About this Research Topic

Background

The tsunami disasters of 2004 in the Indian Ocean and of 2011 along the Tohoku coast of Japan revealed severe gaps between the anticipated risk and consequences, with resulting loss of life and property. A similar observation is also relevant for the smaller, yet disastrous, tsunamis with unusual source characteristics such as the recent events in Palu Bay and Sunda Strait in 2018. The severe consequences were underestimated in part due to the lack of rigorous and accepted hazard analysis methods and large uncertainty in forecasting the tsunami sources. Population response to small recent tsunamis in the Mediterranean also revealed a lack of preparedness and awareness. While there is no absolute protection against large tsunamis, a more accurate analysis of the potential risk can help to minimize losses.

The tsunami community has recently made significant progress in understanding tsunami hazard and risk from seismic sources and, probably to a lesser extent, also from non-seismic sources. Additionally, a significant amount of data on tsunami sources, tsunami features and tsunami impact has been collected following many recent events at many different places. Tsunami features have been analyzed and addressed through theoretical, experimental and numerical approaches. Methods for Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard and Risk Analysis (PTHA and PTRA) have been significantly improved. In this Research Topic, we aim to contribute to the ongoing process of assessing and providing community-based standards, good practices, benchmarking tools and guidelines, based on the most recent observations and scientific findings. This is in line with several community-based efforts like the “GTM - Global Tsunami Model” and the “AGITHAR - Accelerating Global science In Tsunami Hazard and Risk analysis” scientific networks.

We welcome contributions addressing all aspects of tsunami science, provided they cope in some way with the task of conveying scientific progress into the improvement of hazard and risk analysis methods which would allow to effectively manage tsunami risk. In other words, we wish to contribute to the achievement of a thorough understanding of tsunami hazard and risk, together with the processes that drive them. We accept almost all article types allowed by the Geohazards and Georisks, Solid Earth Geophysics and Volcanology Sections of Frontiers in Earth Science, namely: Original Research, Methods, Review, Mini Review, Hypothesis and Theory, Perspective, Data Report, Opinion, Technology and Code. We especially encourage contributions dealing with:

• Methods and approaches for Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Analysis (PTHA) and Probabilistic Tsunami Risk Analysis (PTRA) or for some of their components;
• Performance metrics, quality assessment and test cases (benchmarks) for individual components or the entire PTHA and PTRA workflows;
• Methods and applications for sensitivity analysis and/or management of subjectivity;
• Use-cases or perspective and review papers on the non-seismic source treatment; and scientific gaps related to PTHA/PTHRA analysis;
• Methods and use-cases for connecting tsunami early warning methods and operations to coastal planning and risk reduction through PTHA and PTRA, including societal dimension multi-hazard/multi-risk perspectives.

Keywords: tsunami, modeling, hazard, risk, uncertainty

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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