Science-informed tsunami risk reduction in Western Australia

<div>An approach is presented to deriving onshore tsunami evacuation zones in Western Australia. The warning zones correspond to warning categories for distant earthquake tsunamis in the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning System. Onshore inundation hazards are computed by combining a detailed inundation modelled with earthquake-tsunami scenarios and rates from the 2018 Australian Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment. All modelled scenarios are assigned to JATWC warning categories and their onshore inundation extents are combined to produce preliminary maps, which are then limited to a very rare inundation event, and further manually adjusted to produce actionable evacuation zones. Although this procedure is conservative it leads to a large reduction in the size of the tsunami "land warning" evacuation zone compared to current advice. In the event of a land warning tsunami, this will enable better targeting of inundation prone areas by emergency services. <b>Citation:</b> Kendall, D., Davies, G., Brannigan, A., Gho, R., Whiney, J., Zanini, M.; Science-informed risk reduction for earthquake-generated tsunamis in Western Australia, Australian Journal of Emergency Management 39:4 - October 2024, p112-118.