A team of European researchers have developed a model to simulate the impact of tsunamis generated by earthquakes and applied it to the Eastern Mediterranean. The results show how tsunami waves could hit and inundate coastal areas in southern Italy and Greece. The study is published today (27 August) in Ocean Science, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Though not as frequent as in the Pacific and Indian oceans, tsunamis also occur in the Mediterranean, mainly due to earthquakes generated when the African plate slides underneath the Eurasian plate. About 10% of all tsunamis worldwide happen in the Mediterranean, with on average, one large tsunami happening in the region once a century. The risk to coastal areas is high because of the high population density in the area - some 130 million people live along the sea's coastline. Moreover, tsunami waves in the Mediterranean need to travel only a very short distance before hitting the coast, reaching it with little advance warning. The new study shows the extent of flooding in selected areas along the coasts of southern Italy and Greece, if hit by large tsunamis in the region, and could help local authorities identify vulnerable areas.

"The main gap in relevant knowledge in tsunami modelling is what happens when tsunami waves approach the nearshore and run inland," says Achilleas Samaras, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Bologna in Italy. The nearshore is the zone where waves transform - becoming steeper and changing their propagation direction - as they propagate over shallow water close to the shore. "We wanted to find out how coastal areas would be affected by tsunamis in a region that is not only the most active in the Mediterranean in terms of seismicity and tectonic movements, but has also experienced numerous tsunami events in the past."

The team developed a computer model to represent how tsunamis in the Mediterranean could form, propagate and hit the coast, using information about the seafloor depth, shoreline and topography. "We simulate tsunami generation by introducing earthquake-generated displacements at either the sea bed or the surface," explains Samaras. "The model then simulates how these disturbances - the tsunami waves - propagate and are transformed as they reach the nearshore and inundate coastal areas."