One of the key results of the EU funded SCHEMA (Scenarios for Hazard-induced Emergencies Management) project is the development of tsunami risk assessment and management tools to support public administrators in charge of coastal area development planning and protection as well as organisations involved in disasters risk management and mitigation.

In particular, the project, which involved 11 organizations from France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Bulgaria, UK and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), developed a standard methodology to build up tsunami hazard, vulnerability and impact damage maps using Earth observation data – satellite images and field surveys. The methodology was applied to five pilot sites - Rabat, Morocco; Setúbal, Portugal; Mandelieu, France; Catania, Italy; Balchik, Bulgaria - differing very much from one another, and tested with the active involvement of the local communities.

The “Handbook of Tsunami Hazard and Damage Scenarios”, published by the SCHEMA project, illustrates in a detailed and clear manner this methodology. The publication provides civil protection organizations with a set of practical and useful tools to assess tsunami risk levels based on vulnerability factors (building heights, building types, inhabitant description) and environment parameters (density of buildings per unit area, road width,…) and, thus, a technique capable of helping them to design preventive measures. The handbook includes also an innovative land use planning technique for coastal zone exposed to tsunami hazard to be used by municipalities.

In the handbook, rescue planners can find useful information on how to evaluate the impact of vulnerability factors during possible emergencies, identify accessible areas in case of complex disaster and design effective rescue operations. Also insurance companies can find useful suggestions on how to use spatial data to assess potential maximum claims for building damaged in case of tsunami flooding.