BC Earthquake Early Warning System, a Program for Seismic Structural Health Monitoring of Infrastructure

The University of British Columbia (UBC) and the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure in Canada, have been instrumenting key structures in recent years to provide confirmation of their seismic capacity, assist in focusing retrofit efforts, detect damage from any cause, and provide rapid damage assessment of those structures following a seismic event. The program now includes more than 15 monitored bridges and is expanding to include public schools and other buildings. The newest addition to the bridge monitoring program is the incorporation of an earthquake early warning system developed at UBC. This paper describes how the EEW system will be used as part of the existing seismic structural health monitoring program in British Columbia.