Impacts from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: analysing the potential protecting role of environmental features

The tsunami that deeply impacted the North Indian Ocean shores on 26 December 2004, called for urgent rehabilitation of coastal infrastructures to restore the livelihood of local populations. A spatial and statistical analysis was performed to identify what geomorphological and biological configurations (mangroves forests, coral and other coastal vegetation) are susceptible to decrease or increase coastal vulnerability to tsunami. The results indicate that the width of flooded land strip was, in vast majority, influenced by the distance to fault lines as well as inclination and length of proximal slope. Areas covered by seagrass beds were less impacted, whereas areas behind coral reefs were more affected. The mangroves forests identified in the study were all located in sheltered areas, thus preventing to address the potential protecting role of mangroves forests.