Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
exchanges and sabbaticals; study away opportunities at related scientiic venues; and grants,
fellowships, and stipends to further professional study.
The watchstander has a critical role in tsunami decision support by maintaining situational
awareness and issuing the correct products and information. Although visualization software
assists by monitoring seismic and sea level data and mapping event locations, it is the watch-
standers' training, experience, and scientiic expert judgment that are essential in making the
appropriate decisions when creating notiication products for emergency managers, local
government, and the general public.
Tsunami detection and warning requires frequent, effective, and purposeful communica-
tion and interactions between watchstanders, staff, and management in the TWCs, and with
operational decision makers and the public. To enhance the effectiveness of TWC decision
making and the TWC staff's ability to inform decision making processes of their customers,
frequent, regular, and varied types of training for operational watchstanders (e.g., simulations,
walk throughs, case studies, table-top exercises) are needed. In addition, scheduled and orga-
nizationally supported interactions between watchstanders and management in distributed
watch centers are beneicial to the TWCs' reliability of operations; these activities could include
seminars, personnel and information exchanges, technical meetings, and scheduled joint work
sessions.
Conclusion:
Given the highly technical and specialized skill sets required for tsunami
watchstanding, workforce development and recruiting can be challenging. The success
of the TWC mission is critically dependent on human resources for tsunami warning and
detection.
Conclusion:
Given the importance of technology in the overall process of tsunami
detection and warning, and the rapid evolution of IT, stronger IT commitment and
leadership and greater human resources devoted to IT are required in the TWCs. The TWCs
lack senior IT leadership to support TWC operations, guide the enterprise-wide technology
planning efforts, and provide guidance in adopting enterprise-wide technology processes.
Conclusion:
The TWCs require frequent, regular, and varied types of training for
operational watchstanders (e.g., simulations, walk throughs, case studies, table-top
exercises); frequent, regular, and organizationally supported interactions between
watchstanders in distributed watch centers; and ongoing, funded, and prioritized
research and development to support operations, which requires an explicit process for
implementing new technology into operations.
Recommendation:
Because of the importance of technical and scientiic expertise to
the TWCs' functions, TWC human capital requirements and TWC recruiting, training, re-
training, development, mentoring, and professional exchange needs should be included,
re-assessed, and updated as part of the NOAA/NWS enterprise-wide technology planning
effort, and should be consistent with NOAA- and government-wide standards, so that
