Assessment, STrategy And Risk Reduction for Tsunamis in Europe
Tsunamis are low frequency but high impact natural disasters. In 2004, the Boxing Day tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people from many nations along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean. Tsunami run-up exceeded 35 m. Seven years later, and in spite of some of the best warning technologies and levels of preparedness in the world, the Tohoku-Oki tsunami in Japan dramatically showed the limitations of scientific knowledge on tsunami sources, coastal impacts and mitigation measures. The experience from Japan raised serious questions on how to improve the resilience of coastal communities, to upgrade the performance of coastal defenses, to adopt a better risk management, and also on the strategies and priorities for the reconstruction of damaged coastal areas. Societal resilience requires the reinforcement of capabilities to manage and reduce risk at national and local scales.
The on-going set up of the North Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and connected seas region (NEAM) tsunami warning system (TWS) needs to consider these lessons when developing societal and structural resilience, also considering that, on average, there is one decametric tsunami per century in the region and many more of smaller size. Most types of known potential tsunami sources can be found in Europe: geological structures with large and well known neo-tectonic activity (e.g. from the Hellenic Arc, and the North and East Anatolian Faults, to the Fracture Zones in the Western Mediterranean Sea) and complex seismogenic environments that already generated mega-tsunamigenic earthquakes in the past (e.g. off SW Iberia), mega-landslides (Norwegian margin), and active volcanic areas with a well-known (Santorini, Stromboli) or likely (Canary Islands, Phlegrean Fields) ability to generate tsunamis.
ASTARTE is organized to foster tsunami resilience in Europe, through innovative research on scientific problems critical to enhance forecast skills in terms of sources, propagation and impact. ASTARTE will employ lessons on coastal resilience learned from disaster surveys following tsunamis and hurricane surges. Within ASTARTE, we will acquire new information to complete the existing European knowledge base, and we will benefit from a stronger integration than ever attempted previously in the field. This will involve close cooperation with coastal populations, civil protection, emergency management and other local organizations.
The ultimate goal of ASTARTE is to reach a higher level of tsunami resilience in the NEAM (North East Atlantic & Mediterranean) region, to improve preparedness of coastal populations, and, ultimately, to save lives and assets.
Test sites include a broad geographical coverage, in both North-east Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. They were selected considering they can be impacted by regional and local tsunami sources, which put different levels of stress on detection and forecasting.
The ASTARTE Consortium consists of research groups that contributed to the progress of tsunami science and technology in Europe and the five Tsunami Watch Providers (CTWP) in the NEAM region. There are currently 5 CTWPs: France, Greece and Turkey already in operation and 2 future centes in Italy and Portugal.