsunamis that originate less than 1000 km offshore.We propose to advance the tsunami detection and warning systems for near-field tsunamis for the coast of BC. This project leverages the computational power of IBM's hardware, the academic knowledge at the University of Victoria and the "big data" collected by Ocean Networks Canada's observatories infrastructure in combination with other data sources to produce software and modeling developments tailored for the west coast of Canada. These first time developments for near-field tsunamis could be adapted in the future to other areas of interest putting Canada at the forefront of near-field tsunami science and being instrumental in saving lives.