The Future of DEMs for Tsunami Modeling

Digital elevation models are the foundation upon which tsunami wave modeling operates. As input to modeling of tsunami wave propagation across ocean basins and inundation of coastal communities, they are presumed to perfectly represent Earth’s solid surface. In practice, they approximate Earth to some degree and errors in the DEMs may affect the accuracy of tsunami modeling results. We present some of the challenges faced in developing accurate coastal DEMs, improvements made over the past few years, and ways in the future to minimize their error contribution to tsunami modeling. Perspective view of the 1 arc-second King Cove, Alaska DEM.