For those pursuing a degree related to emergency management, the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) represents an important facet of national emergency preparedness and should be well understood. It represents a collaboration between all levels of government and the science community in an attempt to coordinate relief response and enhance social planning in the event of significant seismic activity. Below, the article examines what it is, how it is structured, and several of the subtler points related to its creation.
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Vital Networks
The recording and dissemination of seismic information are hardly new. Emergency response techniques and long-term engineering designs intended to preserve structures subjected to intense forces can be traced back to the Minoan civilization as represented in the material record. However, technological advancement and a deeper scientific understanding of what causes violent tremors in the earth have produced a great deal of information within the research community.
The complex integration of all this data with emergency response mechanisms proved an enormous task, but several decades of consistent effort have produced a successful framework. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) site explains that the ANSS is part of a network of recording stations that include the Backbone Network. This core represents the data of 11 regional seismic stations located around the country.
While each station is considered the authority on readings and reports generated in their region, the network is bolstered by thousands of international stations that share reporting of seismic events with the United States. In the instance that a regional station cannot communicate, this information is used to craft an emergency response.
Information Uses
While the data generated by these stations is critical to understanding seismic events and their impacts on human habitation, it cannot be used effectively without a standard means of communication. As well, emergency planning bodies from the federal to local levels must be educated in its application in order to communicate, craft mitigation strategies, and conduct preparedness exercises.
The Advanced National Seismic System is structured with a shadow hierarchy of political and social bodies. These groups determine how information is utilized, which stations require upgrades, and approve funding for both these ends as well as preventative construction or maintenance of existing structures. When instruments register significant seismic activity, although all motion is recorded, they then generate data. Specialists and technicians interpret the raw data and create reports.
However, one of the critical benefits of the ANSS is that it sends vital information to the emergency response units in areas of potential impact within a matter of minutes. Even though the USGS estimates that the window ranges from ten to thirty minutes, that’s a substantial improvement, and it can save lives. First responders can target their efforts, and relief efforts can estimate where their services will be most effective.
In the longer term, the information gathered and interpreted at the seismic recording stations is put to several uses. First, understanding where seismic activity occurs, to what degree, and in what form helps government bodies of both political committees and civic response efforts understand how and in what time they must act in the event of seismic activity. For example, a coastal Pacific Northwest event could produce tsunamis and potential loss of life, whereas a landlocked locality on the fringe of an active zone might only necessitate a general, non-emergency announcement.
In conjunction with other USGS bodies, the ANSS helps to craft both documentation of events, map frequency and severity of seismic activity, and assist in community preparedness. By crafting a network that interrelates, analyzes, documents, and relays information to impacted areas in which emergency response teams are ready to act, both lives and property are saved by the Advanced National Seismic System.