Population vulnerability to tsunami hazards informed by previous and projected disasters: a case study of American Samoa

Nathan Wood (), Jeanne M. Jones (), Yoshiki Yamazaki (), Kwok-Fai Cheung (), Jacinta Brown (), Jamie L. Jones () and Nina Abdollahian ()
Additional contact information
Nathan Wood: United States Geological Survey
Jeanne M. Jones: United States Geological Survey
Yoshiki Yamazaki: University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Kwok-Fai Cheung: University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Jacinta Brown: American Samoa Department of Homeland Security
Jamie L. Jones: United States Geological Survey
Nina Abdollahian: United States Geological Survey

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2019, vol. 95, issue 3, No 5, 505-528

Abstract: Abstract Population vulnerability from tsunamis is a function of the number and location of individuals in hazard zones and their ability to reach safety before wave arrival. Previous tsunami disasters can provide insight on likely evacuation behavior, but post-disaster assessments have not been used extensively in evacuation modeling. We demonstrate the utility of post-disaster assessments in pedestrian evacuation modeling for tsunami hazards and use the US territory of American Samoa as our case study. We model pedestrian travel times out of tsunami inundation zones recreated for the 2009 Mw 8.1 Samoa earthquake, as well as for a probable maximum tsunami zone for future threats. Modeling assumptions are guided by fatality trends and observations of 2009 evacuation behavior, including insights on departure delays, environmental cues, transportation mode, and demographic characteristics. Differences in actual fatalities from the 2009 disaster and modeled population vulnerability suggest that a single set of estimated travel times to safety does not fully characterize evacuation potential of a dispersed, at-risk population. Efforts to prepare coastal communities in American Samoa for future tsunamis may be challenging given substantial differences in wave characteristics and evacuation potential of the probable maximum hazard compared to the 2009 event.

Keywords: Tsunami; Evacuation; Pedestrian; Disaster; Modeling; American Samoa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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/s11069-018-3493-7 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:95:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s11069-018-3493-7

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-018-3493-7

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 ().