Tsunami hazard in the Australian region  

Authors / CoAuthors

Burbidge, D.

Abstract

The major tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean in 2004, and the subsequent large events off the south coast of Indonesia and in the Solomon Islands, have dramatically raised awareness of the possibility of potentially damaging tsunamis in the Australian region. Since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami (IOT), a number of emergency management agencies have worked with Geoscience Australia to help to develop an understanding of the tsunami hazard faced by their jurisdictions. Here I will discuss both the major tsunamis over the last few years in the region and the recent efforts of Geoscience Australia and others to try to estimate the likelihood of such events in the future. Since 2004, a range of probabilistic and scenario based hazard assessments have been completed through collaborative projects between Geoscience Australia and other agencies in Australia and the region. These collaborations have resulted in some of the first ever probabilistic tsunami hazard assessments to be completed for Australia and for a wide range of other countries in the southwest Pacific and Indian Oceans. These assessments not only estimate the amplitude of a tsunami that could reach the coast but also its probability. The assessments allow crucial questions from emergency managers (such as 'Just how often do large tsunamis reach our coasts?) to be quantitatively addressed. In addition, they also provide a mechanism to prioritise communities for more detailed risk assessments. This work allows emergency managers to base their decisions on the best available science and data for their jurisdiction instead of relying solely on intuition.

Product Type

nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

69572

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Keywords

• External PublicationAbstract

( Theme )

• tsunamis

( Theme )

• risk assessment

( Theme )

• numerical modelling

( Theme )

• geohazards

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

Publication Date

2009-09-23T00:00:00

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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - restricted

Use - license

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unknown

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geoscientificInformation

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