Introduction: What is a harmful problem that waves cause?
Tsunamis cause mass destruction and death whenever they hit land. Tsunamis are seismic sea waves/ huge ocean waves that are created by undersea disturbances and earthquakes. There are 3 main types of tsunamis: local tsunami, regional tsunami and distant tsunami. A local tsunami affects coasts less than 100km away from it's source and generally hits within an hour of occurring and sometimes within 10 minutes. Local tsunamis are generally caused by earthquakes, however it can be caused by landslides and volcanic eruptions.These are especially dangerous as in some cases there isn't enough time for an official tsunami warning for people to escape/take precautions. A regional tsunami …show more content…
Tsunamis cause death,property damage/destruction and soil erosion/environmental destruction. The property damage and destruction is caused by two ways: the force of water travelling at high speeds and the drainage of a large mass of water back into the ocean which takes debris with it. These waves destroy boats,buildings,cars,trees, telephone poles, power lines and many other things. This directly leads us into another problem, death. Death is mainly caused by drowning and the sheer force of the impact in these situations, however death by debris is also fairly common. Either collapsing buildings, exploding gas tanks or just debris being washed away can kill people or cause them to go under the water and drown. Finally, environmental destruction.This problem affects humans the least, however it has a major impact on nature. The tsunami causes soil erosion which changes the landscape and brings in man made objects that pollute and poison the environment. This ends up killing most of the wildlife in the area. These problems not only cause massive devastation to the people involved, but it costs many governments and institutions lots of money to try and repair the damage done to buildings and coastal areas. …show more content…
There are a few current science based solutions, such as warning systems,coastal trees, steering away/blocking the water among others. I have decided to focus on the idea of coastal trees blocking the tsunamis as it is an interesting prospect different from all the others, since it is nature helping instead of man made constructions. Coastal vegetation, more specifically forests and areas with many trees in front of villages/cities, have been shown to reduce the energy in the wave from the tsunami and lower flooding which in turn lowers the death count and destruction caused by the tsunami. This is what's known as a bio shield. It wasn't invented by anyone and hasn't been implemented in most places, however there have been multiple studies investigating bioshields. The first major time when bioshields (forestry) was seen as a good method for preventing as much damage from tsunamis was after the indian ocean tsunami on the 26th of December 2004. After this event a lot of research was put into this as there was a lot of diversity of opinions among scientists about the effectiveness of this method and the lack of information so soon after the
Tsunamis cause mass destruction and death whenever they hit land. Tsunamis are seismic sea waves/ huge ocean waves that are created by undersea disturbances and earthquakes. There are 3 main types of tsunamis: local tsunami, regional tsunami and distant tsunami. A local tsunami affects coasts less than 100km away from it's source and generally hits within an hour of occurring and sometimes within 10 minutes. Local tsunamis are generally caused by earthquakes, however it can be caused by landslides and volcanic eruptions.These are especially dangerous as in some cases there isn't enough time for an official tsunami warning for people to escape/take precautions. A regional tsunami …show more content…
Tsunamis cause death,property damage/destruction and soil erosion/environmental destruction. The property damage and destruction is caused by two ways: the force of water travelling at high speeds and the drainage of a large mass of water back into the ocean which takes debris with it. These waves destroy boats,buildings,cars,trees, telephone poles, power lines and many other things. This directly leads us into another problem, death. Death is mainly caused by drowning and the sheer force of the impact in these situations, however death by debris is also fairly common. Either collapsing buildings, exploding gas tanks or just debris being washed away can kill people or cause them to go under the water and drown. Finally, environmental destruction.This problem affects humans the least, however it has a major impact on nature. The tsunami causes soil erosion which changes the landscape and brings in man made objects that pollute and poison the environment. This ends up killing most of the wildlife in the area. These problems not only cause massive devastation to the people involved, but it costs many governments and institutions lots of money to try and repair the damage done to buildings and coastal areas. …show more content…
There are a few current science based solutions, such as warning systems,coastal trees, steering away/blocking the water among others. I have decided to focus on the idea of coastal trees blocking the tsunamis as it is an interesting prospect different from all the others, since it is nature helping instead of man made constructions. Coastal vegetation, more specifically forests and areas with many trees in front of villages/cities, have been shown to reduce the energy in the wave from the tsunami and lower flooding which in turn lowers the death count and destruction caused by the tsunami. This is what's known as a bio shield. It wasn't invented by anyone and hasn't been implemented in most places, however there have been multiple studies investigating bioshields. The first major time when bioshields (forestry) was seen as a good method for preventing as much damage from tsunamis was after the indian ocean tsunami on the 26th of December 2004. After this event a lot of research was put into this as there was a lot of diversity of opinions among scientists about the effectiveness of this method and the lack of information so soon after the