A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process

in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

THE INDONESIAN TSUNAI BUOY DEVELOPMENT and REGIONAL LINKAGE

Wahyu W. Pandoe1, Ridwan Djamaluddin1, Djoko Hartoyo1, Wira Yogantara2

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Technology Center for Marine Survey, BPPT, Jakarta, Indonesia Technology Center for Informatics and Communication, BPPT, Jakarta, Indonesia

ABSTRACT: Indonesia has established the Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning System (InaTEWS) inaugurated on 11 November 2008. The system included the array of 24 tsunami buoys, or well known as tsunameters, distributed in Indian Ocean along the west Sumatra, south Java and south Nusa Tenggara, in the eastern internal waters of Indonesia, and in Pacific Ocean north of Sulawesi, Halmahera and Irian. The 24 tsunameters consist of 10 Indonesian made tsunameters, 10 Germany, 3 USA and 1 Malaysian (Norwegian made) Seven of 24 tsunameters had been deployed until end of 2008, and the remaining are expected to be completed for operational in 2009. Most of the operational tsunameters worked well performing the observational sea level (i.e. pressure data) and reporting to BPPT Read Down Station. The Krakatau tsunameter was able to detect the occurrence of a minor tsunami during the Bengkulu Erathquake 12 September 2007. Komodo tsunamter was able to observe the periodic sea level and the event of Sumbawa earthquake in 7 August 2008. The DART-II Indian Ocean 53401 was also working well detecting a minor tsunami during the event of Sinabang Earthquake 20 Feb 2008. The most recent earthquake are not dominated by the subduction zone activity, but also generated by the faults system activities, which may generate the local tsunami. Therefore, the local tsunami warning issues become more prominent in near future.

1.

INTRODUCTION

The disaster occurrence of mega Tsunami on 26 December 2006 shocked people around the world. It took more than two-hundred casualties along the coastline in the rim of Indian Ocean, mainly in the west and north coasts of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province of Indonesia. Another large Tsunami following the strong earthquake in Indian Ocean south of West Java Province also struck nearly half of the south Java coastline in July 2006. Some other historical tsunamis have struck other parts of Indonesia coastline too. Learning from those typical disaster experiences, the Government of Indonesia have appointed the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, well known as BPPT, to establish the Indonesian tsunami buoy program in which BPPT plans to develop 10 (ten) Indonesian designed tsunami buoys or tsunameters to be deployed in the Indonesian and ZEE waters prone to tsunami. In the same time, under the joint declaration between the Indonesia and Germany governments, there will be up to 10 (ten) tsunameters to be deployed in the Indian Ocean along west of Sumatra, south of Java, until south of Nusa Tenggara islands. At the same time, under the collaborative assessment between BPPT and the NOAA-USA there are three DART type tsunameters. One Norwegian Ocean Wave tsunameter belong to Malysia Government was also deployed in the Indonesia water. Those all 24 tsunameters are distributed in the Indonesian territorial water, internal, or ZEE zone. See Figure 1 for its location. The tsunameter system mainly consists of two main parts: surface buoy and the Ocean Bottom Unit (OBU). The surface buoy floats in water surface maintaining communication through the acoustic modem to the OBU and reporting periodically to land station through satellite communication link, while the OBU sit deeply at the ocean bottom.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

Figure 1. The proposed tsunameters locations in Indonesia for Ina TEWS. The tsunameters are consisting of Indonesia, Germany, USA and Malaysian, as they are symbolized at the top of the figure.

