Tsunami: how wet will you get?  

Authors / CoAuthors

Sexton, J.

Abstract

Before the tragic events of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004, Australia was not prepared for the tsunami threat. The Australian Government and emergency managers needed information to develop plans on how to respond and to prepare the community. What kind of information did emergency managers need? How could the scientific community provide advice to emergency managers and help address their information needs? Some example questions included: - the maximum credible tsunami - the likelihood of large tsunami - the time between the earthquake event and arrival at the coast - the extent of inundation from a tsunami impact - the likely damage - the likely differences if the tsunami arrives at the location at different tide levels. Before the 2004 tsunami, Australians had very little experience with tsunamis. Historically there have been very few tsunami that have impacted the Australian coastline and globally, tsunamis are relatively rare. Modelling can be used to address some of the gaps in our knowledge so the scientific community can assist emergency managers. In this presentation, I will give an outline of the different modelling approaches, what information modelling can provide and importantly what information it cannot provide. I will also describe the partnerships between emergency managers and the scientific community that have lead to an improvements in our understanding of tsunami and an increased ability to respond if a tsunami was to impact Australia in the future. Short version: Before the tragic events of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004, Australia was not prepared for the tsunami threat. The Australian Government and emergency managers around Australia were asking the question - how wet could we get? Untangling this question raises yet more questions of how often will tsunamis occur, how big can tsunamis get and where will tsunamis come from? Here, we will look at tsunami history in Australia, how tsunamis are generated and how tsunami modelling can be used to fill the gaps in our understanding and estimate the potential tsunami impact to the Australian community.

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75719

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Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

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2013-01-01T00:00:00

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