The increased Shove distance is the main reason why you can't protect yourself against it. Position yourself away from the edge of a lava pool - nuh uh, you'll fly in there anyway from the center of the cave.
When you use Thunderwave to just get out of melee you're accidentally one shotting enemies you wanted to loot into chasms. It's ridiculous.
The shove distance seems necessary for it to be a feature in the game to be honnest.
Edges are not often in straight lines.. And the map shows lots of small mounds, rocks and other things in relief.
I tried to mod the game during AE to reduce shove distance and it became mostly impossible to shove in MANY situations (even when your characters were close to an edge).
Shove as a full action + less "pushing effects" (skills, consummables, items,...) would be the best solution imo.
But it is now pretty clear that Larian will not change anything about the ridiculously OP, unbalanced and often infuriating shove.