Tsunami Propagation in Tidal Rivers

Using observations of the 2011-Tohoku and some other tsunamis in rivers as a starting point for analytical and numerical exploration, this book suggests a basis for predicting tsunami impacts in a river after the wave has transitioned into the river’s channel.

Elena Tolkova graduated from the Radiophysics department of the Nizhny Novgorod State University in Russia in 1985, and stayed with the University for 15 years after graduation -- first as a research associate/engineer, then as an assistant/associate professor -- while performing contract research, writing her dissertation, and teaching general physics, optics, and signal processing. Elena resumed her scientific career in the US in 2005, in the field of hydrodynamics. Elena worked as a research scientist at the University of Washington and a contractor at NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, helping to develop and implement a particular tsunami forecasting technology. In 2013, she continued her research at the NorthWest Research Associates, where she has developed an open-source numerical model (Cliffs) for simulating tsunami propagation and land inundation, co-authored a novel approach to using tsunami’s en-route measurements for tsunami predictions, and in collaboration with Prof. H. Tanaka and his team at Tohoku University, Japan, investigated some puzzling tsunami behaviors in rivers.