Natural Hazards

, Volume 79, Issue 3, pp 2125–2144 | Cite as

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

  • Daniel A. S. Conde
  • Maria J. Telhado
  • Maria A. Viana Baptista
  • Rui M. L. Ferreira
Original Paper
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

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.

Keywords

Mathematical model Tsunami Tagus estuary 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

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.

References

  1. Alcrudo F, Benkhaldoun F (2001) Exact solutions to the Riemann problem of the shallow water equations with a bottom step. Comput Fluids 30:643671CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Antunes CM (2007) Previso de Marés dos Portos Principais de Portugal. http://webpages.fc.ul.pt/~cmantunes/hidrografia/hidro_mares.html
  3. Baptista MA, Miranda JM (2009) Revision of the Portuguese catalog of tsunamis. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 9:2542CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Baptista MA, Miranda JM, Omira R, Antunes C (2011) Potential inundation of Lisbon downtown by a 1755-like tsunami. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 11:3319–3326CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Canelas R, Murillo J, Ferreira RML (2013) 2DH modelling of dam-break flows over mobile beds. J Hydraul Res 51(4):392–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Conde DAS (2012) A tsunami in Lisbon. Where to run? M.Sc. Thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico - Technical University of LisbonGoogle Scholar
  7. Conde DAS, Baptista MAV, Sousa Oliveira C, Ferreira RML (2013) A shallow-flow model for the propagation of tsunamis over complex geometries and mobile beds. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 13(10):2533–2542CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Ferreira RM, Franca MJ, Leal JG, Cardoso AH (2009) Mathematical modelling of shallow flows: closure models drawn from grain-scale mechanics of sediment transport and flow hydrodynamics. Can J Civ Eng 36:1604–1621CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Jonkman S, Penning-Rowsell E (2008) Human instability in flood flows. J Am Water Resour As 44(5):1208–1218Google Scholar
  10. Karvonen R, Hepojoki H, Huhta H, Louhio A (2000) The use of physical models in dam-break flood analysis: development of rescue actions based on dam-break flood analysis (RESCDAM) (final report). Helsinki University of Technology and Finnish Environment InstituteGoogle Scholar
  11. Leal JG, Ferreira RM, Cardoso AH (2006) Dam-break wave-front celerity. J Hydraul Eng 132(1):69–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. LeVeque R (2002) Finite volume methods for hyperbolic problems. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Luis JF (2007) Mirone: a multi-purpose tool for exploring grid data. Comput Geosci 33:31–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Murillo J, García-Navarro P (2010) Weak solutions for partial differential equations with source terms: application to the shallow water equations. J Comput Phys 229(11):4327–4368CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Omira R, Baptista MA, Matias L, Miranda JM, Catita C, Carrilho F, Toto E (2009) Design of a sea-level tsunami detection network for the Gulf of Cadiz. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 9(4):1327–1338CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Roberts SG, Nielsen OM, Jakeman J (2008) Simulation of tsunami and flash floods. Modeling, simulation and optimization of complex processes. Springer, BerlinGoogle Scholar
  17. Synolakis CE, Bernard EN, Titov VV, Kânoglu U, González FI (2008) Validation and verification of tsunami numerical models. Pure Appl Geophys 165(11-12):2197–2228CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Toro E (2001) Shock-capturing methods for free surface shallow flows. Wiley, New YorkGoogle Scholar
  19. Yamazaki Y, Cheung KF, Kowalik Z (2011) Depth-integrated, non-hydrostatic model with grid nesting for tsunami generation, propagation, and runup. Int J Numer Meth Fluids 67(12):2081–2107CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Yalin MS (1977) Mechanics of sediment transport, 2nd edn. Pergamon Press, OxfordGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.CEris - Instituto Superior TécnicoUniversidade de LisboaLisbonPortugal
  2. 2.Serviço Municipal de Protecção CivilLisbon City CouncilLisbonPortugal
  3. 3.Instituto Superior de Engenharia de LisboaInstituto Politécnico de LisboaLisbonPortugal
  4. 4.Instituto Dom LuizUniversidade de LisboaLisbonPortugal

Personalised recommendations