Investigating the Suitability of Delay Tolerant Networks for Broadcasting Tsunami Warnings in Palu, Indonesia

2026-05-14

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of disrupted end-to-end communication during tsunamis triggered by earthquakes, which often impedes timely early warnings. For the first time, delay-tolerant networking (DTN) is applied to the Palu, Indonesia tsunami warning scenario, with simulations evaluating the performance of Epidemic and Spray and Wait routing protocols under extreme communication outages. Results indicate that while DTN cannot meet the stringent timeliness requirements for issuing warnings immediately after the mainshock, it holds potential utility during the foreshock phase. This finding suggests DTN as a viable approach for pre-disaster dissemination of early warning information, offering a novel strategy to enhance preparedness in seismically active coastal regions.

Abstract

On the 28th of September, 2018, a tsunami hit the city of Palu in Indonesia, killing 4,340 people. The earthquake preceding the tsunami crippled communication lines and may have rendered the transmission of tsunami warning messages using traditional end-to-end approaches impossible. This paper proposes an alternative approach using Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) for tsunami warning message routing given their resilience to disruptions and sparse connections. Both Epidemic and Spray and Wait routing protocols were simulated in a pseudo-realistic environment to evaluate their effectiveness for transmitting tsunami warning messages in Palu. Results indicated that these protocols are not suitable for the tight time constraints of post-earthquake tsunami warnings with the currently available technology. However, they may have promising applications for the earthquakes that precede tsunamis.

Problem

• Tsunami Warning
• Delay Tolerant Networks
• Communication Disruption
• Disaster Response
• Message Broadcasting

Innovation

• Delay Tolerant Networks
• tsunami warning
• routing protocols
• disruption-tolerant communication
• disaster resilience