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7
Findings and Recommendations
1. It is important both for effective hazard mitigation and for scientific
research that earthquakes within the United States be recorded regularly by
a seismic system made up of networks operating on national and regional
scales with long-term, stable financial support and uniform operating proce-
dures. No such system now exists.
Recommendation. The federal government should establish a more ra-
tional, coordinated, and stable means of support for the seismic networks of
the United States either by consolidating funding and program management
within a single agency or by assigning coordinative authority to a single
agency for these purposes. Because of its assigned role in developing the
U.S. National Seismic Network, it is recommended that this agency be the
U.S. Geological Survey.
2. Regional seismic networks with bases at universities or other research
institutes, and operated in regions of moderate or high seismicity, play an
essential and unique role in the recording and study of the nation's earthquakes.
These networks and their central facilities provide a public service as local
points for distribution of information on earthquake occurrences and on
hazards posed by earthquakes. They provide data for basic and applied
research on active tectonic structures within their particular regions and
thus for prediction of possible earthquake activity, on the structural framework
of the U.S. portion of the continent, and on other general seismological
topics. They also provide realistic experience for the training and education
of seismologists and other earth scientists.
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FINDINGS AlID RECOMMENDATIONS
43
Recommendation. The designer and operator of the proposed National
Seismic System should consider that the services in research and education
performed by regional seismic networks are necessary and integral compo-
nents of that system.
3. The United States faces the imminent loss or technological obsolescence
of its regional seismic networks. This is due to the lack of any government-
wide policy for the long-term support of these networks and the restriction
of funds within agencies that attempt to provide such support.
Recommendation. The federal government should provide long-term
funding to stabilize the operation of regional seismic networks and, through
a planned program of reasonable increases, to modernize these facilities.
4. The U.S. National Seismic Network now being developed in the
eastern United States by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission embodies the correct approach to seismic monitoring in sections
of the country where no regional networks now exist, to providing a standard
base from which to report the occurrence of earthquakes, to providing data
on earthquakes and seismic wave propagation characteristics on a continental
scale, and to providing a framework for tying together the regional networks.
Long-term support for the operations of the USNSN is needed, as is funding
for extension of the USNSN to the western United States, Alaska, and
Hawaii.
Recommendation. The U.S. Geological Survey should complete the USNSN
in the eastern United States as designed and provide funding for its long-
term operation and extension to the western United States.
5. A unique opportunity now exists to advance significantly, or at least
to stabilize, earthquake monitoring, seismic data collection and dissemination,
and, to some degree, seismological education and research in the next few
years. This could be accomplished through the linking of the regional
seismic networks to the USNSN in a National Seismic System.
Recommendation'. The federal government should establish a National
Seismic System through the technical linking and coordinated operation of
regional seismic networks and an extended USNSN. This system should be
supported by a single federal agency (probably the USGS because of its
role in the USNSN), or one agency should be given authority for the coordi-
nation of its development and operation. Support for this system should be
long term and should provide, through systematic planning, for moderniza-
tion and for increases in operational costs due to inflation.
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44
ASSESSING THE NATION'S EARTHQUAKES
6. Currently, the federal government spends approximately $10 million
per year to monitor and analyze the nation's earthquakes through seismic
network operations. (This dollar amount is based on estimated funds budgeted
for either internal or external seismic network support by the U.S. Geological
Survey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy,
and the Bureau of Reclamation. The estimated amounts are for operational
and basic analysis costs only; they do not include costs for special research
using seismic network data.) Twenty percent, or $2 million, of the $10
million annual federal funding will be discontinued by 1992, when the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission ends its program of supporting seismic networks in
the central and eastern United States. Both the current budgetary levels and
those projected for 1992 are seriously inadequate for carrying out a high-
quality program of earthquake surveillance—either as now mandated by the
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977 or as envisioned under
future development of a National Seismic System.
Recommendation'. The federal government should fund a National Seis-
mic System at a level of $12 million per year, which is $2 million above
current federal appropriations identified for seismic network operations.
The $12 million base budget does not include funds necessary for regional
network modernization. It will, however, ensure stabilization of existing
network operations by providing some adjustment for the phased withdrawal
of support by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for seismic network operations
in the central and eastern United States and some correction for the damaging
effects of inflation caused by level federalfunding during the past six years.
In addition to the annual operating costs cited above, not less than $15
million in new monies will be needed over a five-year period for (1J ex-
panding the USNSN to full 50-state coverage, (2) funding satellite data
links from the national center to the principal regional network operation
centers, (3) upgrading computer facilities at the regional centers, and (4)
standardizing and modernizing the regional network component of the pro-
posed National Seismic System. This phased, one-time expenditure is considered
necessary to fulfill the objectives of Recommendations 3, 4, and 5. Not less
than $5 million will be required to complete the USNSN in the West and to
complete satellite data links to key regional centers provided with upgraded
computers. The creation of a National Seismic System presupposes modernization
of at least a subset of the nation's 1,500 existing regional network stations.
Conservatively, $10 million will be required to upgrade one-third of those
stations to three-component, broadband sensing stations with fully digital
data transmission.
Finally, as the National Seismic System is developed, it will be important
to provide support for research in the universities that is based on the data
produced by the regional seismic networks.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
national seismic
