Abstract
Typhoon Lionrock, also known as the national number 1610 in Japan, caused severe flooding in east Japan in August 28–31, 2016, leaving a death toll of 22. With a maximum sustained wind speed of ~ 220 km/h from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center’s best track, Lionrock was classified as a category 4 hurricane in Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale and as a typhoon in Japan Meteorological Agency’s scale. Lionrock was among unique typhoons as it started its landfall from north of Japan. Here, we studied the characteristics of this typhoon through tide gauge data analysis, field surveys and numerical modeling. Tide gauge analysis showed that the surges generated by Lionrock were in the ranges of 15–55 cm with surge duration of 0.8–3.1 days. Our field surveys revealed that the damage to coastal communities/structures was moderate although it caused severe flooding inland. We measured a maximum coastal wave runup of 4.3 m in Iwaisaki. Such a runup was smaller than that generated by other category 4 typhoons hitting Japan in the past. Our numerical model was able to reproduce the storm surge generated by the 2016 Typhoon Lionrock. This validated numerical model can be used in the future for typhoon-hazard studies along the coast of northeastern Japan. Despite relatively small surge/wave runups in coastal areas, Lionrock’s death toll was more than that of some other category 4 typhoons. We attribute this to various primary (e.g., flooding, surges, waves, strong winds) and secondary (e.g., landslides, coastal erosions, debris flows, wind-blown debris) mechanisms and their combinations and interactions that contribute to damage/death during a typhoon event.
Highlights
Extreme coastal flows observed during recent coastal environmental hazards such as tsunamis, hurricanes and typhoons have transformed the knowledge of coastal engineering by revealing the shortcomings of the coastal construction
The characteristics and damaging effects of the August 2016 Typhoon Lionrock were studied through analysis of tide gauge records, field surveys and numerical simulations
Among 16 tide gauge data analyzed in this study from western and northern coasts of Japan, the surge amplitude and surge duration were in the ranges of 15–55 cm and 0.8–3.1 days, respectively
Summary
Extreme coastal flows observed during recent coastal environmental hazards such as tsunamis, hurricanes and typhoons have transformed the knowledge of coastal engineering by revealing the shortcomings of the coastal construction. The past 16 years (2004–2020) has witnessed a series of such extreme events, among which are the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (Synolakis and Bernard 2006; Rabinovich and Thomson 2007), the 2005 Hurricane Katrina (Robertson et al 2007; Fritz et al 2007), the 2007 Cyclone Sidr (Paul 2009), the 2008 Cyclone Nargis (Fritz et al 2009), the 2010 Maule (Chile) tsunami (Rabinovich et al 2013; Mas et al 2012; Fritz et al 2011), the 2011 Japan tsunami (Tsuji et al 2011; Suppasri et al 2012; Heidarzadeh and Satake 2013a), the 2012 Hurricane Sandy (Irish et al 2013), 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan (Shimozono et al 2015; Takagi et al 2017), the 2017 Hurricane Maria (Heidarzadeh et al 2018) and the 2018 Super Typhoon Jebi in Japan (Le et al 2019) These extreme coastal environmental events produced structural forces far beyond the design loads and caused the structures to fail in novel failure modes. Numerical modeling was performed to reconstruct the event
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
