Tsunami Vulnerability Evaluation for a Small Ancient Village on Eastern Sicily Coast

Abstract

The Ionian sea is prone to tsunamis due to its proximity to the Calabrian subduction zone, which is one of the major tsunamigenic areas of the Mediterranean. The tsunami disaster risk is, nowadays, significantly higher due to the increased exposure of buildings as a result of the economic and touristic growth of the Mediterranean coastal areas. This study focuses on Marzamemi, a small village in the western coast of Sicily, since its morphology and human presence amplify the need to assess its buildings’ vulnerability. The main objective of this research is to quantify the building vulnerability to tsunami hazards using a physical and realistic tsunami scenario. For this purpose, the relative vulnerability index of the buildings in Marzamemi was calculated by means of an improved Papathoma Tsunami Vulnerability Assessment (PTVA) model. The presented approach has three main improvements: (a) a probabilistic tsunami scenario was used; (b) a realistic signal of water surface linked with a specific focal mechanism was adopted; (c) a tsunami wave was propagated from offshore to nearshore using a nonlinear numerical model. The good results of the proposed methodology make it very useful for coastal risk planning conducted by decision makers and stakeholders.

Penilaian Kerentanan dan Potensi Kerusakan Bangunan Akibat Tsunami di Desa Pejamben, Pandeglang, Banten

“…Kerentanan bangunan menunjukkan keadaan/kondisi suatu bangunan mudah rusak akibat suatu bencana sehingga tidak dapat digunakan sebagaimana mestinya [4]. Penilaian kerentanan sangat bermanfaat dalam untuk mengevaluasi risiko akibat tsunami [5].…”

An Approach for the Validation of a Coastal Erosion Vulnerability Index: An Application in Sicily

“…Vulnerability values are frequently associated with coastal risk-in fact, they are part of the conventional procedures in consolidated practice in many management plans [15]. Risk computation is performed through the well-known formula R = P • V • E [16][17][18], where R is the risk, which expresses the expected loss of human life, injuries, and property, due to a particular event; P is the hazard or the probability that in a given area, a potentially harmful event occurs with a certain intensity within a given time; V represents the vulnerability or the aptitude of a particular element to withstand the effects according to the intensity of the event; and finally, E is the exposure value, referring to the element that must endure the event [19,20].…”

Assessment of the 1693 tsunami wave generation and propagation simulation based on multiple focal mechanism scenarios for recent disaster mitigation in eastern sicily, Italy

“…Several studies have been conducted to investigate evidence of paleotsunami deposits both onshore and offshore [ 3 , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] ]. Six tsunami deposits were found in Augusta, of which two exhibit age correlation with the tsunami tragedies of 365 CE and 1693 [ 5 , 17 ].…”