The new catalogue of the Italian tsunamis

Abstract

A new Italian tsunami catalogue (ITC) is presented here. It contains 67 events, covering the period from the tsunamigenic Plinian eruption of Vesuvius (79AD) until today. It is the result of an intense work of scrutiny of the original sources of data, and integrates and updates the tsunami catalogue by Tinti and Maramai (TMC) published in 1996. With respect to the TMC catalogue, six new events have been added and six have been eliminated, while the 61 events common to both catalogues have been all re-examined and re-evaluated. The ITC fits the criteria adopted for the catalogue of tsunamis in the European region in the framework of the EU projects GITEC (1992–1995) and GITEC-TWO(1996–1998). It is in the form of a digital database, that was implemented through the Visual FoxPro 6.0 DBMS with the main purpose of building a rigorous and easy-to-use working tool for scientists as well as for people involved in hazard and risk reduction in coastal areas. Through the main catalogue screen, the user is allowed to browse the database and to get all the information concerning a selected event (occurrence date, cause, detailed description, references, etc.). Furthermore, by means of functional buttons, the user can perform data extractions according to several key combinations (date, generation, sub-region, tsunami intensity, cause, etc.) and also access the related database of the references containing about 230 entries. In addition to data in the form of text, the ITC also includes a gallery of images documenting tsunami damage and a unique set of analogue tide-gauge records. A further section of statistics provides space and time distribution of the events, tables and histograms. The catalogue is available at the INGV web site http://www.ingv.it/italiantsunamis/tsun.html and can be freely downloaded.