Technologies Convergence in Recent Instrumentation for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Mitigation

In this paper, efforts have been made to highlight how a number of advanced technologies have been blended together to configure the state of the art instruments arid networks for natural disaster mitigation. The recent technological advances in seismological instrumentation have been discussed at greater length whereas snow—avalanche, and landslides monitoring instruments have been touched in brief. The present paper describes how the current advancements in seismic sensor technology, seismic data acquisition systems, data communication, computer hardware, and software engineering etc. have made possible to design and configure ‘Seismic Alert Systems’ to avert the colossal losses to strategic installations during major earthquakes. The design concept of a Seismic Alert System to safeguard Delhi and area around has been illustrated. Paper highlights briefly how the use of information technology has realized ‘Virtual Seismic Network’ (VSN) to provide rapidly the access to earthquake information via—Internet connectivity. The applications of front ranking technologies namely—Global Positioning System (GPS), and Space based Disaster Management System (DMS) for monitoring and studying the natural hazards, have been described briefly. In order to handle post disaster scenario on emergent basis, some sophisticated instruments for rescue operations alongwith suitable sensing techniques and technologies have been identified for futuristic research and development.