Virtual volcanology - Global Volcano Model Network (GVM)

Virtual volcanology
Quaternary Large Magnitude Explosive
Volcanic Eruptions (LaMEVE) database has
been completed and made accessible online.
GVM is developing its own initiatives through
the partnership by forming three task forces
to address knowledge gaps. One is developing
volcanic hazard and risk indices, one is
managing the global assessment of volcanic
risk for the UN’s GAR15 report and another is
preparing a database on volcano deformation
recorded by satellite data (principally radar).
GVM is also supporting the second Volcano
Observatory Best Practices workshop on
communication which is in the planning
stage. The governance structure of GVM has
been agreed with the Board and Steering
Committee, the latter including representatives
from all partners.
Can you briefly introduce the Global
Volcano Model (GVM) project and its key
goals?
SS: GVM is a new international collaborative
platform to integrate information on
volcanoes from the perspective of
forecasting, hazard assessment and risk
mapping. The platform includes databases,
such as the Global Volcanism Program,
Smithsonian Institution, WOVOdat (a
database on precursors to volcanic eruptions
by the World Organization of Volcano
Observatories), VHub (a US-led effort to
develop an online collaborative environment
for volcanology research and risk mitigation)
and the Volcanic Global Risk Identification
and Analysis Project (VOGRIPA).
In addition, the platform aims to provide
tools for forecasting, assessment
of hazard and risk, and dealing with
complications associated with volcano
information at global, regional and
local scales. A major goal of GVM is
the translation of volcano science into
forms that are useful and accessible to
the public, researchers, decision makers,
governments, international agencies,
NGOs and commerce. To achieve this,
GVM will build upon and take advantage
of the volcanology community’s growing
online collaborative infrastructure at www.
vhub.org. This presents an opportunity for
interested parties to provide contributions
which demonstrate the successful transfer
of volcano science to decision making,
either during a crisis or for planning and
preparedness between eruptions.
Why is a collaborative approach so vital
to the development of GVM?
SL: The GVM network is an international
collaboration with partners and sponsors
across the globe, including Australia, France,
Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New
Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the UK and the
US. Each partner offers different expertise in
developing models, methods, information and
tools to analyse and monitor hazard risk and
impacts. GVM has been commissioned by the
UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction to carry
out an assessment of global volcanic hazard
and risk for its 2015 report (GAR15) and will
deliver the first comprehensive assessment
of global volcanism from such a perspective.
This has never been done before and will
provide a benchmark assessment of the state
of knowledge on volcanoes in relation to their
hazards and risks.
To date, what progress has been made
towards these goals?
SS: We now have 19 partners, including
many major volcanological research centres,
three insurance sector partners and other
international organisations, notably WOVO,
which has 80 Observatory members. The
GLOBAL VOLCANO MODEL
Professor Steve Sparks and Dr Sue Loughlin are preparing to embark on the first comprehensive global
volcanic hazard and risk assessment. Here, they discuss the critical processes supporting this effort
Who will be the key users of GVM?
SL: There are many potential users spread
across the world. These include citizens living
on or near volcanoes; governments; the
humanitarian aid sector and development
organisations interested in disaster risk
reduction; the insurance sector; aviation;
national, regional and local authorities; civil
protection; international agencies such the
UN and World Bank; businesses and critical
facilities affected or threatened by volcanic
hazards; as well as a number of research
institutions around the world.
Looking ahead, what are the next steps in
building the network?
SS: Looking beyond the current work, the
next stages are to give GVM much more
visibility in the community and create a sense
of community ownership, which are both
very challenging goals. GVM is not yet widely
known in the community, except in a rather
vague way, and we will work hard to engage
interested parties worldwide in the coming
months and years and hopefully develop a wide
sense of ownership. A science goal is to develop
ensemble numerical global volcano models,
which can be used to characterise global
volcanism in a framework to look at past and
future volcanism based on available evidence
and understanding. This goal is achievable but
will likely involve several years of work, major
resources and coordination within GVM.
WWW.RESEARCHMEDIA.EU
77
GLOBAL VOLCANO MODEL
Heeding the hazards
Under the flagship of the Global Volcano Model, a truly international effort has been mobilised to improve
the capacity of communities to understand volcanoes, anticipate eruptions and better manage their threats
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS CAN have far-reaching
and devastating impacts on people, economies
and the climate. In the short term, effects include
loss of lives, and the destruction of livelihoods
and lifeline infrastructure. Over the longer term,
disease, famine, displacement of populations,
disruption of clean water supplies and physical
destruction of key economic facilities can all
have lasting impacts on communities.
