What can we learn from the Japanese tsunami?

March 11, 2012 marks the first anniversary of the disastrous tsunami in Japan. To study the impact of the tsunami in Japan by analyzing the performance of infrastructure and damage, associate professor Ioan Nistor of the Department of Civil Engineering was on site four weeks after the tsunami to carry out reconnaissance surveys. Today, he continues his research in his lab on campus to understand what happened and how tsunamis can be avoided in the future.

Watch the video featuring the research of Professor Nistor and his team on the Discovery Channel.

Updated: March 2012

For most of us, the most striking natural disaster of 2011 has certainly been the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan, which unleashed devastating tsunami waves measuring up to 38.7 meters. Many coastal towns were destroyed and the Japan's infrastructure suffered major damage.

Now that the storm has passed, what can we learn from this experience? This is the question asked by the research team sent on site four weeks after the tsunami to carry out reconnaissance surveys. Ioan Nistor, associate professor of hydraulic and coastal engineering in the University's Department of Civil Engineering, was the only Canadian in this international team of four researchers sent by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

For Professor Nistor, who was responsible for studying the Japanese tsunami's impact by analyzing infrastructure performance and damage caused, this wasn't his first experience with this type of disaster. A recipient of the Tsunami Society Award for his outstanding and original contribution to tsunami science, Professor Nistor has also made similar visits in recent years to various countries, including Indonesia in 2004 and the coastal regions of Chile in 2010.

"Despite the fact that we can't prevent tsunamis, there are ways we can protect ourselves to deal with them. Dikes placed in deep ocean waters or those just placed on beaches are examples of this.  In the case of the Japanese tsunami, most of these dikes were built based on the 1896, 1933 or 1960 tsunamis, where the waves only rose three to seven meters," explains Professor Nistor. According to experts, a tsunami of 2011's strength only occurs once every thousand years.

The ASCE report presenting the research team's discoveries and observations will soon be published. In the meantime, the research team's blog, which includes many pictures, is online.

In addition to his work as a professor, for which he has received many research and teaching awards over the past five years, Ioan Nistor serves as vice-dean of graduate studies in the Faculty of Engineering. He also chairs the hydrotechnical division of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and is a member of the board of the Canadian Coastal Science and Engineering Association.

Professor Nistor and his Department of Civil Engineering colleagues, professors Murat Saatcioglu, Dan Palermo and Tad Murty, nationally and internationally recognized for their cutting edge research in tsunami science, are working to enhance our reputation as a research university in Canada and around the world.

Text: Karine Proulx
Photo: Professor David Kriebel, US Naval Academy
Published: August 2011