The first anti-tsunami system in the Mediterranean sea
The first step, towards the end of 2006, consisted of the positioning of the system in the South Tyrrhenian, a few kilometres off Palermo. This was the test system for the Me Tas Mediterranean Tsunami Alarm System, a project for the monitoring of the water and sea bed instituted by Telecom Italia and Envirtech (www.envirtech.org) using this system.The prototype consists of two principle components, always linked together by a bi-directional acoustic modem: a platform is situated in deep water and float for satellite transmission. The platform collects the data provided by the sismometres and also records pressure variations, directly correlated to the indications of an expected tsunami or to the passage of one. The buoy, through the modem which remains connected to the platform on the bottom, transmits the data via satellite to Les Immarsat of Fucino which in turn passes it onto the Envirtech laboratories for preliminary tests.
Finally everything is elaborated by the Environmental Agency and Technical Services (Apat) which gives scientific support and approval of the results.
This experiment, which makes use of giant Resinex floats (a buoy of 1.3 metres in diameter and 13 meters long assigned to the receiving and transmission of data plus another 11 deep water buoys for the buoyancy of the mooring system), has the scope to calibrate the measuring procedure and alarm. The data and any danger warnings flow directly to a control centre which in turn passes such information to the competent authority. The system can be transferred to every part of the world and positioned at any sea depth and has therefore a vast range of potential appliacations.
