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Severity and exposure associated with tsunami actions in urban waterfronts: the case of Lisbon, Portugal

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Abstract

The Tagus estuary is bordered by the largest metropolitan area in Portugal, the Lisbon capital city council. It has suffered the impact of several major tsunamis in the past, as shown by a recent revision of the catalogue of tsunamis that struck the Portuguese coast over the past two millennia. Hence, the exposure of populations and infrastructure established along the riverfront comprises a critical concern for the civil protection services. The main objectives of this work are to determine critical inundation areas in Lisbon and to quantify the associated severity through a simple index derived from the local maximum of momentum flux per unit mass and width. The employed methodology is based on the mathematical modelling of a tsunami propagating along the estuary, resembling the one occurred on the 1 November of 1755 that followed the 8.5 Mw Great Lisbon Earthquake. The employed simulation tool was STAV-2D, a shallow-flow solver coupled with conservation equations for fine solid phases, and now featuring the novelty of discrete Lagrangian tracking of large debris. Different sets of initial conditions were studied, combining distinct tidal, atmospheric and fluvial scenarios, so that the civil protection services were provided with comprehensive information to devise public warning and alert systems and post-event mitigation intervention. For the most severe scenario, the obtained results have shown a maximum inundation extent of 1.29 km at the Alcântara valley and water depths reaching nearly 10 m across Lisbon’s riverfront.

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Acknowledgments

Project PTDC/ECM/117660/2010 and Doctoral Grant SFRH/BD/97933/2013, both funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), have partially supported this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEris - Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Daniel A. S. Conde & Rui M. L. Ferreira

  2. Serviço Municipal de Protecção Civil, Lisbon City Council, Lisbon, Portugal

    Maria J. Telhado

  3. Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Maria A. Viana Baptista

  4. Instituto Dom Luiz, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Maria A. Viana Baptista

Authors
  1. Daniel A. S. Conde
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  2. Maria J. Telhado
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  3. Maria A. Viana Baptista
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  4. Rui M. L. Ferreira
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Correspondence to Daniel A. S. Conde.

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Conde, D.A.S., Telhado, M.J., Viana Baptista, M.A. et al. Severity and exposure associated with tsunami actions in urban waterfronts: the case of Lisbon, Portugal. Nat Hazards 79, 2125–2144 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-015-1951-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-015-1951-z

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