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| Dr Hubert Chanson (right), with students Tom Burger (left) and Josh Hutton, during a class at Norman Creek, Brisbane, on predicting coastal and river damage from tsunamis. Photo courtesy Chris Stacey, UQ |
A University of Queensland expert has teamed up with other specialists from Japan, California and New Zealand to develop far more accurate ways of predicting the impact of tsunamis.
They are needed because predictions of how a major tsunami would affect coastal regions were shown to be seriously astray in the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
Dr Hubert Chanson of the University of Queensland’s Department of Civil Engineering is working with international experts to produce a new mathematical model to more accurately predict tsunami impacts on coastal towns.
The ability to do so has direct relevance for people on Australia’s thickly populated east coast.
Researchers at the University of Queensland’s Earth Systems Science Computational Centre (ESSCC) predict that a tsunami or an earthquake-related event could hit eastern Australia within a decade.
The ESSCC’s director, Professor Peter Mora, said there was a high level of seismic activity within the earth’s plates surrounding Australia.
“Our international research collaboration partners in the United States forecast that within the next 10 years an earthquake of at least seven on the Richter Scale is likely to strike to the north of New Zealand,” he said.
Current models had predicted the impact of the Boxing Day tsunami on Bangladesh would be 10 metres higher above sea level than actually was the case.
The predicted height of the waves on the coast of Western Sumatra was, on the other hand, under-estimated by as much as 20 metres.
Dr Chanson said there were a number of computer models that predicted the impact of tsunamis in deep water, but the Boxing Day tsunami and scientific data had now shown that most models only poorly predicted the extent of coastal plain flooding after the waves hit land.
He said the two big lessons to be learned from the Boxing Day disaster were that key public buildings like hospitals need to be built on high ground and that accessible transport had to run to the coast, in the event of an emergency.
Dr Chanson is expanding on existing prediction models by analysing video, photos, surveys and aerial and satellite maps of the Boxing Day tsunami.
He believes wetlands and coral reefs absorbed much of the tsunami’s force in some regions, especially in parts of Bangladesh and in Mauritius.
He and his international colleagues want to develop a model that predicts tsunami spread and impact, which would help emergency services and city planners.
Dr Chanson and his colleagues are also working on another project related to the destructive force of water – an improved dam spillway which features stepped spilling to slow the water’s speed.
Stepped spillways were common in dams a century ago but were abandoned from the 1950s because concrete stepping was too costly.
However, Dr Chanson’s new model uses roller compacted concrete, which is up to 50 per cent cheaper to employ in construction than present conventional spillways.
Last reviewed 15 March 2006