Multi-casting Severe Weather Forecast Alerts over Satellite-enabled Tablet-PCs in Mongolia

A  JASIL senior researcher: Dr. Hijaba Ykhanbai said - "The last disastrous dzud of 2009-2010 is still fresh in the memories of most Mongolians. Herders all together, lost a calculated 9 million livestock worth several hundreds of millions of US dollars. Many households lost up to 80% of their animals, and just become as poor rural families. These losses could have been easily prevented had their been technology to get the severe weather forecast data across to those vulnerable populations in a timely and effective manner."

Yazmi, Spot-On, and Omin-Sat in partnership with JASIL intends to introduce sustainable satellite-enabled technologies that server a dual purpose - one that is integrated in to the Herders' daily lives as well as one that can effectively communicate live-saving crisis information. The quality, affordable, ubiquitous miniature satellite receivers are portable and easy to maintain. It requires very little power that simply feeds from the Tablet-PC through a simple USB connection. The Tablet-PC batteries can be easily powered through solar cells or small wind turbines.

The use of Yazmi Alert Sending over Satellite Enabled Tablets (ASSET) concept was presented at the JASIL hoster workshop on "ICTs for sharing Weather Forecast Data with Mongolian Herders". The greatest challenge JASIL face is in getting, both human and animal, life-saving severe weather data to sparsely scattered thinly populated nomadic agriculture communities in Mongolia. That is where ASSET, unconstrained communications coverage can serve the information needs with data beamed to targeted populations any-time any-where.

Dream-IT-JASIL is an innovation that investigated the use of cellular technology coupled with micro-weather stations for accumulating climate data. However, the innovation falls short with the much needed downstream (or return path) leg of communicating the detected adverse events from the accumulated micro-station supplied weather data.

We will complement the system with the low-cost ASSET technology for disseminating text, audio, and video content; namely, real-time weather maps, preparedness instructions, response instructions to better serve the Mongolian needs.

ASSET DEMO VIDEOS

Part-One: Introduction	Part-Two: Hub-spoke set-up	Part-three: Sending data	Part-Four: Receiving data

ITU disaster workshop in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Does this picture remind you of the default Windows XP desktop background? That's what most of Mongolia looks like. Roughly 40% of the Mongolians live in Ulaanbaartar (UB). The rest are sparsely scattered in thinly populated communities in the vast open terrain. The cultures vary across the desert, meadows, and hills. The human to animal ratio is 1:12. The seasonal dwelling is decided on the animals' needs (Mongolia).

Mongolia looking like WinXP

Mr. Terbish and I wandered in Bogd National Park, when he explained some of the characteristics of Mongolian nomadic people. Terbish is a member of the the National Disaster Management Committee representing his mobile company: Unitel. His father in-law is a Herder living 300Km west of UB. Father in-law has to search for a cellular signal, like ride the horse to a coverage area to speak with Terbish; then schedule a reconnecting time if a reply is to follow. In the country-side they don't have FM Radio either. To give you an idea of the coverage, mobile operators had setup temporary base stations to give connectivity to the crowds at the Naadam horse races. The horse races took place in the plains about a 2 hour bus ride from UB with a strait race track spanning 25 kilometers.

3-6 yr old kids racing 3yr old horses, Naadam 2011

RIMES project had pilot tested a community-based warning system with motorcycles and horse-messengers to carry the hazard information to the last-mile communities. In the "hazInfo project" simulations we conducted in Sri Lanka, several communities mounted public addressing systems on the hood of three-wheelers (Tuk-Tuks) to relay the message to the village households. It seemed to work well during the simulations but the efficiencies are questionable during a real event as to whether the communities can organize a three-wheeler and a PA system in short notice. Besides earthquakes, all other hazards in Mongolia are hydro-meteorological that are slow onset giving enough  time to respond.

I was thinking addressable satellite radios but they are not two-way communication devices. HF radios for data transmission may be another way to bridge the last-mile?

These observations were made during the "ITU Asia-Pacific Regional Multi-stakeholder Forum on Emergency Telecommunications", which was held at Chinggis Kaan Hotel, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 08-11 July, 2011. I presented on our experiences with the Common Alerting Protocol and also submitted a supplement brief that recommends member states to register alerting authorities.

READ MY CONFERENCE REPORT