A contribution to the selection of tsunami human vulnerability indicators: conclusions from tsunami impacts in Sri Lanka and Thailand (2004), Samoa (2009), Chile (2010) and Japan (2011)

Abstract

Abstract. After several tsunami events with disastrous consequences around the world, coastal countries have realized the need to be prepared to minimize human mortality and damage to coastal infrastructures, livelihoods and resources. The international scientific community is striving to develop and validate methodologies for tsunami hazard and vulnerability and risk assessments. The vulnerability of coastal communities is usually assessed through the definition of sets of indicators based on previous literature and/or post-tsunami reports, as well as on the available data for the study site. The aim of this work is to validate in light of past tsunami events the indicators currently proposed by the scientific community to measure human vulnerability, to improve their definition and selection as well as to analyse their validity for different country development profiles. The events analyzed are the 2011 Great Tohoku tsunami, the 2010 Chilean tsunami, the 2009 Samoan tsunami and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The results obtained highlight the need for considering both permanent and temporal human exposure, the former requiring some hazard numerical modelling while the latter is related to site-specific livelihoods, cultural traditions and gender roles. The most vulnerable age groups are the elderly adults and the children, the former having much higher mortality rates. Female mortality is not always higher than male and not always related to dependency issues. Higher numbers of disabled people do not always translate into higher numbers of victims. Besides, it is clear that mortality is not only related to the characteristics of the population but also the buildings. A high correlation has been found between the affected buildings and the number of victims, being very high for completely damaged buildings. Distance to the sea, building materials and expected water depths are highly determining factors regarding the type of damage in buildings.

Multidimensional Approach for Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment: Framing the Territorial Impacts in Two Municipalities in Portugal

“…This study presents a new multidimensional methodology that combines four domains of analysis, based on the morphological, structural, social, and tributary components of vulnerability related to tsunamis inundation. The selection of the components was based on several studies: morphologic component, structural component, social component . Finally, we introduce a new component for land allocation based on a property tax…”

“…New parameters (in bold in Table ) were introduced in this component that are related to the occupation, functionality, and structure of the buildings, which were not covered by previous methodologies, including those presented by Dall'Osso et al . and Ismail et al .…”

“…This was supported by previously validated methodologies. Furthermore, this innovative methodology assesses tsunami vulnerability in terms of the morphological component, structural component, social component and taxable property component. Portugal does not have significant earthquake activity.…”

Integrating tsunami risk assessments in development planning: lessons from Western India

“…Several methods for the assessment of both kinds have been developed in the last ten to twenty years and these identify numerous vulnerability factors, including exposure to tsunami waves, the warning capacity, building and infrastructure fragility, evacuation and emergency capacity as well as recovery capacity. The review of Gonzalez-Riancho et al (2015) suggests that while social vulnerability measurements differ amongst studies, they tend to agree on what factors require measurement: (i) human exposure, (ii) reception of warning messages, (iii) understanding of a warning messages, (iv) mobility and evacuation speed, (v) safety of buildings, (vi) difficulties in evacuation related to the built environment, (vii) societies coping capacity (viii) household economic resources, (ix) recovery external support and (x) expected impacts affecting recovery. But how these various vulnerability factors combine with hazard characteristics such as the acceleration, velocity and depth of potential tsunami waves to produce losses of various kinds and especially how physical and social vulnerability factors interact in this process is something for which a precise understanding is still lacking.…”

Coastal inundation multi-hazard analysis for a construction site in Malaysia

“…However, models for coastal inundation (tsunami) vulnerability and risk analysis are currently at a premature state (Nadim and Glade, 2006;Løvholt et al, 2012b;González-Riancho et al, 2014;Løvholt et al, 2014). Moreover, a further discussion of possible damages at the site is not feasible without high quality topography data, information on buildings and infrastructure to be implemented (location, design, and use), as well as the expected number and location of people to be present at various times.…”