High-resolution coastal hazard assessment along the French Riviera from co-seismic tsunamis generated in the Ligurian fault system

Fatemeh Nemati, Stephan T. Grilli (), Mansour Ioualalen, Laurie Boschetti, Christophe Larroque and Jenny Trevisan
Additional contact information
Fatemeh Nemati: University of Rhode Island
Stephan T. Grilli: University of Rhode Island
Mansour Ioualalen: Université Côte d’Azur, IRD, CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Géoazur, Campus CNRS Azur
Laurie Boschetti: Université Côte d’Azur, IRD, CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Géoazur, Campus CNRS Azur
Christophe Larroque: Université Côte d’Azur, IRD, CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Géoazur, Campus CNRS Azur
Jenny Trevisan: Université Côte d’Azur, IRD, CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Géoazur, Campus CNRS Azur

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2019, vol. 96, issue 2, No 2, 553-586

Abstract: Abstract The French Riviera is a densely populated and touristic coast. It is also one of the most seismically active areas of the Western Mediterranean. This is evidenced by the Mw 6.7–6.9, 1887 earthquake and tsunami, that was triggered nearshore, rupturing the easternmost 40 km of the 80-km-long Ligurian fault system, which runs parallel to and offshore of the Riviera. Here, coastal hazard from co-seismic tsunamis is assessed along the French and part of the Italian Riviera by simulating three Ligurian earthquake scenarios: (1) the 1887 event offshore Genoa, Italy; (2) a similar event transposed to the westernmost 40-km segment of the fault, offshore Nice, France; and (3) the rupture of the entire 80-km fault, which constitutes an extreme case scenario for the region. Simulations of tsunami propagation and coastal impact are performed by one-way coupling with the Boussinesq model FUNWAVE-TVD, in a series of nested grids, using new high-resolution bathymetric and topographic data. Results obtained in 10-m coastal grids provide the highest resolution predictions to date for this section of the French Riviera of co-seismic tsunami coastal hazard, in terms of inundation, runup, and current velocity. In general, the most impacted areas are bays (near Cap d’Antibes and Cap Ferrat), due to wave buildup and shoaling within semi-enclosed shallow areas, enhanced by possible resonances. In contrast to earlier work, which was based on coarser resolution grids, the area of Nice harbor is found to be rather well sheltered. It should be noted that uniform fault slip was used in the ruptures and runup estimates could locally be enhanced in case of more complex ruptures, such as segmented and heterogeneous ruptures.

Keywords: French Riviera; 1887 earthquake; Tsunami hazard mapping; FUNWAVE-TVD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-018-3555-x 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:96:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-018-3555-x

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-018-3555-x

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 ().