Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Sea-Level Rise Effects on Changing Hazard Exposure to Far-Field Tsunamis in a Volcanic Pacific Island

Rebecca Welsh
* ORCID logo ,
Shaun Williams
ORCID logo ,
Cyprien Bosserelle
ORCID logo ,
Ryan Paulik
ORCID logo ,
Josephina Chan Ting
,
Alec Wild
ORCID logo ,
Lameko Talia
Version 1 : Received: 13 April 2023 / Approved: 13 April 2023 / Online: 13 April 2023 (08:46:19 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Welsh, R.; Williams, S.; Bosserelle, C.; Paulik, R.; Chan Ting, J.; Wild, A.; Talia, L. Sea-Level Rise Effects on Changing Hazard Exposure to Far-Field Tsunamis in a Volcanic Pacific Island. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2023, 11, 945. Welsh, R.; Williams, S.; Bosserelle, C.; Paulik, R.; Chan Ting, J.; Wild, A.; Talia, L. Sea-Level Rise Effects on Changing Hazard Exposure to Far-Field Tsunamis in a Volcanic Pacific Island. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2023, 11, 945.

Abstract

Coastal flooding exacerbated by climate change is recognised as a major global threat which is expected to impact more than a quarter of people currently residing in Pacific Islands countries. While most research in the last decade has focused on understanding the dynamics and impacts of future coastal flooding from extreme sea levels, relative sea level rise (RSLR) effects on tsunami hazards are not well understood. Far-field or distant-sourced tsunamis tend to have relatively lower impacts in Pacific Island states compared with locally sourced events, but there is limited understanding on how the impact of far-field tsunamis changes over time due to RSLR. Using the hydrodynamics software BG-Flood, we modelled the Tōhoku tsunami from propagation to inundation in Samoa under incremental SLR to examine the effects that RSLR has on changing the exposure of the built environment (e.g., buildings) to a far-field tsunami. Outputs of maximum tsunami inundation and flow depth intensities which incorporate incremental SLR were then combined with digital representations of buildings and depth-damage functions in the RiskScape multi-hazard risk modelling software to assess the changes in building exposure over time. Results indicate that present day buildings exposure in Samoa to a Tōhoku-oki type far-field tsunami will increase by approx. 600% with 1 m RSLR by 2080–2130, and approx. 2,350% with 2 m RSLR by 2130–2140. These findings provide a useful baseline for tsunami hazard risk assessment under changing sea level conditions in analogous island environments.

Keywords

Tsunami hazard; risk modelling; climate change; built-environment; damage impacts; Tōhoku-oki tsunami; Samoa

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Geology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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