EPOS - European Plate Observing System

• Mission & Vision
  • The concept
  • Impact
  • History
• Objectives
  • e-Science
• Architecture
  • e-ICT infrastructure
  • EPOS History
• Community
  • EPOS PP Founding Partners
  • International initiatives
  • National initiatives
  • Events
• Preparatory Phase
  • Overview
  • Governance
  • Partners and Associates
  • Working Packages
  • Working Groups
• Data Products
  • Seismic Networks
  • Laboratories
  • GPS networks
  • Volcano observatories
  • Data Processing and Archives

The Impact

Innovation and impact on Science and Society
Damage caused by seismic and volcanic activity has had a tremendous impact on the economy of affected countries. Even moderate-size earthquakes (i.e., M~6) can be catastrophic when they strike large urban agglomerations with poor building construction practice. The potential impact of a Plinian eruption hitting Naples or Santorini would also be catastrophic. Saving lives and property are not the only issues at stake in densely populated and sometimes overcrowded Europe. According to UNESCO, European countries host 2/3 of the known cultural heritage of the entire globe.

The cultural heritage of southern European cities located in earthquake-prone regions is particularly vulnerable. Mitigation of the risk to populations, the built environment and the cultural heritage of Europe relies upon our being able to accurately assess the (seismic, volcanic, tsunami and landslide) level of hazard. This in turn depends on our understanding of the processes that drive earthquakes and volcanoes. Advances in this understanding largely rely on strategic investments in research infrastructures at the national and European level.

The social impact of the activities promoted and coordinated in EPOS in terms of disaster prevention and mitigation is evident. Indeed, open access to the multidisciplinary research infrastructure as well as the prompt and continuous availability of high quality data will not only stimulate innovative research on Earth dynamics and processes leading to catastrophic events, but will lead to new developments in disaster prevention research, and is therefore invaluable for improving hazard assessment and forecasting.

The EPOS infrastructure will contribute to information, dissemination, education and training.  It will provide universities and young scientists with unrestricted on-line access to an enormous wealth of observational data, laboratory experiments, computational software and facilities in solid Earth sciences. The EPOS infrastructure will also facilitate the development of advanced educational material, i.e. e-learning, as its e-infrastructure will be based on global and open standards.

The added value for Europe and the innovation resulting from EPOS's construction consist of:

• the design of multidisciplinary measurements tailored to particular investigations;

• the strengthening of collaborations between dispersed research groups working in the same field incorporating and integrating efforts using different methodologies toward common goals;

• joint open software and web applications, which will significantly influence the operational aspects of observatories;

• the development of new technologies for particular infrastructures, such as experimental laboratories or in-situ observatories (deep drilling, borehole seismology, ocean bottom seismometers, geochemical data acquisition in faults and volcanoes);

• the interconnections with other proposed or currently operating networks and infrastructures in the field of Earth Sciences (such as in Space and Ocean Geophysics).