Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mary Rose Roberts

Environmental sensing technologies are providing earlier warnings of impending natural disasters, improving the ability of public safety to get people out of harm’s way.

Cristina Ramos puts on rugged hiking boots before she drives into Quito, Ecuador's capital. The city rests on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano made up of seven volcanoes in the Andes Mountains that backdrop the metropolitan area, where nearly 1.4 million residents depend on Ramos and other field engineers at the Instituto Geofísico de la Escuela Politécnica Nacional to monitor one of nature's fiercest forces.

Ramos spends most of her time traveling throughout Ecuador testing systems and explaining to the community the risks associated with living next to a stratovolcano. For example, volcanic lava temperatures can reach 1250° C (more than 2000° F); however, the flow's speed varies. In January 1977, a stratovolcano in Zaire drained in one hour and lava moved at speeds up to 40 miles per hour.

Lava could move swiftly down the steep slopes of Pichincha, so the institute uses wireless technology to notify and prepare for the evacuation of residents during potential volcanic eruptions. “It is very important to develop new wireless applications to improve the monitoring against natural hazards and mainly save lives,” Ramos said.

Wireless networks and sensor systems are at the heart of the institute's disaster preparedness plan. Previously, adequate data collection equipment for seismic and volcanic monitoring didn't exist in the country. The institute depended instead on existing equipment that was capable of collecting only local, short-range data, Ramos said. She did note that there was some digital telemetry used for applications that did not require continuous transmissions in real time, but it failed to meet field engineers' needs.

The institute worked with Ecuador's Red Nacional de Sismógrafos [National Seismograph Network] and Red de Observatorios Volcánicos [National Volcano Observatories] to develop a modern-day system that could transmit critical data to engineers in real time. The solution included myriad sensors that were placed inside volcanoes to remotely monitor volcanic and seismic activity throughout Ecuador, Ramos said.

“They include seismic, lahars, deformation, gases and thermal sensors as well as video stations — almost all of which transmit data in real time using analog and digital radios,” she said.

FreeWave's mobile radios were recently added to expand the reach of the monitoring networks. The deployment includes real-time access to broadband seismic stations in the Imbabura and Tungurahua volcanoes, where embedded sensors track volcanic gases. Stations also house remote digital cameras to capture images and soon will include sensing systems that quantify mud flow.

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