2. 2.1

THE INDONESIA TEWS TSUNAMETER The Indonesia Tsunameter

The Indonesian scientists and engineers have capabilities to build and manufacture Indonesian made tsunameters. The program has started since mid 2006, and so far two tsunameter generations have been performed. The first generation is mostly remanufactured the old meteorological buoys, while the second generation performs new requirement design and configuration specifically operated in Indonesia waters. The first generation Indonesia Tsunameter (InaBUOY 1st Gen), as most of the current tsunameter generation, consists of two main parts: (1) surface buoy and (2) ocean bottom unit (OBU). See Figure 2. Its surface buoy hull remanufactures a used Sea Watch Buoy, in which the Sea Watch buoy program in Indonesia was terminated in 1996 due to non technical reason. It is equipped with acoustic modem and interface, CPU, batteries, double (redundancy) Inmarsat satellite communication systems, independent positioning system, radar reflectors and standard lights. The acoustic modem maintains the communication through water column to the OBU. The Inmarsat satellite modem links the buoy to the Read Down Station (RDS) through Inmarsat LES station. Two Inmarsat antennas are dedicated to transmit and receive a message to/from RDS, respectively. In tsunami mode, the Inmarsat system sets to send data every 60 seconds containing of four 15 measurement set. The OBU consists of bottom pressure recorder sensor (BPR), CPU, acoustic modem, acoustic release, and batteries. All equipments are fixed in a 50mm fiber plate with some additional 14 of 17- spherical floaters for floatation device during recovery. Specification of the tsunameter is given in Table 1.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

Figure 2. The surface buoy (left) and the Ocean Bottom Unit OBU (right) of the 1st Generation Indonesian Tsunami Buoy

Table 1. Characteristic of the 1st generation Indonesian Tsunameter

Characteristics Reliability and data return ratio Optimum deployment depth Deployment duration Operating conditions Maintenance interval, buoy Maintenance interval, tsunameter Sampling interval, internal record Sampling interval, event report Sampling interval, tidal report Measurement sensitivity Tsunami data report trigger Reporting delay Status report interval Specification Greater than 70% 2.000 meters ~ 1 year Beaufort 6/7 ~1 year ~1 year 15 seconds 15 and 60 seconds 15 minutes Less than 5 millimeter in 3.000 meters Automatically by tsunami detection algorithm On-demand, by warning RDS request Less than 2 minutes 1 hour

The first prototype of 2nd generation of InaBuoy was on sea trial in September 2008 in KRAKATAU site. This trial was not fully successful due to some failure in underwater acoustic communication. However, it is working well on the second deployment and in operational status since October 2008. The BPPT scientists and engineers performed the deployment tasks very well on board BPPT Research Vessel Baruna Jaya III (Figure 3). The 2nd generation system has significant improvements of the 1st generation, mainly in the surface buoy. The buoy hull was fully manufactured at BPPT-BPPH Laboratory in Surabaya, and final assembly at BPPT-B2TKS Workshop in PUSPIPTEK Serpong, Tengerang. All design, manufacture, assembly and appropriate tests are made by the Indonesian scientists and engineers at BPPTs facilities.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

Figure 3. The surface buoy (left) and the Ocean Bottom Unit OBU (right) of the 2nd Generation Indonesian Tsunami Buoy during its deployment in KRAKATAU site, in Indian Ocean ~90nm south-west of Lampung on board BPPT RV Baruna Jaya III

The surface buoy hull was made of steel framed fiber glasses, in which its weight is approximately 3.1 tons. The outer diameter is 2.4m, and its height 1.2m. The buoy, with net buoyancy 3000kg, is designed to survive to the wave height up to 5m, suitable for deployment in most of the Indonesian Seas. Two satellite communication system, Inmarsat and Iridium system, guaranteed the communication link between the buoy and Read Down Station (RDS) located at the 20th floor BPPT 1st building in Jakarta

2.2

Germany Tsunameters

Under the joint declaration between Indonesia and Germany Governments, the Germany have committed to contribute up to 10 tsunameters for an array in Indian Ocean (see Figure 1 for its location). The tsunameters general configuration are nearly similar to others, which is consisting of surface buoy and the OBU. The outer diameter is 2.2m (base), height is 5.85m and weight is 3.5tons. Two tsunameters have been deployed in November 2005, located approximately 60nm west of Siberut Isaland and 50nm west of South Pagai Island, respectively. Unfortunately, the OBU is still not included in the system yet, and now the (tsunami) wave measurements rely on Differential GPS measurement performed by the surface buoy. Several maintenance and replacement efforts to the buoys were done in 2007 and 2008, and now the (GPS) buoys are working well. In 2009, the additional 8 Germany tsunameters are scheduled for deployment, and it is expected to be completed by end of May 2009. The bottom units are now ready to complete each Germany tsunameter system.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

