  Significant tsunamis in Northern Adriatic are rare and only a few historical
events were reported in the literature, with sources mostly located along with
central and southern parts of the Adriatic coasts. Recently, a tsunami alert
system has been established for the whole Mediterranean area; however, a
detailed description of the potential impact of tsunami waves on coastal areas
is still missing for several sites. This study aims at modelling the hazard
associated with possible tsunamis, generated by offshore earthquakes, with the
purpose of contributing to tsunami risk assessment for selected urban areas
located along the Northeastern Adriatic coasts. Tsunami modelling is performed
by the NAMI DANCE software, which allows accounting for seismic source
properties, variable bathymetry, and non-linear effects in waves propagation.
Preliminary hazard scenarios at the shoreline are developed for the coastal
areas of Northeastern Italy and at selected cities (namely Trieste, Monfalcone,
Lignano and Grado). A wide set of potential tsunamigenic sources of tectonic
origin, located in three distance ranges (namely at Adriatic-wide, regional and
local scales), are considered for the modelling; sources are defined according
to available literature, which includes catalogues of historical tsunami and
existing active faults databases. Accordingly, a preliminary set of
tsunami-related parameters and maps are obtained (e.g. maximum run-up, arrival
times, synthetic mareograms), relevant towards planning mitigation actions at
the selected sites.
