Distributed Acoustic Sensing for Crowd Motion and Firecracker Explosions in the Fireworks Show

Abstract Urban seismology has recently emerged as a vibrant scientific field, driven by the growing interest in seismic signals generated by major public events, sports gatherings, and transportation services. However, deploying dense traditional seismometers in economically active, densely populated urban areas with heavy traffic poses significant challenges. In this study, we conducted a field experiment utilizing distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology during a fireworks display in Guangzhou on 5 February 2023. About 572 m of optical fiber was turned into 286 seismic sensors and deployed on LingShan Island to monitor various vibration signals generated during the fireworks show. Our analysis revealed substantial correlations between crowd motions during different phases of the event and ambient noise features recorded by DAS. Moreover, the cross-correlation functions of the ambient noise with its dispersion characteristics pointed to near-field pedestrian activity as the primary noise source. Real-time heat maps of human crowd motions were reconstructed from DAS recording, offering significant insights into the variations of activity intensity across different locations. Discerning fireworks events on the DAS array is more effective than on a scattered seismometer array, because it is easier to ensure that the same event is picked for all the sites in the DAS dense linear configuration. The DAS data inspection allowed us to pick up a total of 549 firecracker explosions in comparison to the seismometer data that only allowed us to detect 116 firecracker events. The heights of fireworks were located by the grid-search method and predominantly distributed at 75–300 m, closely aligning with actual fireworks explosion locations. Our findings underscore that the DAS technology can monitor crowd motion and detect vibration signals in the air, bridging the gap between fundamental earth science research and human social activities.