The increasing exposure of cities to the effects of volcanic eruptions: a global survey

Abstract

The most dynamic demographic process of the past 250 years has been the movement of people from rural areas to cities. For most of this period urbanisation has been concentrated in economically more developed parts of the world, but during the last 50 years the focus has shifted to economically less developed regions. Urbanisation, particularly in developing countries, has led to increasing global exposure to a variety of natural hazards, not the least of which are risks posed to large cities by volcanoes. In this paper we monitor these demographic changes and detail the various types of volcanic hazard to which cities are exposed. A major eruption affecting a city in a developing country could cause widespread loss of life and regional disruption. Effective response, however, might minimise casualties in a city within a developed nation affected by a major eruption, but the economic impact could have global consequences. We argue that global hazard exposure is often subtle and involves not only the size of a city and the types of volcanic product that may occur, but also the strategic position of the threatened city within the economy of a country and/or region and the fact that volcano-induced tsunami and other consequences of eruptions, such as climatic change, may affect cities far removed from a given eruption site. Mitigation measures informed by both specifc prediction (surveillance) and general prediction (hazard mapping) are providing the potential to reduce hazard exposure. The paper concludes with a consideration of ongoing research, in particular the emphasis currently being placed on conflating hazard analysis with studies of place, economy, society and culture.     

五大连池火山危险性分析

针对五大连池火山危险性问题进行了一系列的地球物理反演和分析,通过对现代岩交流心概念和国外活火山实例剖析,采用岩浆固结的Ｓｔｅｆａｎ问题的葩演了岩浆房的固结曲线和固结时间：引入ＳＦＴ理论探讨了五大连池火山岩浆碎屑化机制;利用壳幔结构化Ｒ值的分析方法分析了五大连池火山区地壳稳定性;采用火山区卫星重力异常剖面的分析方法探讨了五大连池火山区地幔物质活动性,结合五大连池火山现代喷发的史料分析,模拟了五连池火     

Research on Methods for Building Volcano Disaster Information System--taking Changbai Mountain as an example

1IntroductionAs a many-volcano-distributed country,China is covered with many volcanoes and lava rocks.A-mong the one-thousand-or-so volcanoes,Changbai Mountain Volcano,Wudalianchi Volcano,Tengchong Volcano and Ashikule Volcano of West Kunlun are the mostlatentcatastrophic erup-tive active volcanoes.In recent years,the activity of the earth' s crust in some volcanic areas isobviously becoming increasing violent.Butfew scholars have monitored and evaluated volcano inChina.So building VDI…     

火山灾害及其监测预防

本文阐明火山灾害是一种重大自然灾害,给人民生命财产造成严重损失。文中指出当前火山活动进入新的活跃期,提出我国火山灾害的潜在危险。我国许多休眠火山区,正在成为新的经济开发区和旅游疗养、开发地热和建材资源的新兴城镇,人口迅速增加,经济蓬勃发展。但还没有采取有效的火山监测研究和防灾措施。作者建议,应把火山监测研究纳入政府防灾日程,制定规划,拨出专款,把防御火山灾害同国土开发,经济建设结合起来。     

Satellite Observations of Lava Lake Activity at Nyiragongo Volvano, Ex-Zaire, during the Rwandan Refugee Crisis

In June 1994 the summit crater of Nyiragongo volcano, located in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, began to fill with new lava, ending nearly 12 years of quiescence. An earlier eruption of the volcano in 1977 had culminated in the catastrophic draining of a lava lake through fissures in the crater wall, feeding highly mobile lava flows which reached the outskirts of Goma and killed more than 70 people. By July 1994, as many as 20,000 Hutu refugees were arriving in Goma every hour, only 18km south from the summit of Nyiragongo. The exodus brought more than one million people to the camps near the town raising fears of a repeat of the 1977 eruption. This paper examines the role that satellite remote sensing could have played in surveillance of the volcano during this time, and demonstrates the potential for monitoring this and other volcanoes in the future. Images recorded by the spaceborne Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) – freely available over the Internet – provide semi-quantitative information on the activity of the volcano. The aim of this paper is to promote the wider use of readily available technologies.     

Volcanic disasters in Latin America and the 13th November 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia

Volcanic eruptions in Latin America have claimed about 61,000 lives since 1600 A.D. and the region's volcanoes are responsible for about a quarter of the world's fatalities from this type of hazard. Nearly all loss of life from volcanism in Latin America is due to pyroclastic surges, pyroclastic flows and lahars or volcanic mudflows. Lahars generated during the 13th November, 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia claimed 25,000 lives, underscoring the great hazard from lahars, which can be generated from the fifty-six, active, ice-capped Central and South American volcanoes during even very small eruptions. The probability of specific prediction of the timing of such events is currently low, whereas the probability of a general prediction of volcanic eruption is high, giving sufficient time to install telemetered lahar alarm systems, which could largely avoid the loss of life.     

