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This study proposes a new embankment reinforcement using steel sheet piles against tsunami overflow, which has been known as the main cause of the failures of the embankments by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami. Effectiveness of the proposed technique was discussed through a hydraulic experiment. A model of embankment was set in a horizontal open channel, and one or two steel plates are installed into the embankment from the top as vertical walls inside. Temporal variations of the shapes of the embankment and the sheet pile structures were obtained from video images. In most of the cases, the sheet pile structures started to rotate after the erosion of the landward slope of the embankment. However the rotation stopped at about 30∘and 10∘from the initial location with the single- and double-wall cases. Height of the embankment after overflow was less than 20% with no reinforcement, while more than 70% and 95% of the height were kept with the single- and double-wall structures, respectively. The performance of the embankment with the reinforcement was also discussed in terms of tsunami energy reduction with an additional fixed-bed experiment.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 generated a massive tsunami wave that severely damaged coastal areas of Japan. Furthermore, the wave propagated into rivers, causing damage upstream far from shore. Videos recorded during this tsunami event were collected and analyzed to estimate the celerity of tsunami propagation in river and on the land. The result shows good comparison with estimation based on theoretical approaches that use water level measurement data. It was found that the tsunami celerity in river is approximately 25–30 km/h, and moved upstream with gradual deceleration. However, wave celerity on land was decreased significantly due to debris and dominant ground friction. The propagation trend in river mainstream and floodplain behaves differently in the location where the mainstream is not parallel to the embankment. Tsunami discharge and velocity in a river induced by tsunami wave were estimated based on continuity equation using the measured water level variation along the Sunaoshi River. The maximum estimated discharge is approximately 152 m3/s with the maximum velocity of 1.4 m/s.

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