Figure 4. The surface buoy (left) and the Ocean Bottom Unit OBU (right) of the Germany tsunameter Buoy during its deployment in Indian Ocean west off Sumatra, on board BPPT RV Baruna Jaya IV

2.3

NOAA-USA Tsunameters

The Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting on Tsunami System, or DART, has two types tsunameter: DART-II and DART-ETD (Easy to Deploy). The former is the common type tsunameter which is consisting of separate units of surface buoy and BPR (bottom pressure recorder). The latest is the newest DART generation in which the BPR and surface buoy are configured in one spooled mooring line. See Figure 5.

Figure 5. The DART-ETD (Easy to Deploy) tsunameter produced by PMEL-NOAA, USA. (Picture is courtesy of PMEL-NOAA).

When the unit is dropped into the ocean, the mooring line is automatically spooled out lowering the bottom unit BPR into the bottom. Once it is touching the bottom, the deployment is done, and the system will automatically set performing the tsunami (and sea level) observation.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

Within the collaborative agreement between BPPT-Indonesia and NOAA-USA, three DART type tsunameters will be contributed to complete the InaTEWS buoys array. There are one DART-II and two DART-ETD tsunameters. DART-II has been deployed in Indian Ocean west of Sumatra at 0N and 92E in September 2007, one DART-ETD wad deployed in Indian Ocean ~200nm south of Bali, and the last one DART-ETD is scheduled for deployment in mid 2009 in Pacific Ocean north of Halmahera Island. Since the DART-II Indian Ocean was deployed, it was in normal operational status observing the tsunami (and periodic sea level). The data directly from the buoy is reported 6-hourly to NOAA National Data Buoy Center in Mississippi, USA, and then re-directed to BPPT in (near) real time.

2.4

Malaysia Tsunameters

One more type tsunameter in Indonesia is the Wave Scan tsunameter. The buoy is made in Norwegia and it is belong to Malaysian government. Under the collaborative agreement between RISTEK Indonesia and Malaysia government, the buoy is deployed is Indonesia water approximately 5nm north of Rondo Island, Sabang, NAD. It has been deployed since December 2005 on board BPPT RV Baruna Jaya I (Figure 6), but there was technical problem in the bottom unit. Last maintenance performed in December 2008 brought the system back into normal operational status.

Figure 6. The Malaysian Wave Scan tsunami buoy is deployed in north of Rondo Island, Sabang, NAD, by the BPPT RV Baruna Jaya I

3.

SOME RESULTS IN OPERATIONAL TSUNAMETERS

Most of the operational tsunameters worked well performing the observational sea level (i.e. pressure data) and reporting to BPPT Read Down Station. The Krakatau tsunameter was able to detect the occurrence of the minor tsunami during the Bengkulu Erathquake 12 September 2007. Komodo tsunamter was also working well observing the sea level and the event of Sumbawa earthquake in 7 August 2008. The DART-II Indian Ocean 53401 was also working well detecting minor tsunami during the event of Sinabang Earthquake 20 Feb 2008.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

3.1

The 12 September 2007 Bengkulu EQ reporting by KRAKATAU

During the 12 September 2007 EQ, the Krakatau tsunameter, unfortunately, was working offline due to unscheduled maintenance of the surface buoy. The OBU records the pressure data every 15 seconds. The preliminary data analysis showed the BPR of Krakatau Tsunameter, as originally designed, was normally recording the pressure data with 15 seconds interval continuously. The recorded data starts on July 20, 2007 and ends on September 19, 2007. The occurrence of 12 September 2007 event was also successfully recorded. The recorded raw data of the whole time series exhibit the normal tidal cycles in general; however, several anomalies were recorded in the sea level records. Those anomalies are related to the occurrence of earthquakes, such as one on 9 August 2007, and others in 12-13 September 2007. The Lanczos low pass filtering technique is implemented to separate the high and low frequencies from the raw data with cutoff period 6 minutes (i.e. 0.1 hour). The low frequency time series exhibit more clear view of the tide cycle with few occurrences of sea level disturbances due to low frequency anomalous signals, which was caused by tsunami and low frequency seismic waves (Figure 7). Three other earthquakes were also detected on the record in the following day 13 Septemebr 2007 at 6.49WIB, 8:26WIB and 23:09WIB. Those three earthquakes did not generate any indication of significant tsunami.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7. The 12 September 2007 Tsunami event: (a) comparison between predicted tide and 6-h low pass filtered data, and (b) the tide-removed time series indicating the occurrence of Tsunami. After removing the tide from the tsunameter signals, resulting time series shows clearly the occurrence tsunami wave passing the tsunameter sensor in which the detected amplitude is approximately 13 cm (Pandoe, et al., 2008). So far, this signal is the highest amplitude ever detected by the tsunameter recorded in the deep sea. 3.2 Komodo Tsunameter

