The promontory of Gargano in the southern Adriatic Sea represents one of the most interesting Italian coastal zones subjected to tsunami hazard. Figure la gives the geographical map of Italy; with a box embracing the region of Gargano; details of that region are in turn sketched in Figure lb. Because of the incompleteness of the earthquake and tsunami catalogues, no reports on tsunamis in this area are available prior to 1600 AD. The Gargano events have been recently revised in order to establish their reliability and to attain the phenomenological reconstruction of the tsunamis (Guidoboni and Tinti, 1987 and 1988; Tinti et. al. , 1995). This work fits the general purpose of assessing tsunami hazard along the Italian coasts and represents a continuation of a previous study, where the first quantitative description of the 1627 tsunami from a numerical modeling viewpoint was performed (Tinti and Piatanesi, 1996). The earthquake took place on 30 July 1627 about mid-day and was followed by four large aftershocks. It claimed more than 5,000 victims and destroyed completely numerous villages in the northern Gargano area, with the most severe damage located between S. Severo and Lesina. The earthquake excited a tsunami with the most impressive effects in proximity of the Lesina Lake where the most reliable contemporary chronicles report about an initial sea water withdrawal of about 2 miles and a subsequent penetration inland.

Inhalt
Tsunami Observations.- Coastal Effects and Damage Due to the 3rd June, 1994 Java Tsunami.- Expert Tsunami Database for the Pacific: Motivation, Design, and Proof-of-Concept Demonstration.- Local Responses to the October 4, 1994 Tsunami Warning: Washington, Oregon, and California.- Precise Tsunami Observation System in the Deep Ocean by an Ocean Bottom Cable Network for the Prediction of Earthquakes and Tsunamis.- Tsunami Theory.- Asperity Distribution of Alaskan-Aleutian Earthquakes: Implications for Seismic and Tsunami Hazards.- Numerical Simulation of 1993 July 12 Tsunami Near Hokkaido: Its Propagation and Flooding onto Aonae District, Okushiri Island.- Inverse and Forward Tsunami Modeling of the 1993 Hokkaido Tsunami.- Numerical Simulations of the 1627 Gargano Tsunami (Southern Italy) to Locate the Earthquake Source.- Tsunami Detection and Warning Capability using Nearshore Submerged Pressure Transducers Case Study of the 4 October 1994 Shikotan Tsunami.- Short-Term Forecasts of Inundation During Teletsunamis in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.- A Natural Warning of Tsunami Arrival.- Tsunami Hazard Planning.- The New Tsunami Warning System of the Japan Meteorological Agency.- Reducing Tsunami Hazards Along U.S. Coastlines.- Overview.- A Long-term Perspective.