Assessment of tsunami hazard in the urbanized area of the Gulf of Naples (Italy) by means of numerical simulations
Abstract
The Gulf of Naples is characterized by a unique combination of high urbanization, economic activities, cultural heritage, peculiar coastal morphology and potential sources of geohazards. To provide a few indicative figures, the Gulf is one of the zones with the highest population density in Europe (1246 persons/km2), with 28 ports and 328 harbor facilities distributed along a coastal extension of about 195 km. All these elements contribute to the need of accurate studies to quantify the natural threats and to assess and mitigate the related consequences.
Several sources of natural hazards are relevant for the Gulf. It suffices to mention that Ischia, Phlaegrean Fields and Somma-Vesuvius dome constitute a complex active volcanic system, that needs continuous scientific monitoring and operational surveillance. The Italian Civil Protection has posed a lot of efforts to elaborate emergency plans and mitigation strategies for earthquakes, landslides, eruptions and associated phenomena (eruptive column collapse, pyroclastic flows, ash fall out, etc.), but tsunami hazard has remained unexplored. To fill the gap, in this work we assess the tsunami hazard in the Gulf of Naples deriving from local sources (i.e. earthquakes, volcanic processes, submarine landslides) as well as from events that can originate in the far field. Examples of remote tsunami sources are the volcanic island of Stromboli, but also the Marsili seamount, and earthquakes in the Tyrrhenian Calabria seismic belt. Moreover, the Gulf, that is delimited on the north by Ischia and Procida islands, and on the south by the Sorrento peninsula, has a morphology that enhances wave reflections inside the basin and limits tsunami energy dispersion. We consider a number of different scenarios and simulate tsunami generation, propagation and impact on the coast through a well-tested numerical code. The main output is a general portrait of the tsunami propagation inside the Gulf of Naples, highlighting the coastal towns with the highest concentration of tsunami energy as the result of non-linear, bathymetric and resonance effects within the basin.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMNH51D0797Z
- Keywords:
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- 4306 Multihazards;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4333 Disaster risk analysis and assessment;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4335 Disaster management;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4339 Disaster mitigation;
- NATURAL HAZARDS