LSBU academics win international award for tsunami research

LSBU's Dr David McGovern and Dr Keith Adams have received a prestigious international award in Tokyo recognising their 20 years of research in tsunami engineering and coastal risk assessment.

As part of the MAKEWAVES Consortium, a worldwide group of tsunami engineers and scientists from LSBU, University College London, and HR Wallingford, they accepted the Hamaguchi Award from Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. The accolade recognises the team's excellence and impact in tsunami and coastal hazards engineering and for their dedication to prevent future tragedies like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed 228,000 lives.

The award is named after Hamaguchi Goryo who heroically saved villagers from a tsunami about 160 years ago. The award also marked the UN World Tsunami Awareness Day on 5 November.

Dr David McGovern, Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering, said: "The MAKEWAVES collaboration is the latest research programme in tsunami engineering that I have had the privilege to be involved in since 2014. Over that decade, my colleagues and I have endeavoured to understand these destructive waves, converting that knowledge to building guidelines and standards to try and save lives. The work continues now with the LSBU - HR Wallingford collaboration to develop the dual tsunami wave train generator technology.

"Receiving the award is a great honour and a career highlight and is particularly poignant as the 20th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami approaches."

Dr Keith Adams, Lecturer in Construction and Project Management, said: "This award is a career-defining moment and recognises over 20 years of work, the vision of David and Prof Tiziana Rossetto at UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering and our partners in HR Wallingford. In that time, we have collected over a year's worth of data, nearly 2TB unprocessed in size and produced impactful peer-reviewed academic papers. We have directly contributed to the new set of building code guidance for tsunami forces on structures."

On 6 December, the consortium will gather at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London for a research symposium to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. David McGovern and Keith Adams will be two of several world-leading tsunami scientists, engineers, and disaster managers presenting their insights and advancements in tsunami resilience.