NERA Project

Network of European Research Infrastructures for Earthquake Risk Assessment and Mitigation

Access grants for research visits at NIEP

Project coordinator:

ETH- Zürich

Romanian Partners:

National Institute for Earth Physics. In the NERA project, NIEP is involved in NA2 and TA2 workgroups.

NA2 (Netwoork Acces) has the following objectives:

• Expand the availability and geographical distribution of open broad-band seismic stations, by adding 300 new stations from the external areas of Europe in the Virtual European BB Seismic Network.
• Increment the European seismic data collection, storage and exchange by including mobile deployments in Europe, older national archives and additional permanent networks in the European
• Integrated waveform Data Archive (EIDA).
• Improving the quality of data for long-term data archives used in research.
• Optimize technical interoperability of distributed mobile BB instrumentation and permanent networks, by standardizing data collection, format and archive procedures, and quality control standards.
• Evaluate the ‘EuroArray’ concept of a series of coordinated mobile network deployment complementing the permanent monitoring network.

TA2 - Bucharest Rapid Early Warning System (BREWS)

NIEP operates one of the few existing early warning systems in the world: Bucharest Rapid Early Warning System (BREWS) for intermediate depth earthquakes. Based on a local seismic network installed in the epicenter (Vrancea) area and on a dense network installed in Bucharest, it allows a rapid estimation of earthquake magnitude (about 4 seconds) that permits quick generation of Shakemaps and risk management for Bucharest

TA2-Bucharest Rapid Early Warning System (BREWS) will offer access to NIEP infrastructure (National Seismic Network, Rapid early warning system for earthquakes produced in the Vrancea seismic area), allowing users from scientific and technical communities to become familiar with the innovative technologies and researches in the area. Bucharest Rapid Early Warning System (BREWS) will offer to scientific community access to recorded data, access to infrastructure and also a friendly research environment at NIEP.

NIEP will offer access to infrastructure for 10 users, for 30 days/visit for up to 2 users in the same time.

Applicants must be affiliated at an Institution within the EC Member States or one of the Associated States, but outside of Romania.

Proposals for visits, including a description of the proposed research (max 3 pages) and a short CV, can be submitted at any time to NIEP or the NERA management and will be considered every three month by the user selection panel (deadlines are 1 March, 1 June, 1 September, and 1 December until 2014).

Each TA guest will have accommodation paid by NIEP and will receive a daily allowance amounting to 1200 EUR/month to cover the living costs. In addition, travel costs (cheapest fare, maximum 1000 €) will be covered.

Further details can be obtained from:

• NIEP webpage:  http://www.infp.ro/projects/current-international-projects
• NERA webpage: http://www.nera-eu.org

More information 

• NERA TA2 description
• NERA TA2 application form

Questions regarding NERA visits can be directed to NIEP's project leader:

Dr. Eng. Constantin IONESCU

• National Institute for Earth Physics 
• Magurele, Calugareni 12, 077125, Romania
• Tel: +4021 4050670
• Fax: +4021 4050673
• E-mail: viorel (at) infp.ro