Global efforts are underway to identify and
better manage the risks resulting from the
complex interactions of volcanic eruptions with
the environment and society. In order to draw
together and assimilate much of this work, a
global partnership and network of institutions
known as the Global Volcano Model (GVM) is
generating key information about volcanoes,
their hazards and their impacts. The driving goal
of the work is to improve understanding of past
volcanic activity and anticipate future risk.
Professor Steve Sparks from the Department
of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol
explains that the project arose from the
recognition that, although the international
volcanological community is very active, key
knowledge gaps exist and efforts in the field
need better coordination and integration: “There
78INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION
was a sense that volcanology would be more
effective in applying its science to the benefit of
society if it presented a united front”. As such,
there is a strong international consensus that
GVM is an essential and timely undertaking.
ACCESSIBLE GLOBAL
INFORMATION PLATFORM
Formed in 2011, GVM works principally
through holding workshops and secondments
of staff and students, supplemented by virtual
meetings and online collaboration via vhub.org.
Task forces on key topics with clearly defined
deliverables are an important component of
GVM. These activities allow partners to work
closely together to develop the data and
methodologies of analysis, write papers where
novel research results emerge, and develop the
outreach side of the project. The network has
now expanded to comprise 19 institutions and
organisations representing many of the world’s
centres of research excellence in volcanology as
well as organisations from the insurance sector.
The LaMEVE database is a good illustration
of the data-gathering efforts that have been
developed to feed into GVM. This contains the
nearly 3,000 Quaternary volcanoes catalogued
by the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism
Program and over 1,800 explosive eruption
records spanning the last 1.8 million years. The
database – accessible online at www.bgs.ac.uk/
vogripa – primarily consists of data on eruption
magnitude, age and source volcano location.
The datasets were collected from published
literature; principally Volcanoes of the World
by Siebert et al. (2010) and journal articles,
but also other online databases, books, public
reports and conference proceedings. LaMEVE
represents a major resource for identifying and
evaluating past explosive eruptions on local,
national and regional scales.
INTERFACING WITH
INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES
GVM is closely linked with the International
Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of
the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI, see p80) – the only
international organisation of volcanologists.
IAVCEI Commissions include the World
Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVO)
and Cities on Volcanoes, which holds a major
meeting every two years to bring scientists
and public officials responsible for emergency
management together.
GVM activities are aimed at complementing
rather than duplicating the activities of these
key organisations. It supports and interfaces
with major international initiatives:
•Global Volcanism Program (GVP) – housed
in the Department of Mineral Sciences – part
of the National Museum of Natural History
– in Washington DC, GVP is a visionary
geoinformatics endeavour coordinated by
the Smithsonian Institution. In operation
since 1968, it uniquely and comprehensively
documents the eruptive histories of
Holocene volcanoes (over the last 10,000
years). The overall mission of GVP is to
understand global patterns of volcanism in
space and time
• WOVOdat – this is a collective record of
volcano monitoring worldwide presently
hosted at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
It will have many uses for both crisis response
and research. The principal goal of WOVOdat,
as contrasted with databases at individual
observatories, is to enable swift comparisons
of unrest at various volcanoes, rapid searches
for particular patterns of disturbance, and
other operations on data from many volcanoes
and episodes of unrest
• VHub – the online resource for collaboration
in volcanology research and risk mitigation
provides easy mechanisms for: sharing tools to
model volcanic processes and analyse volcano
data; sharing resources such as teaching
materials and workshops; and communicating
with other members of the volcanology
community and members of the educational
and stakeholder communities
• The Volcano Global Risk Identification and
Analysis Project (VOGRIPA) – the project
aims to create a global database of volcanic
activity, hazards and vulnerability information
that can be analysed to identify locations
at high risk from volcanism and gaps in
knowledge about hazards and risk
There are several current activities and
initiatives within GVM. Task forces include
efforts to develop standardised indices of
volcanic hazard and risk, activities to coordinate
a synthesis for global volcanic risk for the United
Nations International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction within the GVM partnership, a task
force to develop a database on deformation of
volcanoes as recorded by satellites, and one
to start developing stochastic models of ash
hazard. A Volcano Observatory Best Practices
workshop is being planned on the topic of
communication and will support observatory
scientists from around the world to gather
together and share knowledge and experience
on this critical topic. The VOGRIPA project is
currently developing new databases on debris
avalanches and lahars (volcanic mudflows).
