Information and Communication Technology in Tsunami Disaster Mitigation related to Evacuation

Fadly Usman, Keisuke Murakami, Chikashi Deguchi and Indah Cahyaning

Page No. 1-5

Efforts to mitigate tsunami-prone areas such as those on the coast of Java are the main concern for each district. This research uses Puger District, Jember Regency as its research location. Its location which is directly opposite the Eurasian fault correlates with the high-intensity earthquakes followed by the risk of a pre-imminent tsunami. Thus, it is necessary to have an early warning system against the threat of a tsunami for the community, one of which is an Android-based application to provide basic information regarding evacuation routes, evacuation procedures, evacuation sites and important telephone numbers and so on.

The research stage includes analyzing the community’s preparation in the research area, namely in several villages in the Puger District, Jember Regency against the threat of tsunami waves. The next step is to test the android application interface for basic knowledge about tsunamis, evacuation routes, map-based QR Code testing for information on evacuation routes and other necessary information for the community. The results show that people feel assisted with the Android-based information technology that iscompatible with their smartphone devices. The information conveyed in the application can provide knowledge to the community about evacuation routes, evacuation sites and other related information to the tsunami.

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Environmental changes causing shell abnormalities in foraminifera from selected stations of Port Blair, South Andaman

Janarthana Boobalan A.

Page No. 6-13

Responses of the foraminifera to contaminants have been documented from various sources of pollutants in different parts of the world. Adaptation of foraminifera to various marine environments has changed their morphological properties termed as abnormalities. Aim of the present study is to identify the biomarker to appraise the long-term environmental changes to the marine environments in and around Port Blair by collecting samples in the East from Aberdeen Bay (coral reef) and West in Wandoor beach and Guptaphara mangroves.

Sediment samples were subjected to wet sieving and finer fractions are separated for identification of impaired foraminifera with Stereoscope Binocular Microscope. Abnormal foraminifera mounted in the SEM stubs were subjected to SEM and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDAX –EDS) to disclose ultra-structures along with heavy metal contents in ppm.

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Experimental and Numerical Seismic Investigation of Mono and Mono- Lattice System for Wind Mill Tower

Shah Hemal J. and Desai Atul K.

Page No. 14-23

Kutch and Saurashtra area of Gujarat suffer from severe earthquakes due to seismically active regions. Wind mill towers are long slender structures and constructed in seismically active area are required to be investigated for its seismic capacity. The shaking table tests are very useful tool to study seismic behavior of such slender wind mill structures.

In present investigation, seismic hazard of conventional mono structural system is assessed by testing scaled model. In addition to this a seismic response of combination of mono-lattice structural system is compared with conventional mono structure by preparing scaled down models. Both systems are subjected to acceleration time history of four severe earthquakes on shake table. The response obtained for both structural systems is authenticated by FE simulation. The response of both structural systems is quantified in terms of displacement measured at top of tower. It is found that due to more axial stiffness the mono-lattice system is less sensitive to seismic forces and can be used in seismically active regions.

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De-noising of accelerograms using wavelet transform – A case study on 2015 Nepal Kathmandu Earthquake

Sheena A.D. and Beena Mol

Page No. 24-31

During earthquakes, many valuable acceleration time histories have been recorded as accelerograms by analog and digital accelerometers which are the important sources of information in the field of earthquake engineering and seismology.

A huge number of seismic wave records are contaminated by noise and there is a need to correct them for practical application. Wavelet based de-noising approaches are highly advantageous to Fourier and other conventional de-noising methods. Wavelet transforms are capable of analyzing the non-stationary signals of varying frequencies. The de-noising procedure in wavelet-based approach largely depends upon the usage of wavelet shrinkage function and thresholding. This study describes the importance of wavelet transforms in de-noising the accelerograms obtained from the 2015 Nepal Kathmandu earthquake.

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Pattern and inter-relationship between climatic variables pertaining to flood hazard impacting river Barak basin along Silchar city, Assam, Northeast India

Kumar Mohit and Mishra B.P.

Page No. 32-39

The present investigation has been carried out to assess the impact of rainfall on water level and water discharge from river Barak along Silchar city of Assam which has been recognized as a flood prone area. The data analysis for rainfall, water level and water discharge has been done at monthly interval of the period of 11 years (i.e. from 2007 to 2017). Normally, all three variables show higher values during monsoon months (May to September) irrespective of years. It can be argued that the years are showing maximum values for all three variables in same month indicating impact of rainfall on water level and water discharge.

On the other hand, maximum monthly average water level and water discharge in same month and rainfall in preceding or later month indicate non-dependency of water level and water discharge on rainfall in surroundings. The independency of maximum water level and water discharge on rainfall could be attributed due to precipitation in the areas prior to Silchar which drain the river Barak before approaching Silchar city. Moreover, during the year 2012 the maximum monthly average rainfall and water level were reported in the month of June; however, the maximum monthly average water discharge was recorded in September, this could be with chocking of discharge point by sedimentation.

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A Survey of Flood Disaster Monitoring and Controlling Mechanisms with focus on structural measures

Srinivasa Rao D. and Anil Kumar B.

Page No. 40-45

Flood is considered one of the most hazardous natural disasters in the world. It results not only in the loss of lives but also incurs huge damage to the properties. The very recent Kerala floods in India has killed hundreds of people and inflicted damage of nearly USD 2.7 billion. From the past decade, it was found that floods stood as the major cause for most damage to property and second disaster in taking lives of people. One of the reasons that widely attributed to the rise in flood instances is the increased number of dams on rivers, which ironically were built to mitigate the floods.

The water flow control and management across these dams are highly essential in order to prevent the flooding of water in down streams. This study presents a brief review of some of the mechanisms that were used to monitor and control the flow of water through dams, to reduce the impact of floods on human life and property. Further, this study also highlights the need to interconnect the dams for efficient water flow control and management.

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