More than 80 scientists from India and abroad will explore and address the latest advancements in tsunami hazard assessment, detection, monitoring, early warning systems, mitigation strategies, and community preparedness, at the 32nd International Tsunami Symposium (ITS), being held at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) from November 12 to 14.
“The primary goal of this symposium is to develop and implement a robust programme on ocean hazard mitigation,” said INCOIS Director T. M. Balakrishnan Nair, who briefed delegates on the deliberations during the First Conference of the Ocean Decade Tsunami Programme (ODTP), jointly organised by INCOIS and IOC-UNESCO earlier this week.
Since tsunamis originate from diverse sources, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, atmospheric-pressure disturbances (meteotsunamis), and even meteorite impacts, the science is inherently interdisciplinary, spanning seismology, volcanology, marine geology and geophysics, hydrodynamics, and ocean-atmosphere interactions, he explained.
The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) Tsunami Commission, also known as the Joint Tsunami Commission (JTC), conducts the ITS every two years. The event brings together tsunami researchers and disaster-prevention experts worldwide to discuss topics such as tsunami modelling for seismic and non-seismic sources, instrumentation and observation networks, meteotsunamis (including the 2022 Tonga event), Kamchatka tsunami, South Alaska landslide tsunami, advanced real-time inundation modelling techniques, and the use of high-performance computing and AI/ML.
National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) director Shailesh Nayak spoke about the challenges and timelines involved in establishing India’s Tsunami Early Warning System, highlighting gaps and areas of focus for building resilient coasts.
Experts like Yuichiro Tanioka from Hokkaido University, Japan, and Viacheslav K. Gusiakov from the Russian Academy of Sciences also participated on the opening day, according to a press release issued on Wednesday.
Published – November 12, 2025 07:02 pm IST
