EAGE NEWS
Smart cities workshop highlights need for dialogue between gescientists and engineers
WORKSHOP
REPORT
The SEG/EAGE Workshop on Geophysical Aspects of Smart Cities took place at the Holiday Inn Atrium, Singapore, on 10-12 December 2019. This is the workshop report prepared by Koya Suto (Terra Australis Geophysica), Li Yunyue (National University of Singapore) and Arthur Cheng Chuen Hon (National University of Singapore).
Workshop was attended by 73 participants from 13 countries.
Poster session at Geophysical Aspect of Smart Cities Workshop.
The development of large cities presents significant problems in social, political and technical aspects. As a city grows in population, the limited area has to accommodate people and infrastructure. Additionally, economic development attracts even more people to large cities. With limited surface land area, these cities have to create space in the third dimension: upward and downward. Larger cities are already full of skyscrapers. Underground is typically used for subways, road tunnels, car parks, warehouses and sometimes for activities of human life such as shopping centres, meeting places like concert halls and art galleries, as well as for infrastructures such as sewage pipes, water lines, electric and telecommunication cables. Cities are exploring the use of the underground space for offices, schools or even residential buildings. Apart from space, large populations require systems to supply food, water and energy, and to ensure high standards of hygiene (from 12
FIRST
BREAK
I
VOLUME
38
I
JUNE
cleaning to waste disposal) as well as safety in daily life to disaster preparedness. Planning, developing, managing and maintaining large population centres in a ‘smart’ way involve many disciplines not only in science and engineering but also economics and law. Geophysics, at the heart of which sits sensing, signal processing and information integration, has an opportunity for an important contribution to smart city projects. Hence this workshop was conceived. Seventy-three delegates from 13 countries represented the whole spectrum of stakeholders including geophysicists, civil engineering practitioners and consultants, service providers, academic researchers, and government agencies. With two-thirds of the attendees’ geophysicists and onethird civil engineers, this workshop provided a forum for true inter-disciplinary discussions.
The technical sessions covered a variety of topics: Fibre-based distributed acoustic sensing; Application of ground penetrating radar, electrical, and gravity methods; Integration of geophysics and civil engineering; Ambient seismic imaging; Geophysical application to urban traffic systems, and Machine learning applications in geophysics and civil engineering. Coupled with the most advanced distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology, passive seismic monitoring utilizing existing optical fibre infrastructure, originally deployed for telecommunications, was another highlight of the workshop. Short- and long-term fibre monitoring arrays around the globe have shown unprecedented sensitivity and scalability for earthquake, weather, urban activity, and underground structure monitoring. The large volume of DAS data provides a unique opportunity for data mining and machine learning. At the same time, it also requires smart data management and information reduction, a research question that is also key to other smart city applications presented at the workshop. Despite many successful applications shown by both academics and professionals, geophysical techniques were criticized by civil engineers for their lack of standards and reliability. The underdetermined nature of many geophysical inverse problems prevents geophysicists from providing answers as definite as direct engineering
Panel session on Bridging the Gap between Geophysics and Civil Engineering.
2020