Needs and Perspectives of Tsunami Research in Europe

Abstract

Tsunamis are a serious threat for all coastal European countries for they attack countries in the north, such as Norway and Great Britain, as well as countries in the southern belt from Portugal to Greek and Turkey. In the last decade tsunami research in Europe gained strong impulse from mutual collaboration among various groups of several countries chiefly under the sponsorship of the European Union. This led to remarkable progress in physical understanding, in numerical modelling, and in defining and applying standards for data catalogues, and allowed also to better define the objectives still to be achieved and the research to undertake in the next future. This paper will mostly focus on the main issues that have to be faced by future research projects and that demand the establishing of stronger link between experts of physical and social sciences: local tsunamis induced by near-shore earthquakes, tsunamis generated by mass failures and by flank collapses of volcanoes, implementation of instrumental networks and early warning systems, tsunami disaster management, incorporation of the tsunami impact factor in policies of sustainable development of coastal communities.