INTERNATIONAL TSUNAMI SURVEY TEAM’S IMPACT ON THE NCEI GLOBAL HISTORICAL TSUNAMI DATABASE

The first International Tsunami Survey Team (ITST) consisting of scientists and engineers from Japan and the United States, as well as local Nicaraguan scientists and engineers, surveyed the impacts of the September 2, 1992 tsunami generated off the coast of Nicaragua. As ITSTs began to be formally organized, the initial focus of only collecting water height data, e.g. maximum inundation, runup and flow depth; eventually evolved to include other types of data such as geologic and socio-economic effects. The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and collocated World Data Service for Geophysics (WDS) provides long-term archive, data management, and access to national and global tsunami data. The NCEI Global Historical Tsunami Database includes two related tables: global observations of tsunami sources and tsunami runup records (locations where tsunami waves were observed by eyewitnesses, field reconnaissance surveys, tide gauges or deep ocean sensors). The tsunami runup table includes distance from the source, type of measurement, maximum wave height, maximum inundation, and socio-economic data for the specific runup location. The NCEI Global Historical Tsunami Database includes information on over 2,200 tsunami sources and over 26,000 runups or wave observations. Since 1992, 33 designated ITSTs have provided approximately 10,000 data points to the NCEI tsunami runup table, which is approximately 40% of the table. The December 26, 2004 Indonesia and March 11, 2011 Japan tsunamis make up approximately 75% of the ITST data points in the database. The advancement of ITST’s data collection and distribution methods, as well as the tsunami event size, have improved the quality and quantity of the historical tsunami data publicly available via the NCEI Global Historical Tsunami Database. The NCEI database highlights ITST data as well as reflects advancements of field survey methodology and data types collected.