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| Ella Meilianda says, `No coastal structure could stop such a huge tsunami. Now it will stay in history, and we can learn from its geological imprint.' Photo: Gijs van Ouwerkerk. |
Meilianda also discovered that smaller tsunamis occur as often as every 20 to 30 years. Combined with carbon dating on rock samples in Malaysia and other scientific studies, she has created a time line model of the Banda Aceh coastline in an attempt to predict future changes.
Born in Banda Aceh, the capital of Sumatra, Indonesia, Meilianda won a scholarship from the Indonesian government, and came to the Netherlands to pursue her PhD. On December 26, 2004, when the tsunami struck, she was working on her research proposal for the integrated coastal zone management of Banda Aceh for the UT's Water Engineering and Management Group. Unable to contact her family, she returned to the region and was grateful to discover her parents and sister were safe. Two months later, she came back to the Netherlands. Her family home was destroyed. Tragically, fifteen of her relatives were dead and childhood friends were missing.
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| Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2004: The 1000 ton electricity generator ship was swept 2 km inland by the tsunami. It ended up less than 500 meters from Meilianda's parent's house. Photo: Ella Meilianda. |
Academically, the data she had collected on the morphology of the coastal system of Banda Aceh seemed of limited value. Meilianda needed to find a new avenue of research. With the support of her supervisor, Dr. Marjolein Dohmen-Janssen, and the guidance of her promoter, Professor Suzanne Hulscher, she decided to research the morphological development of the Banda Aceh coast after the tsunami on December 26, 2004. Soon after she began working on her new proposal, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and encouraged to take on a 50 percent workload. Almost exactly one year after the tsunami, in January 2006, Meilianda defended her proposal.
She says: `I tried to stand firm. Emotionally, yes, it was difficult, but also there were so many uncertainties. I was concerned about the data because the morphology of the coastal system was completely changed. I began with a short-time scale using satellite images to compare the coast before and after the tsunami. I had images from four days after the event, and I kept monitoring the coast until 2007. But I was concerned. Was the tsunami really an unprecedented event? Then I had to know the whole story. So I widened my time scale.'
By comparing old historical topographical maps from the Netherlands with local maps, as well as ancient texts and archeological findings which recorded land subsidence, Meilianda attempted to create a link with the scientific evidence. Using the carbon dating information compiled in Malaysia and the curvature of sea level fluctuation that had occurred over the last millennium, she created a framework of the evolution of the Banda Aceh coastline. Meilianda then chose a 100-year time scale to plot future scenarios. She says: `I needed to consider the intermittent forcing factors involved in shaping the coastal system of a tectonically unstable area. Combined with a regular wave climate causing temporal erosion of the coast, there was the famous issue of a rising sea level due to global warming. Yet there was also the threat of tsunami and land subsidence which often occurs after an earthquake. Both land and sea level could suddenly change, altering the water depth. This would affect the wave climate and lead to a different rate of sediment transport.'
Meilianda's research involved the analysis of surface changes of the coastal plain and sea-bottom topography (bathymetry) using GIS data processing at ITC, where she was supervised by Dr. Ben Maathuis. She defends her PhD on June 19, and says, `What I accomplished in my thesis is just the beginning. I want to continue my research. It's important information if we want to design the coastal protection of this area. In my mind, it all goes towards the victims.'
