The Attorney General's Departement has supported Geoscience Australia to develop inundation models for four east coast communities with the view of buildling the tsunami planning and preparation capacity of the Jurisdictions. The aim of this document and accompanying DVD is to report on the approach adopted by each Jurisdiction, the modelling outcomes and supply the underpinning computer scripts and input data.

The major tsunamis of the last few years in the southern hemisphere have raised awareness of the possibility of potentially damaging tsunami to Australia and countries in the Southwest Pacific region. Here we present a probabilistic hazard assessment for Australia and for the SOPAC countries in the Southwest Pacific for tsunami generated by subduction zone earthquakes. To conduct a probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment, we first need to estimate the likelihood of a tsunamigeneic earthquake occurring. Here we will discuss and present our method of estimate the likely return period a major megathrust earthquake on each of the subduction zones surrounding the Pacific. Our method is based on the global rate of occurrence of such events and the rate of convergence and geometry of each particular subduction zone. This allows us to create a synthetic catalogue of possible megathrust earthquakes in the region with associated probabilities for each event. To calculate the resulting tsunami for each event we create a library of "unit source" tsunami for a set of 100km x 50km unit sources along each subduction zone. For each unit source, we calculate the sea floor deformation by modelling the slip along the unit source as a dislocation in a stratified, linear elastic half-space. This sea floor deformation is then fed into a tsunami propagation model to calculate the wave height off the coast for each unit source. Our propagation model uses a staggered grid, finite different scheme to solve the linear, shallow water wave equations for tsunami propagation. The tsunami from any earthquake in the synthetic catalogue can then be quickly calculated by summing the unit source tsunami from all the unit sources that fall within the rupture zone of the earthquake. The results of these calculations can then be combined with our estimate of the probability of the earthquake to produce hazard maps showing (for example) the probability of a tsunami exceeding a given height offshore from a given stretch of coastline. These hazard maps can then be used to guide emergency managers to focus their planning efforts on regions and countries which have the greatest likelihood of producing a catastrophic tsunami.

The information within this document and associated DVD is intended to assist emergency managers in tsunami planning and preparation activities. The Attorney General's Department (AGD) has supported Geoscience Australia (GA) in developing a range of products to support the understanding of tsunami hazard through the Australian Tsunami Warning System Project. The work reported here is intended to further build the capacity of the QLD State Government in developing inundation models for prioritised locations. Internally stored data /nas/cds/internal/hazard_events/sudden_onset_hazards/tsunami_inundation/gold_coast/gold_coast_tsunami_scenario_2009

Data package relates to tsunami modelling outputs that were used for the Catastrophic Working Group. This data relates is the underlying model development.

Since the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami, there has been an increase both in the frequency of large earthquakes, and in the data for monitoring the seismic and sea level disturbances associated with them, especially in the Australasian region. The increased number of high-quality recordings available for these large earthquakes provides an important opportunity to assess methods for rapid determination of their source properties, which potentially could be used to support tsunami warning systems. In this presentation we will consider how well the available data allow us to characterise the rupture of a earthquake, consider how rapidly this could be done, and assess how well the resulting models can be used to predict far -field tsunami waveforms. The earthquakes conside red include the Tonga and Java earthquakes of 2006 (Mw=8.0 and 7.7, respectively), the earthquakes in the Kuriles Islands in 2006 and 2007 (Mw=8.3 and 8.1, respectively), and the 2007 earthquakes in the Solomon Islands and off Sumatra (Mw=8.1, 8.4 and 7.9, respectively). We also discuss some of the important implications the rupture models obtained for these earthquakes have for earthquake and tsunami hazard in the Australasia region. These implications include the possible need to re -consider the maximum credible size of megathrust earthquakes in the SW Pacific subduction zones, and the potential for triggering of further large earthquakes in the Indonesian subduction zone.

Following the 26 December 2004 tsunami, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) carried out National Assessment missions for 16 countries in the Indian Ocean to advance the establishment of an Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System. The missions assessed each country's requirements for effective and durable tsunami response, and their capacity to strengthen capabilities for tsunami early warning and response. The IOC, funded by AusAID, carried out a National Assessment mission for Timor Leste from 26th November to 1st December 2007. The mission team consisted of experts from the IOC, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), UN Development Program (UNDP), Geoscience Australia (GA) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). GA and BOM carried out site investigations for a proposed seismic station and sea level monitoring stations that may be installed as part of the Australian Tsunami Warning System (ATWS).