The Indonesian Komodo Tsunameter was successfully deployed in June 2008 on board BPPT RV baruna Jaya IV. The buoy is located in Flores Sea approximately 40nm north of Bima, Sumbawa Island. It was running in normal operation since 20 June 2008, but terminated in October 2008 due to vandalize action.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

During the Komodos normal operation, the tsunami and other long wave anomaly signals can be detected from its deviation from the tidal periodic cycles. To obtain an actual deviation of these long waves, it is necessary to have the tide-removed signals. Therefore, it is necessary to estimate the astronomical tidal components from the original time series, and take these tidal signals out of the time series. Using the filtered time series, the amplitudes and phases of 22 tidal constituents were estimated by the method of cyclic descent (Bloomfield, 1976; Pandoe, 2000), and then reassemble tidal signals only from those 22 tidal constituents. This tidal prediction is then compared to the 6-h low passed time series (Figure 8) to see how the tsunami signal deviate from the tidal prediction. Figure 8 shows the normal operation of the KOMODO Tsunameter. During its normal condition, the time series show very little fluctuation of the sea level less than 0.03 dbar (i.e. ~3cm) due to non-tidal long waves propagation.

Julian Day since 1 Jan 2008

Figure 8. The normal operation of the InaBuoy KOMODO tsunameter . It shows normal tidal periodic time series.

3.3

DART-II Indian Ocean (53401) Tsunameter

During its normal mode, actually the system measured the normal tidal and other long wave periods. As shown in Figure 9, it is clearly shows that the system acts as a tidal station in the deep sea, where the diurnal, semidiurnal, fortnightly (14-days) and tidal periods clearly exhibited in the data. Therefore, if the observation data is superimposed to the modeled/calculated time series, they should match very well. However, long wave anomalies due to other external forces may occur, and it deviates from its computational values as shown in Figure 9 starting from the day of 408 (ie. 15 February 2008). The sea level rise, and this phenomena is occurred for several days until its back to normal position again. It is becoming more interesting to know that the tsunameter is also capable to observe the anomaly of the sea level in the deep sea which is probably due to the occurrence of the incoming tropical storms, long term sea level rise, and other existing deep ocean long waves.

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

Figure 9. The tsunami and sea level observation performed by the DART-II Indian Ocean 53401 for the period of 25 Sept 2007 to 9 5 March 2008.

During the event of Sinabang earthquake on 20 Feb 2008, the DART-II IO 53401 gave a tsunami alert, in which the water level at the station increase more than 3 cm within a very short time. The Earthquake was actually centered at Sinabang, NAD. The distance between earthquake center to the station is approximately 540nm. Therefore, there is a delay time betweent the earthquake and the tsunami detection. As shown in Figure 10, it clearly indicates the occurrence of minor tsunami detected by the DART-II IO station. The first spike of the signal is mainly due to the shake of seismic wave, while the first bulb 40 minutes later indicates the event of (minor) tsunami passing the tsunameter station.

Figure 10. (left) The detected minor tsunami by the DART-II Indian Ocean 53401 tsunameter station during the event of Sinabang Eart Quake 20 Feb 2008. (right) Map showing the EQ center and the DART-II 53401 station. (Pictures is courtesy of PMEL-NOAA, USA)

This earthquake was centered at the coastline waters originated from the movement of the local fault system. The rupture following this earthquake may happen nearby the center that may generate a tsunami wave. This shallow water tsunami following the EQ is usually considered as a local tsunami

A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

event. Fortunately, this event generates only minor tsunami in which it was not causing a tsunami damage along the local coastline.

