Development and Implementation of a Wireless Sensor Network for Volcanic Gas Emission Monitoring

Licentiate thesis, 2007

Volcanic eruptions have great impacts on the life of the inhabitants in the surrounding areas and even to the global climate. Around 15-21×10 Tg/yr SO2 are injected to the troposphere and the stratosphere by the active volcanoes in the world[Halmer et al., 2002]. Researchers have found that SO2 flux and SO2/HCl ratios can provide insights into magma dynamics and hence forecast volcanic activity. Due to the importance of volcanic gas composition and flux in volcano monitoring, a 4-year EU project NOVAC (Network for Observation of Volcanic and Atmospheric Change) was started in 2005. It applies Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) remote sensing technique for ground-based volcanic gas emission monitoring in 20 active volcanoes. The output of the project - long-term gas emission data will be used for volcano risk assessment, geophysical research, global climate change, etc. This thesis deals with the development and implementation of a wireless sensor network for volcanic gas emission monitoring. Wireless systems are compared based on the requirements and constraints of the special volcanic environment. Field installations and results are presented. The system performance is analyzed on the issues of scalability, security and robustness.