GPS World

Tag: drought

  • Seen & Heard: Earthquakes and high-speed chases

    Seen & Heard: Earthquakes and high-speed chases

    “Seen & Heard” is a monthly feature of GPS World magazine, traveling the world to capture interesting and unusual news stories involving the GNSS/PNT industry.

    Photo:
    Image: Dennis Laughlin/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

    GNSS records Alaska earthquake data 

    Researchers in Alaska were able to compare the quality of GNSS and seismic station data when assessing the magnitude 8.2 Chignik earthquake near Dillingham, Alaska. Research recorded by Revathy Parameswaran and colleagues at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, shows that GNSS and acceleration seismic data can be used interchangeably or in tandem to estimate rapid magnitude or ground motion. The research showed the Chignik earthquake velocity records were almost identical at co-located GNSS and seismic stations for observations at frequencies of less than 0.25 Hz.

    No more high-speed chases

    Photo:
    Image: Screenshot from CBS New York video

    The Old Westbury Police Department of Long Island, New York, has chosen a high-speed pursuit alternative — GPS-equipped darts that relay the current location of suspects, reported CBS New York. It took $36,000 to equip six patrol cars with the air-powered dart launcher, called StarChase, which can be activated from inside the patrol car. When the launcher is activated, it shoots onto the suspect’s vehicle a dart with a GPS receiver inside and an adhesive exterior. It is considered a safe alternative to high-speed chases and safe to use around pedestrians.

    TikTok CEO says app doesn’t track 

    Photo:
    Image: Marco_Piunti/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

    Shou Zi Chew, CEO of the popular app TikTok, testified before Congress that TikTok does not collect precise location data from its users. During the hearing, which lasted for more than five hours, Chew assured committee members the app does not collect nor distribute location data. TikTok is under fire as a bipartisan Senate proposal is aimed at banning the social media app, arguing it poses cybersecurity risks. The House Committee interrogated Chew regarding the app’s algorithmic feed, policies for young users and — given TikTok’s Chinese ownership — the amount of access the Chinese government has to user data.

    Just some water, please 

    Photo:
    Image: Bob Douglas/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

    Satellite mapping data analyzed at Graz University of Technology’s Institute of Geodesy has revealed long-term drought conditions in Europe, reported GIM International. The data confirmed groundwater levels have been low consistently since 2018. The drought situation was originally published by Eva Boergens in “Geophysical Research Letters” in 2020 when she noted there was a severe water shortage in Central Europe during the summers of 2018 and 2019. There has been no significant rise in groundwater levels since then, and groundwater levels have stayed constantly low. 

  • Teren kicks off nationwide lidar content library program

    Teren kicks off nationwide lidar content library program

    Image: Teren
    Image: Teren

    Teren, a climate resilience analytics company, has expanded its Premium 4D Content program for regions across the United States, including the Gulf Coast, Midwest, Rocky Mountains and West Coast.

    Teren acquires and quickly processes high-fidelity lidar data, making it available via its content library, and delivers analytics with actionable insights to energy and engineering firms.

    “Climate change is causing drought, flooding, landslides and wildfires across the country – significantly impacting asset owners and project developers. As a result, the market demand for high-fidelity, temporal data to identify, prioritize, and monitor climate-related risk is higher than ever,” said Toby Kraft, Teren CEO.

    Teren is amassing a content library of remotely-sensed 3D (spatial) data across the United States. That data is updated on regular intervals to monitor changes over time providing a unique 4D (temporal) view. This 4D data library feeds analytics that identify risk, inform mitigation, and strengthen asset resilience. While remotely-sensed data has traditionally been sourced on a project-by-project basis, Teren offers its data and analytics as a subscription service. This model drives down the costs for clients and stakeholders, helping to maximize the speed of delivery, return on investment, and data value.

    “In our flagship content region, Appalachia, our customers tap into our 4D content library to identify and monitor the terrain and surface conditions surrounding their assets — primarily aiming to identify and mitigate landslides before they become catastrophic incidents,” Kraft said. “We’re expanding the program nationwide to meet the growing demand for terrain monitoring and climate resilience analytics around events such as erosion, flooding, wildfires and more.”

    Teren’s solution saved clients in Appalachia an estimated $152 million annually, preventing 24 failures per year due to landslides. While landslides are not as pervasive across the United States, companies can apply the data and analytics suite for the following:

    • Gulf Coast: inundation, subsidence, land movement
    • Midwest: erosion, flooding, subsidence
    • Rock Mountains: landslides, flooding, wildfire
    • West Coast: wildfires, land movement, flooding.

    Traditionally used by the energy sector, Teren’s data has also proven to be highly valuable to state and federal agencies, insurers and civil engineers. Teren expects to see increased variability across clients and use cases as the content region expands.

    To learn more about Teren or to request a demo, visit www.teren4d.com.

  • GPS Network Shows Drought in the U.S. West

    GPS Network Shows Drought in the U.S. West

    A GPS station in the Inyo Mountains, Calif. Credit: Shawn Lawrence, UNAVCO.
    A GPS station in the Inyo Mountains, Calif. Credit: Shawn Lawrence, UNAVCO.

    A network of GPS stations in the western United States is revealing the severity of the drought in that region.

    Compared to the nine years before the drought, the GPS data show that the western United States has lost 240 gigatons of water, which is enough to flood the entire region in 10 centimeters of water.

    Investigating ground positioning data from GPS stations throughout the west, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, found that the water shortage is causing an uplift effect up to 15 millimeters (more than half an inch) in California’s mountains and on average four millimeters (0.15 of an inch) across the west.

    Results of the study, which was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), appear in the August 21 online edition of the journal Science.

    The measurements have a much better resolution — 200-300 kilometers — than data provided by NASA’s GRACE satellites, which shows how the water mass has changed on and below the Earth’s surface.

    California_Drought_Dry_Riverbed_2009
    A dry riverbed in California.

    Researchers Adrian Borsa, Duncan Agnew, and Dan Cayan used data from more than 700 GPS stations in the National Science Foundation’s Plate Boundary Observatory to measure the rising and falling of Earth’s surface due to the presence of water. Water in lakes or aquifers weighs down on the Earth causing the surface to sink, while during a drought the surface rises. Each station provides time and position information that is used to calculate the station’s location to within 1-2 millimeters horizontally and 3-5 millimeters vertically.

    The current drought began in 2012, when data shows that in general, the ground rose by about four millimeters. The rise in the Sierra Nevada mountain range was 15 millimeters.

    While poring through various sets of data of ground positions from highly precise GPS stations within the National Science Foundation’s Plate Boundary Observatory and other networks, Borsa, a Scripps assistant research geophysicist, kept noticing the same pattern over the 2003-2014 period: All of the stations moved upwards in the most recent years, coinciding with the timing of the current drought.

    Agnew, a Scripps Oceanography geophysics professor who specializes in studying earthquakes and their impact on shaping the earth’s crust, says the GPS data can only be explained by rapid uplift of the tectonic plate upon which the western U.S. rests (Agnew cautions that the uplift has virtually no effect on the San Andreas fault and therefore does not increase the risk of earthquakes).

    For Cayan, a research meteorologist with Scripps and USGS, the results paint a new picture of the dire hydrological state of the west.

    “These results quantify the amount of water mass lost in the past few years,” Cayan said. “It also represents a powerful new way to track water resources over a very large landscape. We can home in on the Sierra Nevada mountains and critical California snowpack. These results demonstrate that this technique can be used to study changes in fresh water stocks in other regions around the world, if they have a network of GPS sensors.”

    The study was supported by USGS National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program.