Scientists Are Building a GIS Platform to Monitor Earthquakes and Environmental Risks in Russia’s Kuban Region
Krasnodar Krai is one of Russia’s most seismically active regions. Instruments record underground tremors there almost every day, and officials in the region have even discussed creating an earthquake forecasting center.
Researchers at the Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Kuban State University are now developing a geographic information system that will bring fragmented data on natural hazards together on a single digital platform. The work is being conducted under projects supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.
A Digital Foundation
The researchers have already created a digital elevation model of Krasnodar Krai. They will now augment it with geospatial data, mathematical models and algorithms developed by the research team, combining all these components with standard GIS functions in a single analytical environment. The system will analyze regional seismic activity and build physical and geological models, while also mapping wildfires and modeling the spread of pollutants. This digital foundation could help officials make decisions about infrastructure siting, urban development projects and measures to reduce natural hazards.
In 2022, researchers at Kuban State University and the Southern Scientific Centre published a study on using GIS and a digital elevation model of Krasnodar Krai for environmental monitoring. Already at that stage, the results of mathematical modeling of pollutant migration were displayed directly on a map of the area. The new system combines two major areas of monitoring – seismic and environmental. The same spatial data and digital model of the region can be used to assess several types of natural hazards, substantially improving the system’s efficiency while reducing operating costs.
Impulses for Better Decisions
As part of a Russian Science Foundation project, researchers created an 8.38-gigabyte GIS database for North Ossetia that brought together data on earthquakes, geodetic measurements and tectonic faults. The data were visualized using the open-source QGIS platform, and the database was designed to provide more detailed seismic hazard assessments for the Greater Caucasus. Researchers plan to extend the GIS database to other earthquake-prone regions of Russia.
GIS tools like these can combine information on earthquakes, terrain, faults and geodetic measurements for use in urban planning and natural-hazard assessment. In Irkutsk Oblast and the Republic of Buryatia, for example, updating seismic-risk indicators with the Ekstremum (Extremum) geographic information system reduces potential socioeconomic losses by 20% to 30%.
In the Sirius federal territory, meanwhile, researchers have created a multisensor geodynamic monitoring system with a network of seismic and satellite geodetic stations. Data are automatically collected, stored and visualized in a single data center, with machine processing used to analyze the results.
Together, these projects are creating a unified digital environment in which natural-hazard data are collected automatically, processed using mathematical algorithms and made available to support government decision-making.
Monitoring Without Borders
Seismic safety requires constant attention in Krasnodar Krai. An analysis of major earthquakes over the past 30 years indicates that the Caucasus could produce earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 or greater. The GIS platform under development is intended to do more than track current conditions – it could also help forecast how events may unfold.
The Kuban researchers’ technology is similar in approach to the federal FGIS Ekomonitoring (Environmental Monitoring Federal State Information System), which is being built around the same basic principle – collecting information from multiple sources and then processing and modeling it. The combination of a digital terrain model, mathematical modeling and GIS could be adapted for other seismically active areas both in Russia and abroad.
