The Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) and the company Fibroglobal signed, last November, a protocol to boost the development of scientific research projects, within the scope of the use of submarine telecommunications cables for the study of detection and early warning of earthquakes and tsunamis.
This protocol follows another signed in September 2020 with the Instituto de Telecomunicações, with similar objectives.
Fibroglobal, following public tenders and contracts signed with the Portuguese State, installed, manages and operates high-speed electronic communications networks in the Central Zone and in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. In the latter, the network includes a submarine fiber optic cable between the islands of Faial, Flores, Corvo and Graciosa.
The installed networks have allowed access to high-speed Internet and other advanced services such as telemedicine, distance learning and administration
online public service, making an important contribution to removing an obstacle to growth, innovation and social and territorial cohesion and to reducing the so-called “digital divide” that separates these areas from the rest of the country.
The Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA) is a State Laboratory whose mission is to promote and coordinate scientific research, technological development, innovation and the provision of services in the domain of the sea and atmosphere, ensuring the implementation of the national strategies and policies in its areas of activity, contributing to economic and social development, being invested with the functions of national authority in the fields of meteorology, aeronautical meteorology, climate, seismology and geomagnetism.
IPMA established a partnership with Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL) and Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) to create the platform LEA – Listening to the Earth under the Atlantic, with a view to research, development and implementation of methodologies for geoenvironmental detection in submarine cables.
Within the scope of the LEA project, it is planned to test one of the new technologies in this field – the DAS (Distributed Acoustic Sensing) – which, due to its characteristics, can be particularly useful in seismic monitoring in the Azores, specifically in the area between the Western and Eastern groups of this archipelago.
A Fibroglobal will, in this context, provide access to fiber optics in the aforementioned submarine cable which it owns, allowing IPMA to install its measuring equipment, thus enabling the collection of information necessary for the aforementioned investigation.
Access to infrastructure, in a region of great importance from a seismological point of view, will allow for the development of pioneering experiences worldwide, and to better understand the potential of submarine cables for monitoring seismic events, as well as the applications of these new methodologies to civil protection .
This is very innovative scientific research, which will help to better understand the functioning of our planet, and at the same time opens up the perspective of more reliable warning methods for the protection of populations and coastal resilience, having the potential to make Portugal a world leaders in this field.
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