NSW tsunami risk – an overview of the NSW risk assessment scoping study

The NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change and the State Emergency Service with support from Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology have recently managed a tsunami risk assessment scoping study for the NSW coastline. The study comprised the following components: • Identification of tsunami sources, including an assessment of their relative tsunamigenicity; • Summary of NSW tsunami history, including paleotsunami studies; • Estimation of travel times for each credible tsunami source; • Estimation of maximum nearshore wave heights along the entire NSW coast for regional and distant tsunami sources; • Assessment of the influence of typical coastal configurations on tsunami runup; • Broad based assessment of coastal vulnerability; Funding for the study was successfully obtained through the Natural Disaster Mitigation Program. Individual sections of the project were performed by Risk Frontiers, University of Queensland, Manly Hydraulics Laboratory and URS Corporation. The outcomes of the study which are discussed in this paper provide a general assessment of tsunami risk and provide information for the prioritisation of communities for future detailed tsunami inundation modelling.