Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 9, 13811382, 2009www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1381/2009/ Author(s) 2009. This work is distributed underthe Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Natural Hazardsand Earth

System Sciences

PrefaceThe GITEWS Project(German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System)A. Rudloff1, J. Lauterjung1, U. Munch1, and S. Tinti21Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany2Universita` degli Studi di Bologna, Dipartimento di Fisica, Settore di Geofisica, Viale Berti Pichat, 8 40127 Bologna, Italy

Tsunami early warning became a big issue after the 26 De-cember 2004 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake of Magnitude9.3 and the subsequent destructive tsunami, which killedmore than 225 000 people in the region of the Indian Ocean.

Just a few days after the event, right between Christmasand New Years Eve, a group of German scientists started todevelop a concept for a tsunami early warning system forthe region. This draft concept was presented to the GermanGovernment on 13 January 2005, where the former GermanChancellor Gerhard Schroder decided to support the pro-posed action.

At the end of January 2005, on the occasion of the HyogoKobe-Conference in Japan, the German Minister for Educa-tion and Research (BMBF), Edelgard Bulmahn presented theGerman proposal to the attending audience. The first reac-tions, to be honest, were quite skeptical. Within the nextmonth a large number of negotiations were started, endingwith a positive reaction by Indonesia. By 14 March 2005the so-called Joint Declaration, a kind of roadmap for theinstallation of the planned tsunami early warning sys-tem, between Indonesia and Germany was signed, andthe GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami EarlyWarning System) was started.

The main scientific and technological challenge for theset-up of an Early-Warning System in Indonesia is the tec-tonic setting of the so-called Sunda-Arc-Structure, an ac-tive continental margin almost parallel and close to the In-dian Ocean coastline of Indonesia resulting in tsunami arrivaltimes of about 3040 min after the occurrence of an earth-quake. Therefore complete new technologies and scientificconcepts have been developed to reduce early-warning timesdown to 510 min. This includes the integration of near real-

Correspondence to: A. Rudloff(rudloff@gfz-potsdam.de)

time GPS deformation monitoring as well as new modelingtechniques and decision supporting procedures.

A number of important milestones has taken place sinceBoxing Day 2004:

Already a couple of months after the severe tsunami catas-trophe the first sensor stations were installed in Indonesia.The rapid recording of seismic parameters requires a denseseismic network with stations as close to the epicentre aspossible. Thus the first seismological station was installedon Nias Island off Northern Sumatra in June 2005. An-other five months later, in November 2005, the first two GPS-buoys have been deployed with the German research vesselR/V Sonne off coast of Sumatra to register abrupt sea levelchanges immediately.

Since then the sensor network, consisting of seismic-,GPS-, tide gauge stations, and buoy-systems, has been con-tinuously expanded.

But even with a sophisticated seismic network the determi-nation of reliable information on earthquake location, depthand size within a couple of minutes has been an enormouschallenge. Thus a special evaluation software, called Seis-ComP 3.0, has been developed at the GFZ, German ResearchCentre for Geosciences to determine the earthquake loca-tion, the depth, and the magnitude within the minimum pos-sible time. This software went into operation at the TsunamiWarning Centre in Jakarta in September 2007 just in timeto successfully prove its capabilities to evaluate the earth-quake parameters of the Bengkulu quake sequence at 1213 September. A stable solution for the main shock estimat-ing a moment magnitude of 7.9, based on 25 stations, wasavailable after 4 min and 20 s, leading to the first tsunamialert ever disseminated originally by BMKG (Badan Mete-orologi, Klimatologi dan Geofisika) in less than 5 min.

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

1382 A. Rudloff et al.: Preface The GITEWS Project

The tsunami early warning system was inaugurated bythe Indonesian president on 11 November 2008 barely fouryears after the project has started. Before March 2010, how-ever, the interaction between the different components mustbe improved and optimized; personnel needs to be trainedand eventual problems in the daily operation have to be dealtwith.

Besides the technical training and academic educationwhich is of importance to operate such a system GITEWS of-fers a substancial capacity building programme. The fastestwarning is useless as long as the gap to the so called lastmile to the beach is not closed. The population in the threat-ened area needs to be informed in time, but they also need tobe trained how to react properly. The people need to be in-structed about evacuation plans and how to behave in a caseof emergency. All these activities are accompanied by vari-ous activities like organisational consulting.

Germany is the largest donor country in the context of thebuilding up of a tsunami early warning system in Indone-sia. Consequently the German scientific contributions to allthe different aspects of tsunami early warning were essen-tial during the International Bali-Conference Towards SaferCoastal Communities, 1214 November 2008.

To ensure the German and international support and toguarantee the permanent independent operation of the estab-lished warning system it has been considered to set up anoperating company in Indonesia, following a public-privatepartnership model. The operating company or further sub-contractors should be responsible for the maintenance, soft-ware updates and the spare parts supply. Following thismodel, BMKG will then be responsible for the national widetsunami warning.

The GITEWS project has raised a lot of internationalvisibility and as we think finally convinced its early criticsto convert into supporters at last. We hope that this specialissue of NHESS will contribute to a kind of scientific sus-tainability and will encourage the next generation of youngscientists.

The initial scientific and political work carried outby Edelgard Bulmahn, Rolf Emmermann, Peter Herzig,Reinhold Ollig, Christoph Reigber, Irmgard Schwaetzer,Friedrich-Wilhelm Wellmer, and Jochen Zschau is highly ac-knowledged.

Discussions with the members from the later GITEWSsteering committee and its scientific advisory board werestimulating and very fruitful. Without the personal engage-ment of those mentioned ahead and the large number of sci-entists, engineers, and technicians in Germany and Indonesiathe GITEWS project would have never become such a suc-cess.

The GITEWS project is carried out through a large groupof scientists and engineers from GFZ German Research Cen-tre for Geosciences (consortium leader) and its partners fromthe Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research(AWI), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the GKSSResearch Centre, the German Marine Research Consortium(KDM), the Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR), the United Nations Universitys Institute for En-vironment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), the Federal In-stitute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), theGerman Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), as wellas from Indonesian and other international partners. Fundingwas and still is provided by the German Government throughits Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)with an amount of 50 Million Euros (Grant 03TSU01).

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 9, 13811382, 2009 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/9/1381/2009/