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Increasing resilience to catastrophic near-field tsunamis: systems for capturing, modelling, and assessing vertical evacuation practices

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Abstract

Tsunami vertical evacuation (TVE) buildings have the potential to save many human lives in countries exposed to near-field tsunamis. Up to now, TVE research has examined three main topics separately: shelter siting, building benchmarks, and decision-making by evacuees. This study aims to integrate these topics to develop more comprehensive TVE planning frameworks. To this, we examined a catastrophic tsunami evacuation scenario in Viña del Mar, Chile. First, we developed an agent-based model to estimate potential human fatalities in the case of a fully horizontal evacuation. Second, we designed an immersive VR experience, which we applied to a sample of 151 people in the city to collect their potential TVE decision-making, which allowed us to identify 11 buildings that could serve as TVE shelters. Lastly, we incorporated this new evacuation system into the former agent-based model to assess the potential impact of vertical evacuation. Our findings showed that while fatalities ranged from 50 to 72% of the population in the fully horizontal scenario, the inclusion of TVE buildings might decrease human losses by 6.5–13.7%. Complementary questionnaires administered to participants highlighted their lack of previous experience in real-world evacuations (only 45.69% had previously experienced a tsunami-related evacuation process), as well as their knowledge about how to proceed in the case of a future emergency (62.91% declared that they knew where to go during an evacuation).

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Acknowledgements

Powered@NLHPC: This research was partially supported by the supercomputing infrastructure of the NLHPC (ECM-02). We also would like to thank Matías Carvajal for providing the fault model of the 1730 earthquake.

Funding

JL, PC, and AG were funded by the Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN), ANID/ FONDAP/15110017. JL was also funded by the research Grant ANID/FONDECYT/1210184. PC and AG were also funded by ANID, Chile, through its grant FONDEF ID19I10048. PC was also funded by the Centro Científico Tecnológico de Valparaíso, ANID PIA/APOYO AFB180002.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Arquitectura, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile

    Jorge León & Matías Correa

  2. Department of Mathematical Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Alonso Ogueda

  3. Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN), Santiago, Chile

    Alejandra Gubler & Javiera Castañeda

  4. Departamento de Obras Civiles, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile

    Patricio Catalán

  5. Departamento de Informática, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile

    Gianni Beninati

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  1. Jorge León
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  2. Alonso Ogueda
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  3. Alejandra Gubler
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  4. Patricio Catalán
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  5. Matías Correa
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  6. Javiera Castañeda
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Contributions

This study was conceived and developed by JL and PC. AO carried out the agent-based model and the statistical analysis of its results. AG worked out the tsunami flood model. MC and GB prepared and applied the VR immersive experience, with the help of JC. JL prepared the first version of the manuscript with reviews by PC.

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Correspondence to Jorge León.

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León, J., Ogueda, A., Gubler, A. et al. Increasing resilience to catastrophic near-field tsunamis: systems for capturing, modelling, and assessing vertical evacuation practices. Nat Hazards (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05732-x

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