长白山天池火山的研究现状与展望

较详细地介绍了近年来长白山天池火山喷发历史、火山形成机制、火山系统的探测和火山灾害的研究现状，指出了当前研究中存在的一些主要问题。建议今后应加强火山活动历史研究；探测岩浆作用及其动态变化，限定火山失稳条件；研究岩浆作用和火山触发机制；开展火山作用的试验模拟和火山灾害区划的定量模拟研究；建立火山灾害预警系统，制定火山灾害应急预案，以达到减轻火山灾害的目的。     

Exploring the use of satellite images in the estimation of potential malaria outbreak regions

Malaria outbreaks affect nearly 40 per cent of the earth's population, most of whom live in tropical and subtropical zones. Malaria is an infectious disease that is transferred by the female mosquito of the species Anopheles. The life cycle of the malaria parasite develops in the anopheline and in the human body. These parasites require suitable environmental conditions in order to complete their development cycles within the mosquito. The relevant parameters are temperature, humidity, vegetation and water. A temperature range of 25–35°C and relative humidity range of 50–80 per cent is suitable for developing malaria outbreaks. As the fly-range of the mosquito is limited to 2–4 km, and since water pools are necessary for breeding, the vector abundance is significantly higher around water bodies. Vegetation cover also has an indirect role on malaria vector abundance. To seek to locate the regions with high potential for malaria outbreaks, we have constructed an experimental map of above-mentioned parameters via remote sensing images. A 7ETM⁺ image of Landsat platform is used in this study and maps of parameters such as land surface temperature, air temperature, air humidity, water pools and vegetated area were produced. However, a weighted combination of these layers showed some poor agreement with the distribution of positive malaria cases collected in the health centres in the region. The methodology first developed in this study is fast and accurate enough to be relied on for forecasting purposes, and could eventually lead—after further research and proper correlations—to improving the targeting of mitigation and relief operations by local health and related organizations.     

Normalised insurance losses from Australian natural disasters: 1966–2017

ABSTRACT

The paper updates normalisation of the Insurance Council of Australia’s Disaster List in the light of debate about the contribution of global warming to the rising cost of natural disasters. Normalisation estimates losses from historical events in a common year, here ‘season’ 2017 defined as the 12-month period from 1 July 2017. The number and nominal cost of new residential dwellings are key normalising factors and post-1974 improvements in construction standards in tropical cyclone-prone parts of the country are explicitly allowed for. 94% of the normalised losses arise from weather-related perils – bushfires, tropical cyclones, floods and severe storms – with the 1999 Sydney hailstorm the most costly single event (AUD5.6 billion). When aggregated by season, there is no trend in normalised losses from weather-related perils; in other words, after we normalise for changes we know to have taken place, no residual signal remains to be explained by changes in the occurrence of extreme weather events, regardless of cause. In sum, the rising cost of natural disasters is being driven by where and how we chose to live and with more people living in vulnerable locations with more to lose, natural disasters remain an important problem irrespective of a warming climate.     

Public participation in NGO-oriented communities for disaster prevention and mitigation (N-CDPM) in the Longmen Shan fault area during the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquake periods

ABSTRACT

The Longmen Shan fault area in southwest China is one of the world’s most active earthquake zones. The epicenters of the two most recent earthquakes, the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake (8.0?Ms) and the 2013 Lushan earthquake (7.0?Ms), both of which caused serious losses, were only 85?km apart. Community-based disaster risk reduction is the foundation of the disaster management system pyramid and is critical to the success of ‘sustainable hazard mitigation’. Based on multiple collaborative stakeholder perspectives, this paper examines public participation in an NGO-oriented Community for Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (N-CDPM) in the period between the two earthquakes as a multi-stage problem; N-CDPM establishment, normal operations, disaster testing, and continuous improvement. Multi-stage field research was conducted in the affected areas in the Longmen Shan fault area to examine the collaboration in each stage, after which the differences were compared across the four stages based on eight key indices; scales, core stakeholders, core network stability, mean number of lines, mean collaborative level, governments, and individual and public organization participation. The government participation, individual participation, and public organization participation are then discussed. This paper provides a novel research approach to CDPM in multiple earthquake regions and gives rich insights into the collaboration between the government and the public for N-CDPM.     

