Search for: All records

Effective volcanic hazard management in regions where populations live in close proximity to persistent volcanic activity involves understanding the dynamic nature of hazards, and associated risk. Emphasis until now has been placed on identification and forecasting of the escalation phase of activity, in order to provide adequate warning of what might be to come. However, understanding eruption hiatus and post-eruption unrest hazards, or how to quantify residual hazard after the end of an eruption, is also important and often key to timely post-eruption recovery. Unfortunately, in many cases when the level of activity lessens, the hazards, although reduced, do not necessarily cease altogether. This is due to both the imprecise nature of determination of the “end” of an eruptive phase as well as to the possibility that post-eruption hazardous processes may continue to occur. An example of the latter is continued dome collapse hazard from lava domes which have ceased to grow, or sector collapse of parts of volcanic edifices, including lava dome complexes. We present a new probabilistic model for forecasting pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) from lava dome collapse that takes into account the heavy-tailed distribution of the lengths of eruptive phases, the periods of quiescence, and the forecast window of interest. In the hazard analysis, we also consider probabilistic scenario models describing the flow’s volume and initial direction. Further, with the use of statistical emulators, we combine these models with physics-based simulations of PDCs at Soufrière Hills Volcano to produce a series of probabilistic hazard maps for flow inundation over 5, 10, and 20 year periods. The development and application of this assessment approach is the first of its kind for the quantification of periods of diminished volcanic activity. As such, it offers evidence-based guidance for dome collapse hazards that can be used to inform decision-making around provisions of access and reoccupation in areas around volcanoes that are becoming less active over time. 

Abstract. We detail a new prediction-oriented procedure aimed at volcanic hazardassessment based on geophysical mass flow models constrained withheterogeneous and poorly defined data. Our method relies on an itemizedapplication of the empirical falsification principle over an arbitrarily wideenvelope of possible input conditions. We thus provide a first step towards aobjective and partially automated experimental design construction. Inparticular, instead of fully calibrating model inputs on past observations,we create and explore more general requirements of consistency, and then weseparately use each piece of empirical data to remove those input values thatare not compatible with it. Hence, partial solutions are defined to the inverseproblem. This has several advantages compared to a traditionally posedinverse problem: (i) the potentially nonempty inverse images of partialsolutions of multiple possible forward models characterize the solutions tothe inverse problem; (ii) the partial solutions can provide hazard estimatesunder weaker constraints, potentially including extreme cases that areimportant for hazard analysis; (iii) if multiple models are applicable,specific performance scores against each piece of empirical information canbe calculated. We apply our procedure to the case study of the Atenquiquevolcaniclastic debris flow, which occurred on the flanks of Nevado de Colimavolcano (Mexico), 1955. We adopt and compare three depth-averaged modelscurrently implemented in the TITAN2D solver, available from https://vhub.org(Version 4.0.0 – last access: 23 June 2016). The associated inverse problemis not well-posed if approached in a traditional way. We show that our procedurecan extract valuable information for hazard assessment, allowing the explorationof the impact of synthetic flows that are similar to those that occurred in thepast but different in plausible ways. The implementation of multiple models isthus a crucial aspect of our approach, as they can allow the covering of otherplausible flows. We also observe that model selection is inherently linked tothe inversion problem. 

Abstract Ideally, probabilistic hazard assessments combine available knowledge about physical mechanisms of the hazard, data on past hazards, and any precursor information. Systematically assessing the probability of rare, yet catastrophic hazards adds a layer of difficulty due to limited observation data. Via computer models, one can exercise potentially dangerous scenarios that may not have happened in the past but are probabilistically consistent with the aleatoric nature of previous volcanic behavior in the record. Traditional Monte Carlo‐based methods to calculate such hazard probabilities suffer from two issues: they are computationally expensive, and they are static. In light of new information, newly available data, signs of unrest, and new probabilistic analysis describing uncertainty about scenarios the Monte Carlo calculation would need to be redone under the same computational constraints. Here we present an alternative approach utilizing statistical emulators that provide an efficient way to overcome the computational bottleneck of typical Monte Carlo approaches. Moreover, this approach is independent of an aleatoric scenario model and yet can be applied rapidly to any scenario model making it dynamic. We present and apply this emulator‐based approach to create multiple probabilistic hazard maps for inundation of pyroclastic density currents in the Long Valley Volcanic Region. Further, we illustrate how this approach enables an exploration of the impact of epistemic uncertainties on these probabilistic hazard forecasts. Particularly, we focus on the uncertainty of vent opening models and how that uncertainty both aleatoric and epistemic impacts the resulting probabilistic hazard maps of pyroclastic density current inundation.