Understanding the future of the tsunami-affected coast in a tectonically active coastal region

In the early days after the large scale earthquake and tsunami hit Banda Aceh on 26 December 2004, a coastal area on the tip of Sumatra Island, Indonesia, scientists came from all over the world to this coast to witness and investigate the scale of damage that these rare disaster have caused to this broad low-lying coastal area. Many of them researched the direct impact due to the earthquake and tsunami, but mostly without further investigate the extent of the changes of the coastal morphology. A lack of comprehensive study about the coast before the tsunami event was mainly the problem. Without the knowledge of how much the coast has changed the new state of the coastal morphology cannot be determined, thus, forecast of the coastal development may lead to bias result.