Fewer Staff
Wudalianchi Administration Committee
The Positive Effect of Geological Relic Monitoring and Early Warning System on Geological Landform Protection
Full Solution
Geological Relic Monitoring and Early Warning System
Wudalianchi Administration Committee
Wudalianchi is a national park in northeastern China. In recent years, Wudalianchi has gradually attracted people's attention. Now it is not only an ideal learning place for geology scholars, but also a popular holiday resort.
Due to the increase of tourists and traffic flow, the protection capacity of the geological relics reached its limits, which also risked visitors’ safety. In the past, only some monitoring points were arranged in the densely populated areas of park, which was far from enough to monitor other non-densely populated geological sites and monitor the tourists flow.
This solution describes how the management committee of Wudalianchi increases the monitoring capacity by upgrading monitoring system and educating the public. Wudalianchi has developed 12 sightseeing areas. This program has greatly reduced the cost of management and the number of security personnel required, allowing quickly response in face of emergency.
Last update: 10 May 2022
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Context
Challenges addressed
- Lack of standards for geological disaster monitoring
- The old geological disaster monitoring and early warning sensor network were not compatible with big data and cloud platform and had serious technical problems
- Limited funding
- Insufficient staff
Location
Wudalianchi, Heihe, Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China
East Asia
Process
Summary of the process
Geological remains are the precious heritage for human nature. Thus, we should not only use monitoring system to protect non-renewable natural resources, but also increase awareness of scientific management and the values of these precious heritage. It has made the park an important place for leisure and a popular science education park. The administration committee and staff have developed and utilized the park in a scientific way to promote the sustainable development of the park.
Building Blocks
Training staff in monitoring skills
The geological monitoring system provides a training platform to advance the technical ability of the staff.Through the operation of the monitoring system and the combination of on-site monitoring points, the staff has learned the monitoring technology of geological relics and its standard system, and has further deepened the understanding and recognition of the development law, geological background and evolution process of geological relics.
Enabling factors
In the past, the only monitoring work the monitoring staff could do was systematic operation because of lack of professional knowledge. We not only upgraded the monitoring systems but also provided training workshops to our staff, covering topic range from law to scientific management. The workshops have enhanced their monitoring skills. With solid knowledge, the staff have also provided high quality guide to the visitors.
Lesson learned
The original system installed did not consider the possibility of upgrading the facilities. We found malfunctions after we tried to incorporate high-tech such as cloud platform.After increasing investment to upgrade the system, stable and reliable video monitoring and early warning system could be implemented for each point of geological remains. Through safe, scientific and effective management, by implementing all-weather, omni-directional 24 hours for live monitoring and early warning and personnel record, we have achieved the goal of strengthening on-site supervision and safety management; have improved the quality of service, have made our management work more standardized, scientific, accurate, intelligent, and informative, which provides a strong guarantee for the safety of tourists.
Educating the public
The park has established a complete geological site monitoring system, updating interpretation board more than 1200 panels, using easy-to-understand language and illustrated way to explain the typical geological site.We also take annual Earth Day, Environment Day and China Geopark Science Popularization Week as opportunities to hold theme science popularization education activities in the park, such as issuing leaflets, accepting public consultation, giving lectures on geological environmental for primary and secondary school students, and organizing science popularization tours. The idea is to increase awareness among people, which is very important for the public to understand geological sites.
Enabling factors
As the public does not have a deep understanding of the high quality geological relic resources in this region, the park needs to strengthen the popularization of science and has the obligation to popularize to the public what geological relic is, what kind of tourism value and scientific value it has, so that the public can better understand our Mother Earth, love and protect the Earth.
Lesson learned
To educate the public, we should educate our staff first. For staff, training has boraden their range of knowledge and also increased their passion for work. By doing so, the dedicated staff will provide vivid explanation during the guide tour. The tourists will not only learn the natural landscape but also enjoy the interactive and enthusiastic tours.
Impacts
1. Monitoring system compensates for the lack of staff in charge of monitoring and greatly reduces the cost of management
There are 237 scenic area staff in the park (114 formal and 12 temporary), responsible for the maintenance and inspections of geological remains. But only 5 people are in charge of monitoring, far from the requirement of good geological relics protection and monitoring work. With the new monitoring system installed in the park, monitoring staff could check the overall situation of the park sitting in the monitoring center, which is much more efficient compared to the past.
2. Monitoring system allows rapid intervention on the ground
The monitoring and early warning system also allows rapid intervention when there are sudden weather changes(freeze-thaw effect), disasters(earthquakes or volcanic eruptions) or destructions (man-made or caused by extreme weather). Since the important geological sites are monitored, the Management Department could track real-time and inform the security and emergency team on duty quickly in case of disasters. We could also evacuate visitors in a short time when the number of visitors reaches the limit.
Beneficiaries
This project protects geological heritage and benefits 14,223 local residents. Tourists have also enjoyed higher qualitied and safer tours. In 2018, the annual tourist number was 1 million. We expect more in 2022.
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 17 – Partnerships for the goals
Story
All the current safety management work was completed by Tourist Area Management Team. The problem of insufficient staff and heavy workload could not be solved in a short time. For example, there was no monitoring system for the destruction of geological relics made by tourists. So the Administration Committee adopted monitoring systems. When tourists are trying to destruct the geological relics, one of the staff of the committee can obtain monitoring information and timely inform the patrol staff of the scenic spot to warn the tourists. In the event of landslides and other dangerous situation, we can also timely monitor and notify tourists to evacuate to protect the safety of people’s property. Scientific and modern management can be carried out, and sudden events can be quickly and effectively prohibited or dealt with.