MODEL BEHAVIOUR
One of the eventual goals of GVM is a complex
system ensemble model. Parameters typically
have wide ranges and their uncertainties can
be large. The researchers envisage several
linked and hierarchical models, each with
different objectives that explore a range of
behaviours and impacts, and how certain
systems might respond to an eruption: “There
is a need for interoperability between different
models and datasets to create an integrated
family of dynamic and hazards models that
can forecast risks on multiple spatial- and
timescales,” observes Sparks. “Impact models
require knowledge of vulnerabilities of
people, infrastructures and assets along with
uncertainties, as well as how these attributes
of society might interact under the stress of
eruptions and the quantification of risks.” It is
hoped that all of this work will help to improve
the assessments of what kind of unrest is likely
to lead to future high-risk eruptions.
A SUCCESSFUL START
The first GVM Steering Group and Management
Meeting took place on 30 April and 1 May
2012 at the British Geological Survey offices in
Edinburgh. The meeting provided an excellent
opportunity for networking, information sharing
and brain-storming. Moreover, the first project
meeting and subsequent workshop achieved
agreement on database content, database
architecture, standards, protocols, definitions,
methodologies and, crucially, division of labour
between the partners.
The Global Volcano Model is
generating key information about
volcanoes, their hazards and their
impacts. The driving goal of the
work is to improve understanding
of past volcanic activity and
anticipate future risk
The next major meeting is the IAVCEI General
Assembly in Kagoshima July 2013. As well as
welcoming presentations on all aspects of the
GVM initiatives, IAVCEI are also particularly
keen to invite contributions demonstrating
successful transfer of volcano science to
decision making either during a crisis or for
planning and preparedness between eruptions.
Ultimately, the efforts of this novel international
collaboration represent a significant leap in
development of information on volcanoes and
their hazards. It is hoped that new international
metadata standards can be developed to help
minimise the current uncertainty found in the use
of global volcanic datasets. Moreover, a plethora
of potential end-users will benefit from the
GVM research activities and utilise the scientific
evidence as a basis for mitigation planning and
developing risk management strategies in a wide
range of sectors and industries.
INTELLIGENCE
GLOBAL VOLCANO MODEL
OBJECTIVES
To provide systematic evidence, data and
analysis of volcanic hazards and risk on global,
regional and local scales, and to develop the
capability to anticipate future volcanism and
its consequences.
PARTNERS
University of Bristol, UK • British
Geological Survey (BGS), NERC, UK •
The Earth Observatory of Singapore
• European Plate Observing System •
GeoScience Australia • Geophysical
Institute University of Alaska at Fairbanks
• GNS Science, New Zealand • International
Association of Volcanology and Chemistry
of the Earth’s Interior • INGV, Italy •
IVHHN, Durham University, UK • The
Geological Survey of Japan • NGI, Norway
• Risk Management Solutions • Seismic
Research Centre, The University of the West
Indies • The Smithsonian Institution, UK •
The State University of New York, USA •
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México • University of Iceland • University
of South Florida, USA • U.S. Geological
Survey • Willis and Munich • WOVO
FUNDING
Natural Environment Research Council, UK
CONTACT
Professor Steve Sparks
School of Earth Sciences
Wills Memorial Building, University of Bristol
Queen’s Road, Bristol, BS8 1RJ, UK
T +44 117 954 5419
E steve.sparks@bristol.ac.uk
www.globalvolcanomodel.org
STEVE SPARKS is Professor of Geology
in the School of Earth Sciences at Bristol
University and a senior researcher in one
of the world’s leading research groups in
volcanology. His research concerns volcanic
and igneous processes.
SUE LOUGHLIN is Head of Volcanology at
the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, UK
and leads a team with diverse skills dedicated
to volcano research and monitoring who
collaborate widely to help build resilience to
volcanic eruptions. She worked for several
years at Montserrat Volcano Observatory and
was Director from 2004-06.
WWW.RESEARCHMEDIA.EU
79