Tsunami early warning and decision support On 11 November 2008,
almost four years after the devastating tsunami catastrophe,
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia inaugurated the
InaTEWS tsunami early warning system (Indonesian Tsunami Early
Warning System) in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. Germany has
made a significant contribution to this system. The German
Remote Sensing Data Center (Deutsches
Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum; DFD) of the German Aerospace Center
(Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) has developed
and put in place a Decision Support System (DSS) for InaTEWS,
which will enable significantly improved tsunami early warning
for the Indian Ocean. Germany has been prominently involved in
setting up this system in the context of the German Indonesian
Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS). The propagation times of
tsunamis in Indonesia are very short due to the geological
conditions in the region. This means that a tsunami early
warning is only useful when it is generated quickly a