There have been significant advances in tsunami science since the devastating 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Yet, the 2011 Japan tsunami dramatically demonstrated that tsunamis continue to avoidably take lives and cause significant damage. Broadcasted live to a stunned world audience, the trail of destruction in 2011 in probably most tsunami ready nation underscores the difficulties of implementing practical advances in hazard mitigation.

The Philosophical Transactions A theme issue entitled ‘Tsunamis: Bridging Science, Engineering and Society’ examines lessons learnt from tsunamis over the last ten years, describes recent advances and state-of-the-art methodologies, outlined standards for warnings and design of critical structures, identifies vexing cross-disciplinary challenges and showstoppers. Mitigating tsunami impacts is a global problem and every nation needs to adopt best practices, ensuring the adoption of global standards and warnings, so everyone understands how to respond regardless of where they are. Global technical standards and uniform warnings are the best way to transfer tsunami science into society. The Fukushima accident is an unfortunate example, where had existing published guidelines been adopted in the reassessment of its safety done in 2010; the impact might have been avoided.

We present the summary and key findings of these multi-disciplinary studies that focus on coastal resilience, thus hopefully, reducing future losses and saving lives.

Acknowledgment: UK and CE acknowledge the support through ASTARTE - Assessment, Strategy And Risk Reduction for Tsunamis in Europe - 7th FP ENV.2013.6.4-3, Grant 603839.