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Pedestrian evacuation time maps, population estimates, and cruise ship passenger estimates for USVI tsunami-hazard zones

Metadata Updated: January 22, 2026

These datasets support the conclusions in the journal article entitled " Population vulnerability of residents, employees, and cruise-ship passengers to tsunami hazards in complex seismic regions: a case study of the U.S. Virgin Islands" as described in the abstract below: Reducing the potential for loss of life from tsunamis is challenging on islands located in complex seismic regions given the multiple sources that surround islands, differences among islands in the amount of time to evacuate before wave arrival, and the high number of residents, employees, and tourists in tsunami-hazard zones. We examine variations in population vulnerability in island communities to multiple tsunami threats and use the United States territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), including St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix islands, as our case study. We estimate the tsunami-hazard exposure of residents, employees, and cruise-ship passengers on vessels docking at USVI marine facilities, as well as model pedestrian travel times out of inundation zones for 13 credible tsunami scenarios. Results indicate that the threat to life safety in USVI posed by tsunamis is not equal among the three islands, both in terms of the magnitude of people in hazard zones and the amount of time available to evacuate for the various scenarios. The number of employees and cruise-ship passengers in tsunami-hazard zones is orders of magnitude higher than the number of residents, suggesting that risk assessments that only account for residents are under-estimating threats to life safety from tsunamis. Finally, reducing departure delays has a greater impact than increasing pedestrian travel speeds on reducing the number of people that may have insufficient time to evacuate hazard zones before wave arrival.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date January 12, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 22, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 12, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 22, 2026
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_673e3b70d34e6b795de6c6cb
Data Last Modified 2025-07-31T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Datagov Dedupe Retained 20260122015221
Harvest Object Id 500fd95b-60fc-456b-b3dd-26f0d3c2cb1b
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -65.0250, 17.6792, -65.0250, 18.3755, -64.5783, 18.3755, -64.5783, 17.6792, -65.0250, 17.6792}
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 2b57acc5ce107485cf7803e5c1215b49b8f0c2893c29d6415fe8b49ce84f6f86
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -65.0250, 17.6792, -65.0250, 18.3755, -64.5783, 18.3755, -64.5783, 17.6792, -65.0250, 17.6792}

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