Separating the Signal from the Noise: Identifying and Preparing for More Cascading Disasters Involving Volcanic Eruptions in the 2020s

Abstract:

Volcanic eruptions have always had both direct and indirect impacts on society. Eruption products like lava flows, pyroclastic flows, debris flows, landslides, and mudflows can cause destruction and injury in the immediate vicinity of a volcano. If an eruption occurs at the same time as a major weather disturbance, as was the case for Mount Pinatubo in 1991, or if it coincides with a large earthquake, as occurred at Cordon Caulle Volcano in Chile in 1960, the amplified consequences can be much more severe. In other cases, the explosive output from eruptions can have more distal and long-lasting influences, affecting climate, air traffic, food supplies, air and water quality, respiratory health, natural resources, and economic development. The physical science training of most volcano scientists provides inadequate preparation for dealing with these relatively rare but highly complex and disruptive events.

Looking toward the coming decade, the increased intensity of climate change will result in volcanic eruptions being more frequently compounded by other natural calamities such as typhoons, droughts, dust storms, wildfires, heatwaves, and insect-borne disease outbreaks. In addition, as people continue to move to cities and despoil their natural surroundings, the consequences of eruptions may be further complicated by human-induced vulnerabilities, such as aging infrastructure, degraded environments, technological accidents, economic crises, socio-political conflicts, and mass migration.

These "cascading disasters," occurring simultaneously or in sequence, are much more challenging for earth scientists, emergency response professionals, and city officials to deal with than simple eruptive events because there are too many possible scenarios to be considered and planned for by traditional table-top exercises or civil defense drills. Computer simulations of the physics and chemistry of eruptive processes, which have become increasingly sophisticated in the first two decades of the 21st Century, will need to be supplemented in the 2020s by models that include climate scenarios and more socio-economic variables. To succeed in the year 2030, volcanologists will need to draw upon a much larger collection of disciplines, tools, and vocabulary.