This is the first volume of a collection of essays focusing on progress in tsunami science since the great tsunami of 26 December. A magnitude Mw 9.1 earthquake (third strongest ever instrumentally recorded) generated a global tsunami that killed about 230,000 people along the coasts of 14 countries in the Indian Ocean and propagated as far as the North Pacific and North Atlantic.

Since then, various countries from around the globe contributed major funding to tsunami research and mitigation, enabling the installation of hundreds of new high-precision instruments, the development of...