Preface to “Sea Hazards”

This Special Issue (SI) collects papers that were presented in different symposia related with sea hazards at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly that was held in Vienna from 3-8 April 2011. Tsunamis are the most known and most disastrous sea hazards and can occur in all world oceans as well as in closed or almost closed seas like the Mediterranean. Interest in tsunamis has substantially increased in the last few years, especially after the case of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated the coasts of several near-field and far-field countries and that claimed a death toll of about 220 thousands human lives mostly in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Since then and even more after the big Japan tsunami of 11 March 2011, the issues of what we can learn from past experiences and of how coastal communities can be protected from the attack of catastrophic tsunamis have become of paramount importance. This SI collects a number of papers on the Tohoku tsunami that address different aspects of this event and papers on how to improve the response promptness and accuracy of the Tsunami Early Warning Systems. The SI addresses further the topic of rogue waves providing new contributions to the experimental and theoretical work that has been done in the last years. The third main topic of the SI regards sea level rise, storm surges and coastal floods that are subjects of particular interest to researchers, planners, and disaster control managers, since this type of natural hazard can represent an enormous threat to human life and economic assets.