2.1. Long-term Hazards and Risk
Assessments; Associated Mitigation
Measures
The first step of a preparedness plan for disaster risk
reduction must be done well before any expected eruptive
crisis. This is the assessment of risk, understood as a
combined measure of hazard and vulnerability. Once the
risk is identified some long-term mitigation methods can be
implemented.
Initially, the potentially active volcanoes should be
identified. Although this may seem like an obvious first
step, in many communities, where there has been little
volcanic activity for decades or even centuries, the local
population may not be even aware of a volcanic threat. For
example, in Montserrat, prior to the onset of the eruption in
1995, many of the local people did not understand that the
summit of the Soufrie`re Hills was a volcano, rather they
incorrectly identified an area of hot springs and fumaroles
on the southern flank of the volcano as the vent.
After identifying the volcanoes that have a potential to
produce eruptions, a thorough knowledge of the charac-
teristics of each volcano and of its past activity allows an
assessment of eruptive scenarios with their associated
probability of occurrence. For a frequently active volcano,
an assessment of past historic activity is informative. For
quiescent volcanoes, geological mapping of older eruptive
deposits can provide information on likely future activity.
Where there is limited geological or historical knowledge,
the use of analog volcanoes can inform potential scenarios.
Computer simulations can help to assess future impacts
such as likely ashfall depths and pathways for lahars or
other mass flows.
One product of these studies is a hazard map depicting
the areas that could be reached by each type of eruption. The
large amount of information contained in hazard assess-
ments makes it difficult to handle as a conventional printed
map. However, a balance needs to be struck between a
comprehensive representation of hazard for decision-
making and a comprehensible visualization of volcanic
hazards for the communities. In the former, a geographic
information system could be designed that incorporates all
aspects required by emergency managers such as location of
critical infrastructure, distribution of population, and likely
impact zones. In the latter, simple perspective views of the
volcano may communicate hazard better to populations
unfamiliar with maps. It is also very useful to divide each
hazard area into sectors and consider the possibility of
setting different levels of alert in different sectors for
particular scenarios (Figure 68.1).
Increasingly, probabilistic hazard and risk assessments
of volcanic activity are being used to determine the likeli-
hood of different scenarios. These can be used both in the
long term for land-use planning and in the short term for