Special Issue on the 8th South China Sea Tsunami Workshop (SCSTW-8)

Abstract

The South China Sea Tsunami Workshop (SCSTW), initiated in 2007 by internationally recognized tsunami expert Prof. Philip L.-F. Liu at Cornell University, has been conducted eight times in the Asia-Pacific region. The SCSTW’s objective is to set up an international academic platform through which strong interactions and collaborations can be established among coastal physical oceanographers, geophysicists and engineers from the South China Sea region can meet and address tsunami generation mechanisms, propagation characteristics and the corresponding coastal effects. This workshop supports approaches to tsunami disaster protection and hazard mitigation. The 8th South China Sea Tsunami Workshop (SCSTW-8), held in Changsha, China, from Nov. 9 to 13, 2015, was hosted by the Changsha University of Science and Technology. Typhoon-induced storm surges and significant waves are predominant coastal disaster features of China’s east coast. One example is the latest Typhoon Meranti in Sept. 2016, which significantly damaged the infrastructure and resulted in the loss of dozens of lives in China’s coastal regions, especially in Fujian province. The study of typhoon-induced storm surges is thus highly important in coastal disaster prevention and mitigation. This special issue consists of 7 papers focusing on the recent research progress in tsunami and storm surge presented in the SCSTW-8. Results are analyzed and discussed using different research approaches, including laboratory experiments, analytical analysis, data assessment and numerical simulation. As the editor of this special issue, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the authors for their invaluable contributions and to the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. Special thanks go to Dr. Yu Yao of the Changsha University of Science and Technology for his generous assistance in preparing this special issue. I hope readers will find the papers in this special collection both interesting and useful.