Developments of GNSS buoy for a synthetic geohazard monitoring system

A global navigation satellite system (GNSS) buoy system for early tsunami warnings has been developed for more than 20 years. The first GNSS buoy system using a real-time kinematic algorithm (RTK) was implemented in the Nationwide Ocean Wave information network for Ports and HArbourS (NOWPHAS) wave monitoring system in Japan in 2008. The records of NOWPHAS were used to update the tsunami alert by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), owing to the tsunami generated by the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake (Mw9.0). However, considering that the distance limit is less than 20 km for the RTK algorithm, a new system was designed by introducing a new positioning algorithm and satellite data transmission to place the buoy much farther from the coast. A new technique for the continuous monitoring of ocean-bottom crustal movements was also implemented in the new system. The new buoy system can be used for weather forecasting and ionospheric monitoring as well.