Large scale three - dimensional laboratory measurements of tsunami inundation

Field survey results from recent tsunamis have substantiated numerous anecdotal reports over the past ten years of substantial differences between the runup predictions of numerical models and field measurements. These differences have led to speculations on whether these differences are due to poor seismological inferences about the tsunami source motions or whether they are due to poor perfomance of the hydrodynamic models. Based on a preliminary data analysis, it is concluded that the runup height normalized with the offshore depth increases almost linearly with the normalized source length, at least for nearshore generation. Also, under identical initial conditions, runup heights in a flume are higher than in a basin (AU)