Evolution of tsunami warning systems and products.

Each year, about 60 000 people and $4 billion (US$) in assets are exposed to the global tsunami hazard. Accurate and reliable tsunami warning systems have been shown to provide a significant defence for this flooding hazard. However, the evolution of warning systems has been influenced by two processes: deadly tsunamis and available technology.

Tsunami science before and beyond Boxing Day 2004.

Tsunami science has evolved differently from research on other extreme natural hazards, primarily because of the unavailability until recently of instrumental recordings of tsunamis in the open ocean. Here, the progress towards developing tsunami inundation modelling tools for use in inundation forecasting is discussed historically from the perspective of hydrodynamics. The state-of-knowledge before the 26 December 2004 tsunami is described.