[Press Release] Impacts of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami on rocky intertidal community was lower than expected

The research group lead by Prof. Takashi Noda (Division of Biosphere Science) developed a framework for quantifying the relationship between intensity and severity of disturbance impacts across types of events and species.

Natural disturbances can decrease population sizes of organisms. To date, however, there is no comprehensive framework to compare the impacts on populations between disturbances with different properties, such as typhoon, cold wave, and tsunami, as well as among different species. Prof. Noda’s group compared impacts of various disturbances on different species with those of 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami on rocky intertidal organisms using the new framework they developed. Contrary to expectations, the results showed that the impacts of the tsunami on rocky intertidal organisms was lower than that of other disturbances like bomb cyclone, although disturbance intensity of the tsunami was extremely higher than that of other disturbances.

The framework Prof. Noda’s group developed will contribute to evaluate and predict risks of natural disturbances.

This research outcome is published in Scientific Reports.

Please visit links below to view the press release (Japanese ver. only).
Research Press Release (PDF)