Do Residents Feel What Seismometers Measure? A Three-Year Panel Experiment Co-Locating Felt Reports with Plug-In Home Seismometers in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area
Abstract
Discrepancies between announced regional seismic intensity and shaking experienced indoors may affect household mitigation and risk communication. We report on a three-year field experiment (2021–2024) in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area combining citizen-hosted low-cost sensors with subjective reports. Up to 92 volunteers participated; sensor hosts kept plug-in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) seismometers at home, and participants completed questionnaires after 96 target earthquakes. The system yielded 5,724 responses to 8,054 delivery attempts (response rates of 80.6% in 2022 and 67.6% in 2023), with 96% returned within 72 hours. Findings were robust to unrounded measures. First, municipal Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) seismic intensity < perceived seismic intensity < indoor seismic intensity; indoor seismic intensity exceeded municipal JMA seismic intensity by roughly one-third of a class (median +0.34 against unrounded instrumental values), with a 1.4-class variation across structures. Second, local intensity was the primary predictor of feeling an event (odds ratio 2.57 per class), whereas the floor-height association was weaker. Third, repeated feedback did not produce detectable calibration; over-reporting biases (+0.4 to +0.7 classes) persisted over up to 96 events. These findings support indoor seismic intensity as a complement to regional metrics for indoor seismic-hazard evaluation, last-mile early warning, and risk communication.
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