Seismo-acoustic wave propagation in the Rade of Hyères (France) generated by counter-mining of explosive devices : risk assessment from the comparison between numerical simulations and real experiments

Explosive devices from World War II are discovered almost every week on the French coasts and they must be destroyed by the French Navy Mine Warfare Office. The consequences of the counter-mining on the marine environment are complex to evaluate. Depending on the environment geology, the explosive charges and their localization, the seismo-acoustic waves generated by the explosion may cause damage to infrastructures located on the coast, and under specific conditions small submarine landslides. The ANR ASTRID POSA project proposed to address the risk assessment issue on the Mediterranean coast. The main originality of this project lied in the approach used that combines geological measurements, acoustic data recorded within the sea coastal zone and seismic data recorded on the coast, together with numerical simulations of seismo-acoustic wave propagation. We propose here to present the results of such a methodology applied to the counter-mining campaign that occurred in the Rade of Hyeres (France) in December 2018. We focus more specifically on the numerical simulations of seismo-acoustic wave propagation from the location of the device explosion to several seismometers deployed on the coast of Hyeres. From topographical and sedimentary measurements performed in the Rade of Hyeres, physical and geometrical characteristics of the marine seabed have been carefully selected as input data for numerical simulations. In addition, a particular attention has been paid to the measured characteristics of the device explosion (source). The numerical simulations have then been conducted using a spectral-element method. The impact of the explosive device charge and its location (on the seabed or in the water column), together with the impact of the marine environment properties, on the simulated signals have been studied. Finally, the numerical results have been compared with the real signals recorded by the seismometers. The risks of land degradation have been evaluated afterwards.