A Pilot Tsunami Inundation Forecast System for Australia

Tsunami disasters can cause serious casualties and damage to social infrastructures. An early understanding of disaster states is required in order to advise evacuations and plan rescues and recoveries. We have developed a real-time tsunami inundation forecast system using a vector supercomputer SX-ACE. The system can complete a tsunami inundation and damage estimation for coastal city regions at the resolution of a 10 m grid size in under 20 minutes, and distribute tsunami inundation and infrastructure damage information to local governments in Japan. We also develop a new configuration for the computational domain, which is changed from rectangles to polygons and called a polygonal domain, in order to effectively simulate in the entire coast of Japan. Meanwhile, new supercomputers have been developed, and their peak performances have increased year by year. In 2016, a new Xeon Phi processor calledKnights Landingwas released for high-performance computing. In this paper, we present an overview of our real-time tsunami inundation forecast system and the polygonal domain, which can decrease the amount of computation in a simulation, and then discuss its performance on a vector supercomputer SX-ACE and a supercomputer system based on Intel Xeon Phi. We also clarify that the real-time tsunami inundation forecast system requires the efficient vector processing of a supercomputer with high-performance cores.

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A Pilot Tsunami Inundation Forecast System for Australia

Pure and Applied Geophysics ◽

10.1007/s00024-016-1392-y ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 173 (12) ◽

pp. 3955-3971 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Stewart C. R. Allen ◽

Diana J. M. Greenslade

Keyword(s):

Forecast System ◽

Tsunami Inundation

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Real-time tsunami inundation forecast system for tsunami disaster prevention and mitigation

The Journal of Supercomputing ◽

10.1007/s11227-018-2363-0 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 74 (7) ◽

pp. 3093-3113 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Akihiro Musa ◽

Osamu Watanabe ◽

Hiroshi Matsuoka ◽

Hiroaki Hokari ◽

Takuya Inoue ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Disaster Prevention ◽

Forecast System ◽

Tsunami Inundation ◽

Tsunami Disaster

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Application of a Real-Time Tsunami Forecast System to the Disaster Response of Local Governments during a Major Tsunami Disaster

Geosciences ◽

10.3390/geosciences9020102 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 102

Author(s):

Tomohiro Kubo ◽

Wataru Suzuki ◽

Masahiro Ooi ◽

Narumi Takahashi ◽

Kazumi Asao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Disaster Management ◽

Local Governments ◽

Disaster Response ◽

Management Plan ◽

Prediction System ◽

Forecast System ◽

Tsunami Inundation ◽

Tsunami Disaster ◽

Response Plan

We applied a real-time tsunami inundation forecast system to a disaster response plan. We developed a standard operating procedure (SOP) for a tsunami disaster response based on a Plan, Do, Check, Action cycle to effectively use tsunami observation and prediction information provided by a real-time tsunami inundation forecast system during an initial response to a tsunami disaster. In the Plan stage, we ran a workshop on the tsunami disaster response to confirm the current tsunami disaster response plan and develop a timeline plan for a tsunami disaster. In the Do stage, we conducted a tabletop exercise (TTX) for a tsunami disaster using a real-time tsunami prediction system. In the Check stage, we ran a workshop on an after-action review of the TTX. In the Action stage, we applied the SOPs of the real-time tsunami prediction system to the tsunami disaster management plan and conducted a second TTX. As a result, we verified the information provided by a real-time tsunami prediction system to apply the system to a tsunami disaster management plan for real municipalities. It was confirmed that the SOP that we developed allows a real-time tsunami inundation forecast system to enable government staff to safely and effectively respond during a disaster.

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Development and Utilization of Real-Time Tsunami Inundation Forecast System Using S-net Data

Journal of Disaster Research ◽

10.20965/jdr.2019.p0212 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 212-224 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Shin Aoi ◽

Wataru Suzuki ◽

Naotaka Yamamoto Chikasada ◽

Takayuki Miyoshi ◽

Taro Arikawa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Disaster Response ◽

Pressure Data ◽

Forecast System ◽

Tsunami Forecast ◽

Index Method ◽

Tsunami Inundation ◽

Target Region ◽

Multi Index ◽

Tsunami Disaster ◽

Tsunami Scenarios

It is important to advance preparation for a tsunami disaster, one of the great concerns in Japan. Forecasting tsunami inundation is one such solution, which contributes to perceiving the danger of the tsunami, as the inundation is directly linked with the damage. Therefore, we developed a new real-time tsunami forecast system, aimed at rapidly and accurately forecasting tsunami inundation on land, based on offshore tsunami data observed by the seafloor observation network along the Japan Trench, S-net. The developed system takes a database approach. A database called a tsunami scenario bank was constructed by assuming all the possible tsunami sources affecting the target region and simulating offshore pressure data, coastal tsunami heights, and tsunami inundation. The forecast system searches for suitable tsunami scenarios whose offshore pressure data explain the observed data, based on the multi-index method. The multi-index method can evaluate the resemblance of offshore pressure data by using three indices, which are sensitive to different aspects of the pressure change distribution. When tsunami scenarios meet the criteria of the multi-index method, the system provides forecast information generated from coastal tsunami heights and tsunami inundation of the selected scenarios. A prototype system was constructed for the Pacific coastal region of Chiba prefecture as a target region and has been updated through a test operation. We also investigated the comprehensible visualization and effective disaster response using tsunami forecast information. Through workshops and tabletop exercises with local government officers using the forecast system, timelines and local disaster management plans for tsunamis were tested and revised. This led to the establishment of a standard operating procedure for tsunami disaster response through the use of tsunami observation and forecast information.

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