Tsunamis are relatively rare in Australia and emergency managers rely on the sharing of information at national forums to assist them to manage the tsunami risk in their own jurisdiction. Emergency managers responsible for tsunami risk management across Australia recently identified the need for national consistency in tsunami hazard information and as a result, a project was initiated to develop national guidelines for tsunami hazard modelling.
This presentation will outline the approach adopted to develop these guidelines, focusing on the collaboration of end-users and tsunami modelling practitioners. The guidelines were explicitly designed to facilitate appropriate standards of rigour and improved national consistency in tsunami hazard modelling, without dictating software choices or otherwise suppressing innovative practices (which will evolve over time in concert with improvements in tsunami science). The guidelines focused instead on providing guidance in designing a study suitable for the use-case being considered. Core issues included the treatment of uncertainties in tsunami generation, propagation and inundation modelling, and scenario return periods.
Whilst the emergency managers proposed the development of these guidelines, the target audience included any agency would could commission tsunami hazard studies for a particular purpose (e.g. coastal infrastructure owners, insurance), as well as the tsunami modellers conducting such studies. The guidelines will also become a valuable resource for the tsunami modelling community. In many situations, tsunami modelling is conducted by coastal hazard modellers who may not have current understanding of Australia’s tsunami hazard.
