Minutes of the IUGG Tsunami Commission Meeting
July 29, 1999
Birmingham, England
1. The IUGG Tsunami Commission (TC) business meeting took place at the Medical School Building, University of Birmingham, from 6 to 8 PM, on July 29, 1999.
The meeting was attended by the following TC members: Abe K., Bernard E.N., Camfield F.E, Gusiakov V.K, Hebenstreit G.T., Iwasaki S.-I, Lander J.F., Levin B.W., Matsutomi H., Nishimura Y. Okal E. A., Papadopoulos G.A, Satake K., Shuto N., Stephenson F., Tinti S., Yeh H.
2. The Chairman's report on the activities of the Commission over the last four years (V.Gusiakov) was presented to the commision members. The text of the report is published in the IUGG 22nd General Assembly Council Meeting Agenda Book and can be found at http://omzg.sscc.ru/tsulab/IUGGTCrep99.html)
3. Progress reports on the IUUG/TC sponsored projects were presented
by project coordinators.
TIME (Tsunami Inundation Modeling Exchange) Project (N.Shuto)
HTDB/PAC (Historical Tsunami Database for the Pacific)(V.Gusiakov)
Digital Bathymetry (H.Yeh)
4. Publication of Proceedings of the 1999 Symposium.
Dr.G.Hebenstreit reported that the arrangement with Kluwer was made
to publish a volume of selected papers of the JSS42 Symposium by
May of 2000. The TC members were informed on the proposed
schedule of paper preparation.
5. Dr.V.Gusiakov briefly informed the Commission about plans for the next four year period. They include the conducting of several joint IUGG/TC and ICG/ITSU Workshops in 1999 - 2001 dedicated to particular tsunami-related problems (operational warning, long-term tsunami risk assessment, mitigation and countermeasures), participation in the new Union Commission on Natural Hazards and possible input to the new IUGG long-term project on Megacities.
5. Selection of the 2001 Meeting Site.
After some discussion, the kind offer made by Dr.E.Bernard
(PMEL/NOAA) to host the next biannual International Tsunami
Symposium in Seattle in the summer of 2001 was accepted.
6. Election of new commission members.
Four new TC members were elected. They are Dr. Y.Nishimura (Japan),
F.Imamura (Japan), A.Mercado (USA) and A.Rabinovich (Canada). Six
current members who missed three consecutive TC business meetings
were deleted from the list (Choi B., Dawson A., Kanamori H., Lorca
E., Luiz Mendez Victor, Murty T.). In the Tsunami Commission,
the official representative of the IASPEI is Dr.K.Satake (Japan),
of IAPSO is Dr. F. Camfield (USA), IAVCEI is Dr.Y.Nishimura
(Japan).
7. Election of new TC Officers.
Dr. Viacheslav Gusiakov (Russia) was re-elected as Chairman
Prof Stefano Tinti (Italy) was re-elected as Vice-Chairman
Dr. Kenji Satake (Japan) was elected as Vice-Chairman
Mr.James Lander (USA) was re-elected as Secretary.
8. Finally, two recommendations were discussed and adopted Recommendation 1. The comprehensive historical tsunami database covering the entire Pacific region and the whole historical period (from 47 B.C. to 2000) should be developed jointly with the ICG/ITSU by the year of 2001 and published as a CD-ROM. The main content of the database (historical event catalog and the catalog of run-up heights) should be put on the dedicated Web site supported by the International Tsunami Information Center (Honolulu, Hawaii) for the further maintenance and editing. Recommendation 2. In view of high damage and loss of human lives due to several destructive tsunamis occurred recently in the south-western Pacific, the IUGG Tsunami Commission stresses the needs for establishing local tsunami warning system for the this region that is not completely covered by the International Tsunami Warning System operations. The IUGG Tsunami Commission jointly with the ICG/ITSU should provide available scientific knowledge and technical expertise to the countries of the region (Philippines, Indonesia, Samoa, Papua New Guinea) for the development of projects of their national tsunami warning systems.
The meeting was closed at 7:45 p.m.
V.Gusiakov, Tsunami Commission Chair J.Lander, Tsunami Commission Secretary