Tsunami Hazard Assessment on Qatar Coastline from Makran Earthquakes Considering Tidal Effect and Coastal Landslides Scenarios

Abstract

To assist the analysis of tsunami hazards for Qatar coastal areas were using numerical model. By Tsunamis waves created from submarine earthquakes of magnitude of (Mw) 8.6 and 9.0 in Richard scale along the Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ) as well as coastal landslides with soil volume of 1.25 to 2.0 km3 along Iranian coast inside the Arabian Gulf is considered. TUNAMI-N2KISR model (Al-Salem) was applied in this study to predict the tsunami propagation and magnitude of Tsunami induced wave heights. The model adopts to solve shallow water equations describing nonlinear long-wave theory. The model also incorporate tidal effect inside the Arabian Gulf as a tsunami travel time from Makran Subduction to Qatar coastline takes more than 9 hours with the tidal range of about 1.6 m during Spring Tide event. For coastal landslides, tsunami generation was simulated using a two-layer numerical model, developed by solving nonlinear long-wave equations. Two-layer model was used to determine initial wave deformation generated by a landslide case. Then TUNAMI-N2KISR was use to simulate tsunami wave propagation. Tsunami waves from landslide scenario arrived after 2.5 - 3 hr with maximum tsunami amplitudes along coasts of Ras laffan-Qatar were 0.8 to 1.0 m. Incorporation of ocean tide is found to impose some small effect on tsunami amplitude at Qatar coastline and nearby areas for the Mw 9.0 earthquake due to small tidal range in this area. In addition, it is found that the tsunami arrival time has become shorter.