Public Seismic Network (PSN): a Model for Preparing People to use Real-time Information About Natural Hazards

When an earthquake occurs, unlike any other natural hazard, every individual in the population at risk is aware within seconds that a dangerous event has happened.  Without the aid of any technology, the consciousness of everyone affected is almost instantaneously focused on the same subject.  Instead of soliciting that information, authorities broadcast the redundant message that an earthquake has occurred.  A program of monitoring natural hazards for the public requires public participation to effectively mitigate those hazards.  The Public Seismic Network (PSN), rather than relegating them to the role of sitting ducks waiting to be devastated by the unexpected, enables people to become aware that earthquakes are part of normal, on-going Earth processes. The PSN is a rapidly growing international group of amateur seismologists, concentrated in California, who record earthquakes with their own digital seismographs and exchange waveform time series and communicate with each other via the Internet.  At present, the PSN consists of about 50 seismograph stations, about 250 subscribers to its email list server, and about 10 websites.  In urban areas of high seismic risk, a grassroots organization like the PSN -- equipped with low-cost, mass-produced, standardized strong-motion seismographs -- could vastly increase the spatial density of sampling ground motions.  This organization would form a constituency of well-informed residents who not only know how to respond to catastrophic earthquakes but also support hazard mitigation programs in the community.  Rather than just building faster ambulances to mitigate the impact of heart attacks, it is more effective to modify the public habits of exercise and diet.  The PSN is a model for using technology to connect human awareness to, rather than shield it from, the environment.

Cranswick, E., Gardner, B. and Public Seismic Network, 1997, Public Seismic Network (PSN): A Model for Preparing People to Use Real-Time Information About Natural Hazards: Eos (American Geophysical Union, Transactions), v. 78, no. 46, p. F46 (AGU 1997 Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA).

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