Kenji Satake – författare

The tragedy of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has led to a rapid expansion in science directed at understanding tsunami and mitigating their hazard. A remarkable cross-section of this research was presented in the session: Tsunami Generation and Hazard, at the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics XXIV General Assembly in Perugia, held in July of 2007. Over one hundred presentations were made at this session, spanning topics ranging from paleotsunami research, to nonlinear shallow-water theory, to tsunami hazard and risk assessment. A selection of this work, along with other contributions from leading tsunami scientists, is published in detail in the 28 papers of this special issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics: Tsunami Science Four Years After the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Part I of this issue includes 14 papers covering the state-of-the-art in tsunami modelling and hazard assessment. Another 14 papers are published in Part II focusing on observations and data analysis.

Tsunamis like the Indian Ocean tsunami caused by the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in 2004 or the Chilean earthquake in the Pacific Ocean in 1960 motivate international collaborations for the development of tsunami warning systems. Since 1960 the Tsunami Commission, established by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, has been holding a biannual International Tsunami Symposium (ITS).

This volume contains 20 contributions of leading scientists mostly presented at the 22nd International Tsunami Symposium held in summer 2005 in Greece. Consolidated findings based on hydrophone records, seismometer readings, and tide gauges are presented. Reports of post-tsunami surveys and numerical simulations for tsunamis such as the 2004 Indian Ocean event, as well as geological studies of tsunamis in Japan, Central and North America are given. Probabilistic tsunami hazard analysis and tsunami warning systems, among others, are described as methods to predict tsunamis and mitigate their hazards.