The Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment of Urban Environments through Freely Available Datasets: The Case Study of Napoli City (Southern Italy)

Abstract

Abstract:The analysis of tsunami catalogues and of data published on the NOAA web site pointed out that in the Mediterranean basin, from 2000 B.C. to present, about 480 tsunamis occurred, of which at least a third involved the Italian peninsula. Within this framework, a GIS-aided procedure that takes advantage of spatial analysis to apply the Papathoma Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment model of urban environments is presented, with the main purpose of assessing the vulnerability of wide areas at spatial resolution of the census district. The method was applied to the sector of Napoli city enclosed between Posillipo Hill and the Somma-Vesuvio volcano because of the high population rates (apex value of 5000 inh/km 2 ) and potential occurrence of hazardous events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and mass OPEN ACCESSJ. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2015, 3 982 failures that can trigger tsunamis. The vulnerability status of the urban environment was depicted on a map. About 21% of the possibly inundated area, corresponding with the lowlands along the shoreline, shows a very high tsunami vulnerability. High vulnerability characterizes 26% of inundable zones while medium-low vulnerability typifies a wide area of the Sebeto-Volla plain, ca 800 m away from the shoreline. This map represents a good tool to plan the actions aimed at reducing risk and promoting resilience of the territory.

Analysis and validation of the PTVA tsunami building vulnerability model using the 2015 Chile post-tsunami damage data in Coquimbo and La Serena cities

“…The maximum value is 3.49 m but most of the buildings were flooded less than 0.5 m. In general, both models show a spatial distribution with the highest RVI scores located closer to the shoreline and average to minor vulnerabilities in the inland buildings. Similar spatial patterns of the RVI scores have been described by different authors under different tsunami scenarios, geomorphologic settings and/or diverse urban features (e.g., Alberico et al, 2015;Dall'Osso et al, 2016). Dall'Osso et al (2016) showed that the Ex, Bv and Prot parameters are better distributed using the PTVA-4 model than with the PTVA-3 due to the difference in the re-scaling procedure adopted by the models.…”

“…The first and second versions of the model were applied in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece (Papathoma and Dominey-Howes, 2003), and Seaside, Oregon, USA (Dominey-Howes et al, 2010), respectively. After improvements to the model, its third version was tested on the coast of New South Wales, Australia (Dall'Osso et al, 2009b), and has been widely used to assess the vulnerability of several coastal localities, such as the Aeolian Islands (Italy; Dall'Osso et al, 2010), Figueira da Foz (Portugal; Barros et al, 2013), Setúbal (Portugal; Santos et al, 2014), south of the Boso Peninsula (Japan; Voulgaris and Murayama, 2014), the southwest Atlantic coast of Spain (Abad et al, 2014), Naples (Italy; Alberico et al, 2015) and Chabahar Bay (Iran; Madani et al, 2016). Recently, a fourth version of the model has been tested at Botany Bay, Sydney (Australia; Dall'Osso et al, 2016).…”

Multidimensional Approach for Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment: Framing the Territorial Impacts in Two Municipalities in Portugal

“…This methodology can also be applied to coastal areas characterized by high energy, causing overtopping and flooding during storms . The focus given to different components to assess the territorial vulnerability for areas with intense occupation, location of critical infrastructure, and environmental values allows the definition of prevention and mitigation measures …”

Tsunami Vulnerability and Risk Assessment of Banda Aceh City through ArcGIS Software

“…Risk is the probability of harmful consequences, or expected losses (deaths, injuries, property, livelihoods, economic activity disrupted or environment damaged) resulting from interactions between natural or human-induced hazards and vulnerable conditions [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Risk = Hazard Potential (H) x Vulnerability (V) [12].…”