Intra-community implications of implementing multiple tsunami-evacuation zones in Alameda, California

Jeff Peters (), Nathan Wood (), Rick Wilson () and Kevin Miller ()
Additional contact information
Jeff Peters: United States Geological Survey
Nathan Wood: United States Geological Survey
Rick Wilson: California Geological Survey
Kevin Miller: California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2016, vol. 84, issue 2, No 13, 975-995

Abstract: Abstract Tsunami-evacuation planning in coastal communities is typically based on maximum evacuation zones for a single scenario or a composite of sources; however, this approach may over-evacuate a community and overly disrupt the local economy and strain emergency-service resources. To minimize the potential for future over-evacuations, multiple evacuation zones based on arrival time and inundation extent are being developed for California coastal communities. We use the coastal city of Alameda, California (USA), as a case study to explore population and evacuation implications associated with multiple tsunami-evacuation zones. We use geospatial analyses to estimate the number and type of people in each tsunami-evacuation zone and anisotropic pedestrian evacuation models to estimate pedestrian travel time out of each zone. Results demonstrate that there are tens of thousands of individuals in tsunami-evacuation zones on the two main islands of Alameda, but they will likely have sufficient time to evacuate before wave arrival. Quality of life could be impacted by the high number of government offices, schools, day-care centers, and medical offices in certain evacuation zones and by potentially high population density at one identified safe area after an evacuation. Multi-jurisdictional evacuation planning may be warranted, given that many at-risk individuals may need to evacuate to neighboring jurisdictions. The use of maximum evacuation zones for local tsunami sources may be warranted given the limited amount of available time to confidently recommend smaller zones which would result in fewer evacuees; however, this approach may also result in over-evacuation and the incorrect perception that successful evacuations are unlikely.

Keywords: Tsunami; Evacuation; Exposure; Modeling; Scenario (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-016-2469-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:84:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-016-2469-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2469-8

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().