The devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11 prompted Taiwanese scientists to develop earthquake early warning technology and highlighted the need to set up topography models for the rapid deployment of search and rescue teams in the event of natural catastrophes.
Liu Chi-ching (劉啟清) of the Institute for Earth Sciences at Academia Sinica said the tectonic plates under Taiwan were the most active globally.
Some of the nation’s mountains are growing by between 1cm and 3cm annually and foothill areas are becoming steeper. Liu said this showed mountain faces were being worn down by erosion.
Earlier methods to stabilize slopes and prevent rockfalls, which involved layering mountainsides with cement, are now considered unsuitable when it came to holding up against seismic activity, Liu said.
“Typhoons, earthquakes and mudslides are all likely to cause disasters and the best way to prevent that is to monitor geological activity using scientific methods,” Liu said.
Yu Ting-to (余騰鐸), a professor at National Cheng Kung University’s department of resource engineering, said the technology used for national geological imaging was based largely on aerial or satellite imaging.
However, satellite imaging is largely contingent on weather conditions and photos cannot be taken during bad weather, Yu said, adding that aerial imaging was also limited in terms of imaging airspace clearance.
To address those limitations, academics are suggesting the adoption of a new technology known as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), a terrestrial-based or airborne system that emits as many as 400,000 laser pulses in less than a second to render 3D images, even of underground locations.
LIDAR also has sharper image resolution and faster scanning speeds, with precision levels to within between 3cm and 10cm. By comparison, current aerial imaging has a resolution of between 20cm and 50cm.
LIDAR is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to a target, or other properties of an object, by illuminating the target with light using pulses from a laser.
Liu said that by using LIDAR to scan the Alishan (阿里山) area, for example, a detailed topographical imaging could be achieved showing roads, railroads, the location of trees, their altitude and even the way tree-branches are extended, all of which could be beneficial for forestry management.
Liu said LIDAR monitoring data could help with early warnings for mudslides, landslides and flooding when used in tandem with satellite and aerial imaging.
The Institute for Earth Sciences is already using LIDAR technology on a large scale and plans to complete high-resolution digital topography models of disaster areas created by Typhoon Morakot, which devastated parts of the south of the nation in 2009, to help them investigate geologically sensitive areas.
Central Geological Survey director Lin Chao-tsung (林朝宗) said the center had already used airborne LIDAR systems to evaluate potential geological disasters in the Taipei basin, as well as in the mountain ranges along the eastern coast.
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