Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 An introduction to global volcanic hazard and risk
- 2 Global volcanic hazard and risk
- 3 Volcanic ash fall hazard and risk
- 4 Populations around Holocene volcanoes and development of a Population Exposure Index
- 5 An integrated approach to Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland, New Zealand: the multi-disciplinary DEVORA project
- 6 Tephra fall hazard for the Neapolitan area
- 7 Eruptions and lahars of Mount Pinatubo, 1991-2000
- 8 Improving crisis decision-making at times of uncertain volcanic unrest (Guadeloupe, 1976)
- 9 Forecasting the November 2010 eruption of Merapi, Indonesia
- 10 The importance of communication in hazard zone areas: case study during and after 2010 Merapi eruption, Indonesia
- 11 Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of Congo), January 2002: a major eruption in the midst of a complex humanitarian emergency
- 12 Volcanic ash fall impacts
- 13 Health impacts of volcanic eruptions
- 14 Volcanoes and the aviation industry
- 15 The role of volcano observatories in risk reduction
- 16 Developing effective communication tools for volcanic hazards in New Zealand, using social science
- 17 Volcano monitoring from space
- 18 Volcanic unrest and short-term forecasting capacity
- 19 Global monitoring capacity: development of the Global Volcano Research and Monitoring Institutions Database and analysis of monitoring in Latin America
- 20 Volcanic hazard maps
- 21 Risk assessment case history: the Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat
- 22 Development of a new global Volcanic Hazard Index (VHI)
- 23 Global distribution of volcanic threat
- 24 Scientific communication of uncertainty during volcanic emergencies
- 25 Volcano Disaster Assistance Program: Preventing volcanic crises from becoming disasters and advancing science diplomacy
- 26 Communities coping with uncertainty and reducing their risk: the collaborative monitoring and management of volcanic activity with the vigías of Tungurahua
- Index
- Online Appendix A
- Online Appendix B - part 1 (low res)
- Online Appendix B - part 2 (low res)
23 - Global distribution of volcanic threat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 An introduction to global volcanic hazard and risk
- 2 Global volcanic hazard and risk
- 3 Volcanic ash fall hazard and risk
- 4 Populations around Holocene volcanoes and development of a Population Exposure Index
- 5 An integrated approach to Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland, New Zealand: the multi-disciplinary DEVORA project
- 6 Tephra fall hazard for the Neapolitan area
- 7 Eruptions and lahars of Mount Pinatubo, 1991-2000
- 8 Improving crisis decision-making at times of uncertain volcanic unrest (Guadeloupe, 1976)
- 9 Forecasting the November 2010 eruption of Merapi, Indonesia
- 10 The importance of communication in hazard zone areas: case study during and after 2010 Merapi eruption, Indonesia
- 11 Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of Congo), January 2002: a major eruption in the midst of a complex humanitarian emergency
- 12 Volcanic ash fall impacts
- 13 Health impacts of volcanic eruptions
- 14 Volcanoes and the aviation industry
- 15 The role of volcano observatories in risk reduction
- 16 Developing effective communication tools for volcanic hazards in New Zealand, using social science
- 17 Volcano monitoring from space
- 18 Volcanic unrest and short-term forecasting capacity
- 19 Global monitoring capacity: development of the Global Volcano Research and Monitoring Institutions Database and analysis of monitoring in Latin America
- 20 Volcanic hazard maps
- 21 Risk assessment case history: the Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat
- 22 Development of a new global Volcanic Hazard Index (VHI)
- 23 Global distribution of volcanic threat
- 24 Scientific communication of uncertainty during volcanic emergencies
- 25 Volcano Disaster Assistance Program: Preventing volcanic crises from becoming disasters and advancing science diplomacy
- 26 Communities coping with uncertainty and reducing their risk: the collaborative monitoring and management of volcanic activity with the vigías of Tungurahua
- Index
- Online Appendix A
- Online Appendix B - part 1 (low res)
- Online Appendix B - part 2 (low res)
Summary
Calculating threat
Within the country profiles (Appendix B) individual volcanoes are ranked by risk; however, it would also be beneficial to understand the total volcanic threat borne by each country. We therefore develop two measures of volcanic threat2 to enable country ranking. The measures variously combine the number of volcanoes in the country, the size of the total population living within 30 km of volcanoes and the mean hazard score, which is calculated for each country from the relevant volcano hazard scores (VHI). We develop and use a ‘Pop30’ score, which calculates the number of persons, using Landscan 2011 (Bright et al., 2012) data, within a given country living within 30 km of one or more volcanoes with known or suspected Holocene activity. Note that 30 km is chosen as most fatal incidents that are caused directly by volcanic hazards fall within this distance of volcanoes [see Chapter 4]. VPI30, supplied by VOTW4.0 (Siebert et al., 2010) based on the analysis of Ewert & Harpel (2004) and Siebert et al. (2008), is specific to a volcano and thus cannot be used in place of Pop30 as this would double count persons living within 30 km of neighbouring volcanoes.
We first develop a simple measure of volcanic threat to life country by country based on the number of active volcanoes, an estimate of exposed population and the mean hazard index of the volcanoes. The sum of this measure (Measure 1) for all countries is itself a simple measure of total threat and so the distribution of threat between countries can be evaluated and they can be placed in rank order using a normalised version of Measure 1. However, this measure of threat distribution can be misleading because an individual country may vary considerably in the proportion of its population that is exposed to the volcanic threat. Volcanic threat is very much higher in relation to its economy and population in a small island nation with an active volcano than in larger countries even if they have many volcanoes. Nation states vary greatly in their populations from, for example, China with 1.3 billion people (<1% exposed) to St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean with only 54,000 people (100% exposed). Thus we need a measure of threat that reflects its importance to each country.
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- Global Volcanic Hazards and Risk , pp. 359 - 370Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015
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- This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/
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