Earthquake Early Warning System: Science and Technology, Challenges and Limitations

Dear Colleagues,

The increasing urbanization worldwide has led to the establishment of large metropolitan areas near major active faults (whether on land or offshore), which pose a serious seismic threat to the human population and to infrastructures. Today, an accurate earthquake forecast method appears to be far from operational. Consequently, attention has shifted to Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWS) for reducing earthquake hazards, offering information for incoming destructive seismic waves in almost real time. Over the last two decades, due to rapid technological advances in the fields of signal processing and data transmission, effective techniques have been developed to analyze seismological data in almost real time. In this direction, real‐time seismology integrates fast and instantaneous data broadcast systems with automatic signal processing, providing reliable estimates of earthquake parameters (location and magnitude) in the first few seconds during its occurrence. Modern EEWSs could offer a few to tens of seconds of warning time for impending ground motions, allowing for mitigation measures in the short term. The information produced by the aforementioned systems can be used by civil protection authorities to minimize the damages and the losses (human and economic), as well as provide real-time loss estimation for emergency teams.

This Special Issue aims to highlight advances in the development of Earthquake Early Warning Systems technologies along with new innovative geophysical modeling and data analysis methods (AI and machine learning) that can be applied to EEWS operation. We encourage methodological contributions as well as key technological applications, which demonstrate how these EEWS technologies and/or methods help to improve our understanding of the physical processes governing earthquake. In addition, methods based on Geophysical and Satellite observations as could support EEWS are also welcome.

Prof. Dr. Filippos Vallianatos
Dr. Tony Alfredo Stabile
Dr. Vincenzo Lapenna
Guest Editors

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• earthquake early warning systems
• earthquake detection and location
• seismic sensors and networks for EEWS
• AI and machine learning in EEWS
• real time seismology
• seismic hazard mitigation
• seismic alert—real-time shake alerts
• earthquake source modeling for EEWS
• physics of the EEWS scaling laws
• algorithms for EEWS
• new geophysical and satellite methodologies for EEWS