The Asia-Pacific region experiences some of the world's most violent natural hazards, being exposed to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, cyclones and monsoons. It is also home to many of the world's most populous megacities with large exposures to hazards. Indeed, government statistics reveal an annual average of 2.7 disasters a day in Indonesia alone. This high risk of natural disasters in developing nations has considerable implications for international aid programs, as disasters significantly compromise the achievement of development goals and the effectiveness of aid investments. Recognising this issue, AusAID requested Geoscience Australia to conduct a broad natural hazard risk assessment of the Asia-Pacific region. This assessment included earthquake, volcanic eruption, tsunami, cyclone, flood, landslide and wildfire hazards. A crucial aspect in the assessment of natural hazard risk is the metric used to define a past disaster and therefore the risk of future disasters. For this preliminary study, we used "significantly impacted population" as the risk metric. This deliberately vague metric is intended to capture the potential for human death, injury, and displacement, as well as prolonged loss of access to essential services and/or shelter, and/or significant damage to agriculture, horticulture and industry such that external assistance is required. However, future work in the Asia-Pacific region will need to be able to determine these vulnerabilities more accurately, considering, for example, the vulnerabilities of buildings and infrastructure in relation to building codes and construction practice, economic cost, and the spatial variability of the intensity of different hazard events. For this study, we determined the frequencies and magnitudes of a range of sudden-onset natural hazards and evaluated the potential disaster impact. Extra emphasis was placed on relatively rare but high impact events that may not be well reflected in the historical record, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. We concluded that the potential is high for a natural disaster to seriously affect more than one million people in the Asia-Pacific region, with specific risks as follows: - Megacities in the Himalayan Belt, China, Indonesia and the Philippines are prime candidates for a million-fatality earthquake. - Hundreds of thousands may be seriously affected by volcanic disasters at least once a decade in Indonesia and once every few decades in the Philippines. - The population explosion in the mega-deltas of Asia (e.g., Bangladesh), combined with increasing vulnerability to climate change, indicates that a tsunami, flood or cyclone event significantly impacting tens of millions is likely. - Finally, many Pacific Island nations have a high potential for catastrophic disasters that may significantly impact large proportions of their populations, disasters that are most likely to overwhelm a local and national governments-response and recovery capacity.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) was established in response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. The JATWC is a collaboration between Geoscince Australia and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to provide tsunami warnings to the Australian public. This arcticle discusses the actions of the JATWC in response to the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that occurred south of New Zealand on the September 30, 2007. This earthquake generated a tsunami and a potential threat warning was issued for the Australian south east coast. The methods used to analyse the earthquake and the tsunami are examined as well as the future direction of operational capabilities in terms of tsunami modelling.

It's hard to believe eight years has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred that devastated so much of Japan. In November, I was very fortunate to participate in a United National International Strategy for Disaster Reduction meeting in Sendai, which included two days of site visits to areas hit by the tsunami.

The Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004 made starkly evident the need for better information on tsunami hazard in the Indian Ocean. The tsunami threat faced by Indian Ocean countries consists of a complex mix of tsunami from local, regional and distant sources, whose effects at any particular location in the Indian Ocean are highly dependent on variations in sea floor shape between the source and affected coastlines, complicating tsunami disaster management and the design of tsunami warning systems for the Indian Ocean. In order to provide national governments in the Indian Ocean with the information they need to make informed decisions about tsunami mitigation measures, including development of a warning system, a comprehensive hazard and risk ass In this presentation we discuss the results of this assessment. The study focused on tsunami caused by subduction zone earthquakes, because they are the most frequent source of large tsunami, and tsunami hazard is expressed as annual probability of a tsunami exceeding a given amplitude at a given offshore depth. Because so little is known about the recurrence rates of large megathrust earthquakes in the subduction zones bordering the Indian Ocean, it was decided to develop two hazard maps: a 'low-hazard' end member, based on only those earthquake sources of tsunami for which there is definite evidence, and a 'high-hazard' end member, based on all potential megathrust earthquake sources, including hypothetical ones for which there is no historical or geological evidence, that may affect Indian Ocean coastlines. The actual hazard lies somewhere between these two end members, and the difference between the low hazard and high hazard maps is a simple and effective way to express the uncertainty in the hazard assessment. This uncertainty reflects the lack of knowledge of tsunamigenic earthquake occurrence, and can only be reduced through a better understanding of earthquake and tsunami occurrence in the Indian Ocean.