Recent offshore earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan have demonstrated that these methods are ready for real-world use, and I anticipate they will start to become part of local tsunami warning systems in Japan within the next few years. (Pressure increases when the wave passes over a sensor.) These methods completely bypass the need to first estimate earthquake properties, and they also work for tsunamis that are caused by non-earthquake sources like underwater landslides. Scientists have new methods for reconstructing the tsunami waves, in real-time, using the seafloor pressure data. Japan has deployed offshore networks of pressure gauges and seismometers connected to each other and back to computers on land by thousands of miles of fiber optic cable. Local tsunami warning systems are still currently based on a two-step workflow: analysis of seismic waves constrain the earthquake location and size, and relations from tsunami simulations are then used to predict tsunami arrival times and wave heights. Science & Technology Rethinking tsunami defenseĬareful engineering of low, plant-covered hills along shorelines can mitigate tsunami risks with less disruption of coastal life and lower costs compared to seawalls.ĭUNHAM: Most tsunamis are caused by offshore earthquakes, like the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, uplifting the seafloor and the ocean surface so that water begins to flow back toward land in the form of a tsunami. How have local tsunami warning systems changed since the 2011 disaster in Japan? Related Story It might not be coincidental that a lot of that thinking comes from Miyagi Prefecture, which was hard hit by the tsunami. We need to learn a lot more about these types of approaches, but it’s exciting to see progress in that area.

There has also been increasing interest in alternative approaches to mitigating tsunami risks such as nature-based or hybrid approaches. SUCKALE: The Tohoku tsunami highlighted that even a highly sophisticated and expensive tsunami mitigation system can fail. What lessons did the damage from Tohoku provide about preparing for tsunamis? Here, Stanford nuclear security expert Rod Ewing and geophysicists Eric Dunham and Jenny Suckale discuss that legacy, as well as how scientists are continuing to discover new details about the disaster.

The deadly natural disasters of March 11, 2011, and the catastrophic nuclear meltdown that followed have left a lasting impact on earthquake science, tsunami defense and the politics of nuclear power. More than 19,000 people died and tens of thousands more fled as radiation belched from the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.Ī decade later, large swaths of land remain contaminated and emptied of most of their former residents.

California nuclear reactor meltdown