| Japanese experience teaches several lessons for effective mitigation of tsunami disaster. This know-how can also be used to propose relatively economical and locally fit countermeasures in developing countries. Countermeasures like coastal forest or green belt have multifaceted benefits to the coastal communities and most importantly for tsunami disaster mitigation. Many independent studies are conducted to evaluate the control functions of coastal forest against tsunami, however in many instances they contradict in their view points. In order to synthesise the research findings and to propose a best practicable solution, a field study was conducted on Tsunami 2004 Indian Ocean and Tsunami 2007 in Solomon Islands. This paper reviews previously produced numerical and experimental results and compares them with field observation. The relationship between the degree of damage reduction and associated parameters especially width, size and density of coastal vegetation are discussed. A case study was carried out in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Solomon Islands. |
