A Numerical Landslide-Tsunami Hazard Assessment Technique Applied on Hypothetical Scenarios at Es Vedrà, Offshore Ibiza

Abstract

This study presents a numerical landslide-tsunami hazard assessment technique for applications in reservoirs, lakes, fjords, and the sea. This technique is illustrated with hypothetical scenarios at Es Vedrà, offshore Ibiza, although currently no evidence suggests that this island may become unstable. The two selected scenarios include two particularly vulnerable locations, namely: (i) Cala d’Hort on Ibiza (3 km away from Es Vedrà) and (ii) Marina de Formentera (23 km away from Es Vedrà). The violent wave generation process is modelled with the meshless Lagrangian method smoothed particle hydrodynamics. Further offshore, the simulations are continued with the less computational expensive code SWASH (Simulating WAves till SHore), which is based on the non-hydrostatic non-linear shallow water equations that are capable of considering bottom friction and frequency dispersion. The up to 133-m high tsunamis decay relatively fast with distance from Es Vedrà; the wave height 5 m offshore Cala d’Hort is 14.2 m, reaching a maximum run-up height of over 21.5 m, whilst the offshore wave height (2.7 m) and maximum inundation depth at Marina de Formentera (1.2 m) are significantly smaller. This study illustrates that landslide-tsunami hazard assessment can nowadays readily be conducted under consideration of site-specific details such as the bathymetry and topography, and intends to support future investigations of real landslide-tsunami cases.

Keywords

• Es Vedrà
• landslides
• landslide-tsunamis
• numerical modelling
• smoothed particle hydrodynamics
• SWASH
• wave propagation