Involving communities in Canada’s earthquake early warning system

In a series of public education programs and workshops, researchers in Canada are engaging with communities and other stakeholders to develop an earthquake early warning system.

Written by Meghomita Das, McGill University (@meghomita)

Citation: Das, M., 2021, Engaging Communities in Canada’s Earthquake Early Warning System, Templor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.224

For residents of British Columbia, along the west coast of Canada, seeing a road sign that says, “Enter into a tsunami danger zone” is common. The sign reminds travelers that British Columbia and most of western North America is an earthquake country.

Here, the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate sinks beneath the North American plate. This boundary, called the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which stretches from British Columbia to northern California, has the potential to generate very large earthquakes and tsunamis and is currently ready for the next step.

Ensuring Canadians are alerted of potentially harmful earthquakes in the region falls to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), a federal organization tasked with developing policies and programs to benefit the country’s natural resources. On Wednesday, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, a team of researchers at NRCan gave an update on Canada’s planned earthquake early warning system and discussed their efforts to engage the public.

A tsunami warning sign in British Columbia tells people to move to higher areas in the event of a strong earthquake. Credit: Ruth Hartnup, via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Earthquake early warning systems can alert the public, emergency organizations and critical infrastructure operators of an impending shaking. The additional seconds of advanced warning are sufficient for personnel to take appropriate actions and automated systems to protect sensitive equipment, thus reducing the devastating effects of earthquakes on lives and property. In large countries such as Canada that have two widely separated seismic active areas, implementing such a system is challenging but doable. NRCan is currently deploying such a system.

Canadian earthquakes

Canada is a vast country with diverse tectonic settings. It has two main areas of medium to high seismic risk: British Columbia and eastern Ontario – south of Quebec. Regarding the former, the Cascadia Subduction Zone causes an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 roughly every 300 to 800 years, according to NRCan.

Potential future earthquakes in eastern Ontario and southern Quebec are even more uncertain. Although these areas do not lie on active plate boundaries, the St. Lawrence Seaway, which runs through these areas, has hosted several moderate to high earthquakes over the past 40 years. Canada’s largest cities are located in or near these high-risk areas.

Earthquake sources along the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from British Columbia in Canada to northern California in the United States, with locations and dates of previous earthquake activity. Credit: USGS, via Wikimedia Commons, CC-Public Domain Mark 1.0.

A network of sensors to detect earthquakes

The Canadian Earthquake Early Warning System will be implemented over the next three years. Three hundred sensors will be deployed on the ground across British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec to detect ground motions and transmit data quickly, says Henry Seywerd, project leader and co-author of the study. In the future, NRCan plans to expand this network to northern Canada and the Atlantic Ocean.

The system will use the same software as the ShakeAlert early warning system on the US West Coast to ensure that the alert is detected along the US-Canada border. Alerts will be sent through the country’s national public alert system. Additionally, facilities can be programmed to open emergency and hospital emergency doors, stop trains and even back up important data servers when an alert is issued.

We want people to understand that this system has no predictive powers. says Alison Baird, NRCan Communications Officer and co-author of this study, which deals with public engagement strategies for the project.

Bird says several workshops have been planned with critical infrastructure operators to ensure they are aware of the benefits of the system. You will work with Public Safety Canada, which operates the National Public Alert System, along with regional emergency management organizations to develop materials and activities to inform the public of the capabilities of this system, the need for immediate actions such as drop, cover, and wait and steps to take to prepare for earthquakes at home, school and work .

Test sensors that will be used in the earthquake early warning system network. Sensors measure strong ground movements. Credit: Natural Resources Canada and Nanometrics Inc. (shared by Alison Beard)

A system that works for the people

Coastal First Nations communities in British Columbia have documented historical earthquakes and their devastating effects as part of their oral traditions. These communities will be stakeholders in implementing the system and will help NRCan expand the network of stations on their lands, says Baird. Other partners include British Columbia Emergency Management, the Great British Columbia ShakeOut (Grande Secousse) and the Canadian Red Cross through the Inclusive Resilience Project.

Challenges faced

“Designing an earthquake early warning system is a complex process. We want key users to know that it is a warning system, but not a prediction system,” said Gabriel Lotto, user interaction facilitator ShakeAlert for the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN), who was not associated with this study. .

One of the main challenges of deploying the system is to raise awareness of earthquakes among the public and allow them to interact with this alert system. This problem was echoed by Lotto for ShakeAlert. Since eastern Canada generally experiences smaller earthquakes, residents may not be aware of their risks. One of the challenges for the group at NRCan is to ensure that these individuals know what to do if they receive an alert.

Canada’s population is unevenly distributed near the east and west coasts and urban centers are located far from each other. Therefore, the country has vast areas where access and connectivity are somewhat limited. The team plans to ensure that alerts are available across multiple platforms, such as radio, television, internet and cellular networks, so that residents of these remote areas can get timely alerts.

Implementation of the alarm system

Scientists are currently installing seismic sensors, and the team hopes to announce the first official station very soon. Over the next two years, the system will be tested and tuned before it is released to the public. With the system in place, the team will continue their efforts to public engagement and raise awareness about Canada’s seismic history and its new early warning system, Bird says.

in-depth reading

Bird, L., Seward, H, Crane, S, Adams, J., & McCormack, DA (2021). Awareness and participation to ensure the success of the earthquake early warning system in Canada. American Geophysical Union Fall 2021 Meeting. https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/974633

Natural Resources Canada. (2021). Earthquakes in eastern Canada. https://www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/zones/eastcan-en.php

Seward, H., McCormack, D.A., McKee, L., Baird, L., Nikolaychin, L., and Crane, S (2021). Current status of the Canadian Earthquake Early Warning Program. American Geophysical Union Fall 2021 Meeting. https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/950545

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