Probability Analysis Improves Hazard Assessment

Abstract

Many of the world’s natural events from earthquakes and volcanoes to tornados and landslides affect human populations. Estimating the likelihood of occurrence and frequency is an important science to help people plan and prepare for future events. An article recently published in Reviews in Geophysics, Grezio et al. [2017] (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017RG000579/full) considered one type of infrequent but often devastating natural event: tsunamis. They gave an overview of a method for analyzing and preparing for tsunamis. The editor asked one of the authors to explain more about methods of hazard analysis and recent developments in this field.