European tourists are more frequently going to places all over the world with significant tsunami risk, researchers have found. A global tourism destination risk index for tsunamis was released today at the 2018 Annual Conference of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, based on a study led by Andreas Schaefer of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This study examined all prominent tourism destinations globally with regard to the potential tourism loss impact for businesses given the loss of beaches post-tsunami.
European tourists are more frequently going to places all over the world with significant tsunami risk, researchers have found. A global tourism destination risk index for tsunamis was released today at the 2018 Annual Conference of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, based on a study led by Andreas Schaefer of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This study examined all prominent tourism destinations globally with regard to the potential tourism loss impact for businesses given the loss of beaches post-tsunami.
Andreas Schaefer, an engineering geophysicist at the Geophysical Institute at KIT, presented the team’s findings showing that the equivalent of over 250 million USD (ca. 200 million €) is lost annually to beach economies around the world. Based on the simulation model “TsuPy”, the team examined over 24,000 beaches and their contributions to over 10,000 tourism destinations globally to rank the risk of each destination in terms of their beach-related business value.
“In absolute terms, Hawaii is by far the highest risk area on the globe for tourism risk to tsunamis, as it can be affected by many possible tsunami sources from Japan, Alaska, South America and other regions”, said Schaefer, “most of the loss would be monetary however due to significant investment in warnings.” The famous beach economy in Hawaii would have significant issues through the loss of infrastructure, erosion and other effects. The last major tsunami there occurred from the 1960 Chile earthquake with over 60 fatalities and around $500 million damage in today’s terms.
Read more at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Image: Simulated tsunamis showing their maximum potential wave heights. (Credit: Photo: Andreas Schaefer, KIT)
