The Earth Observatory of Singapore devoted to the study of earth sciences officially opens

The Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) which aspires to be a leading world institution for understanding and addressing several of civilisation's most serious environmental threats – including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and climate change – aims to provide invaluable research and data, with a focus on Southeast Asia, that could potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Singapore's highly anticipated first Research Centre of Excellence (RCE) devoted to earth sciences, was officially opened today by Dr Francis Yeoh, Chief Executive Officer of the National Research Foundation (NRF).

The setting up of the EOS by the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) underlines the urgent need for a more systematic study of natural hazards. This includes natural calamities such as earthquakes and tsunamis, volcanoes and climate change, and their potential effects on billions of people living in the region's cities and villages. In fact, such events threaten not only the Southeast Asian region but much of civilisation.

Among the immediate projects by the EOS is the setting up of an experimental GPS station at NTU which will be a prototype for the next generation of advanced geophysical sensors. Data streaming in from its current, far-flung monitoring network stretching over 1,500 kilometres along the west Sumatran coast, merged with the information from its new sensors, will be collected and analysed both here in Singapore and in its collaborators' laboratories. This valuable resource of earth observation data will soon be made available to researchers through the EOS website.

Another major project already underway at the EOS, working closely with the Smithsonian Institution in the United States, is to refine and scale up an interactive global database, WOVOdat, on volcanic unrest between and leading up to eruptions. The aim will be to reside and manage this valuable database at the EOS. The database is indispensable to volcanologists who forecast volcanic unrest, including its causes and outcomes, in Southeast Asia or around the world.

The EOS also plans to embark on outreach and education programmes to reach out to students in secondary schools and junior colleges to spark their interests in the earth sciences. It looks forward to working closely with schools in helping them develop their curriculum in earth sciences which may include immersion programmes and field excursions jointly organised with the EOS.