Modelling the Impact of Tsunamis on Coastal Defences in the UK

This paper describes a study that is part of a wider project investigating whether climate change will increase the risk to the UK from tsunamis caused by submarine landslides in the Arctic. Here, the nearshore modelling of tsunamis and damage to coastal structures will be investigated. Therefore a shallow-water and Boussinesq (SWAB) model has been coupled to a mass-spring model to investigate nearshore wave-structure interactions. This coupled model has been tested against experimental data for wall deflection due to solitary waves and caisson sliding due to regular waves. Although some results are promising, further investigation is required before using this technique as a predictive tool.