Ocean Networks Canada near-field Tsunami research facility

Recent tsunami events in Indonesia, Chile and Japan highlight the importance of understanding the near-source impacts of devastating tsunamis. These events have also raised awareness of the need for risk assessment for local (e.g. submarine and subaerial landslide-generated) and near-field tsunamis (those that can impact a coastal community less than an hour after generation). Although existing tsunami warning systems such as DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) are highly effective at providing an assessment and warning of far-field tsunami events, comparable systems do not currently exist for local and near-field events. Tsunami inundation models can predict coastal run-up yet the lack of wave amplitude, direction, and shape data within a few minutes of a near-field tsunami event limits the information needed for warning populations at risk. The Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) Observatory, combining the VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada cabled networks, is the world´s largest regional ocean observation system with over 900 km of electro-optic cable. The ONC Observatory, located off the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island spans the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate and edge of the overriding North American plate, a region known to produce mega-thrust earthquakes. The ONC Observatory has an extensive tsunami monitoring system of bottom pressure recorders used to provide high resolution tsunami data for modeling far-field tsunamis in coastal regions [1]. Since the start-up of operations of the NEPTUNE Canada network in 2009, the capability of the system has already been proven by the high precision of the bottom pressure recorders that monitored the passage of the tsunami waves generated by the Samoan, Chilean, and Japanese earthquake events. The Observatory has an extensive sensor network covering a broad range of research themes and provides standardized connection ports for guest instruments. The system is supported by a sophisticated Data Management and Arc- iving System, which provides data acquisition, archiving, processing and visualization from sources across the Observatory. With the base core technologies and infrastructure for tsunami warning system research, the ONC Observatory is an ideal site for the test and evaluation of near-field tsunami detection technologies. This paper discusses how this unique infrastructure can be used to facilitate international collaboration, combining new technologies, concepts and algorithms to create an international near-field tsunami research facility to develop, evaluate, and test warning technologies and solutions for at-risk populations.