4.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The on going development program of Indonesia Tsunami Buoy (Tsunameter) runs well, in which the first trial of 1st generation Indonesian tsunameter was performing good, and even it was able to detect the occurrence of the 12 September 2007 Tsunami event, while the 2nd Generation start to operate in last 2008. During its normal mode, the OBU sends report to surface buoy every 60 minutes, but during the tsunami mode it should report every 1-minute. As Indonesia is surrounded by the tsunami prone areas, the planned location of tsunameters become critical. Tsunami may come within less than 30 minutes, and tsunami detection must be as early as possible within a few minutes; therefore, the location of tsunameters are relatively close to the predicted rupture zone such as near the subduction zones, faults or other active tectonic areas. It bring consequences to the data recoded by tsunameter. Any shallow earthquake near the tsunameter site will shake the OBU and causing the recorded sea level in OBU to trip into tsunami mode. Most common situation that the amplitude of the seismic shock will much exceed the threshold of the sea level pressure change due to tsunami mode. It will set the tsunameter to send it in tsunami mode. The OBU will record the high frequency seismic wave while it should wait the possibility of long period tsunami wave arrival. The real time filtering techniques must be implemented in real time at any situation. The un-intended high frequency noises must be taken out of the observed sea level data in RDS (land station). One side or predictive filtering techniques is ideally proposed to solve this issue, while the exact method is still uncovered. This issue should be solved immediately as it is in a recently very important need. The authors should accept any suggestion ideas and collaborative studies solving this problem. Recently, several earthquake events were also occurred in the coastal waters or in the fore arc basin area. Those earthquakes are most likely due to the move of the fault system, not in a dominated subduction zone , in which this may cause rupture zone very close to the coastline. Local tsunami is most likely occurs in this fault zone where the warning time becoming a critical issue to solve. Study and assessment for the local tsunami issue should be done as soon as possible, and to be implemented immediately right after. In conclusion, the operational tsunami buoys in Indonesia in conjunction with the national Ina TEWS becomes more important to detect and warning the occurrence of tsunami. The 24 number of Indonesian tsunameters for time being is not sufficient enough to cover all Indonesian prone area to tsunami, in term of the speed of information reaching the coastal community. The tsunameters array in Indonesia is not intended to protect Indonesia only, but also to regional and international communities in Indian and Pacific Oceans. The 12 September 2007 EQ and Tsunami events were able detected by the Indonesian tsunameter. It records approximately 13 cm tsunami wave amplitude which is so far the highest tsunami amplitude ever recorded on tsunameters. Other tsunameters were also able to detect several minor tsunamis so far, indicating that the system works well protecting the coastal community. Local tsunami warning is becoming a great challenge right after the completion of the tsunameter array in Indonesia. A special design for the local tsunami warning such as connecting the bottom unit to the nearest coastline station and providing direct warning to the local communities may be considered for near future development in BPPT.

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A Training Course on Lessons Learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Process in Aceh Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2 7 March 2009

5.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like thank all colleagues in the team work of BPPTs Indonesian Tsunami Buoy Development Program and colleagues at the BPPT Technology Center for Marine Survey and Baruna Jaya Research Vessels Crews for their eagerness and hard works. The study described in this paper has been funded by the Indonesia APBN 2006 to 2008 Fiscal Years provided by the Indonesian Government.

6.

REFERENCES

Bloomfield, P. (1976). Fourier Analysis of Time Series: An Introduction, 256 pp., John Wiley, New York. Pandoe, W. W. (2000). Flow Pattern in the Ombai Strait, Indonesia, and its relationship with the Indonesian Throughflow, M.S. Thesis, Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas Pandoe, W. W., Djamaluddin, R., Handoyo, S., and Kongko, W. (2008). The 12 September 2007 Tsunami Detected on Indonesian KRAKATAU Tsunameter, Proceeding, International Conference for Tsunami Warning, Bali, Indonesia, 12 15 November 2008

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