ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Geohazards and Georisks
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1568069
Risk-based Multi-hazard Microzonation for Earthquakes and Tsunamis
Provisionally accepted- 1Civil Engineering, Western University, London, Canada
- 2Federico Santa María Technical University, Valparaíso, Chile
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A multi-hazard spatial mapping for shaking and tsunami risks is necessary for coastal communities that face imminent dangers from megathrust subduction earthquakes. Conventional single-hazard (seismic or tsunami) mapping methods are not effective in addressing this research gap because the individual hazard effects cannot be combined directly. This study presents a new risk-based multi-hazard microzonation method, which displays relative risks of a representative building asset due to earthquakes and tsunamis within a local community and applies it to the District of Tofino in British Columbia, Canada, which is located in the Cascadia subduction zone. A recently developed catastrophe model is used to generate a comprehensive set of multi-hazard loss data for Tofino by reflecting two local factors, i.e., site amplification proxy for shaking and high-resolution topography for tsunami. The risk-based multi-hazard microzonation maps capture spatially varying loss contributions from shaking and tsunami hazards at different annual probability of exceedance levels. Different visualization approaches can be considered to facilitate the disaster risk management and risk communications with residents and stakeholders.
Keywords: Multi-hazard, Risk mapping, earthquake, tsunami, microzonation, disaster risk management, Cascadia subduction zone
Received: 28 Jan 2025; Accepted: 09 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Goda and Catalan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Katsuichiro Goda, Civil Engineering, Western University, London, BS8 1TR, Canada
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