Climate variability,political crises,and historical population displacements in Ethiopia

Abstract

El Niño events from the 1970s through the 1990s caused extended droughts in Ethiopia. These droughts were followed by famine and political turmoil that resulted in radical changes of government, secession, and a massive program of population redistribution. Cartographic analysis of Ethiopian census data from 1984 and 1994 shows changes in demographic patterns. The consequences of government-imposed migration policies, whose catalyst was the climate variability caused by repeated El Niño events, were changes in the ethnic composition of certain Ethiopian regions and changes in the geographic pattern of population growth.     

五大连池老黑山火山的两次喷发活动

老黑山是五大连池火山群中最年轻的火山.通过对老黑山火山锥体结构及其形态分析指出,老黑山火山并非单锥,而是由先、后不同时期形成的两个锥体叠加组成的复合锥,表明它有两次喷发活动.通过对新发掘出的史料的分析,进一步指出,老黑山火山的第一次喷发时间为1720(不是1719年)-1721年,第二次可能为1776年.两次喷发活动的确认为研究老黑山火山喷发历史、喷发过程、喷发危险性评价和灾害预测等提供了新依据.     

Assessment of Global Weather Disasters in 2000

1 Climate background Although the La Nina event caused the decrease of the mean temperature in the tropical regions of the Pacific Ocean, the year 2000 had remained one of the hottest since 1860 when records of the global mean temperature began. The temperature in the areas to the north of 20扤 from December 1999 to November 2000 marked the second warmest in history. The mean temperature of the global surface in 2000 was 0. 60C above the average during the period 1880?999, and was close to …     

基于TM与MODIS遥感数据的农业旱情监测——以河北省为例

以河北省冬小麦种植区域为研究区,基于TM和MOD IS遥感数据,利用植被供水指数法确定了研究区旱情等级。首先,将其与遥感解译获得的冬小麦空间分布图叠加得到受灾冬小麦空间分布图;然后以1 km的距离在受灾冬小麦周围做缓冲区,并与通过人口密度模型获得的人口密度空间分布图叠加,得出受灾人口空间分布;最后基于光能利用率改进模型构建粮食产量回归统计模型,得到粮食产量。目的是从粮食产量和作物受灾影响人口两个方面对农业受干旱影响情况进行遥感监测和定量评价,以期为相关部门制定防灾、抗灾措施提供科学依据。结果表明,2004年研究区:(1)春季受灾面积小,仅占16.4%;(2)旱情较轻,以轻旱为主,占受灾面积的89%;(3)冬小麦种植面积约为23 965.0 km2,受灾面积约606.3 km2,主要位于唐山市和保定市;(4)粮食产量回归统计模型精度达到了87%,冬小麦产量约为11939247 t,单产约为498.8 t/km2。     

PEER地震动数据库中含速度脉冲近场地震记录

以断层距0~20km为范围,利用美国太平洋地震研究中心PEER数据库收集整理含速度脉冲近场地震记录。研究了速度脉冲峰值和PGV/PGA比值分别与场地类别、矩震级以及断层距的关系。依据现有的PEER数据库,共整理出126条含速度脉冲近场地震记录,并按水平速度脉冲峰值由大到小顺序给出了该126条地震记录的列表。水平速度峰值主要分布于30~150cm/s,集集地震记录最多,C类和D类场地的地震记录数量较多。峰值大于100cm/s的速度脉冲地震记录主要出现在C类和D类场地,它们均出现在矩震级6.5级以上的地震记录中,均分布于断层距0~10km的范围内。PGV/PGA比值大于0.2的地震记录主要分布于C类和D类场地,除编号RSN316的地震记录外均出现于矩震级6.5级以上的地震记录中,主要分布于断层距0~10km的范围内。     

Small island developing states: natural disaster vulnerability and global change

Abstract

This paper sets out an examination of natural disaster amongst small island developing states (SIDS), and presents a framework for assessing the interaction of global pressures and local dynamics in the production of human vulnerability. Change at the global level is found to be a source of new opportunities as well as constraints on building local resilience to natural disaster. Much depends on the orientation of the state in global economic and political systems. The United Nations is a key global actor with relevance to shaping vulnerabilityin island states, and the impact of the UN Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction is reviewed. It is concluded that this is a critical time for SIDS which must contend with ongoing developmental pressures in addition to growing pressures from risks associated with global environmental change and economic liberalisation that threaten their physical and economic security.     

火山喷发的气体灾害

火山喷发是一种壮观的自然景象，其喷发类型多种多样。火山喷发不仅可以改变地貌，带来一些矿产资源，更多的是给自然界带来灾害。火山喷发一般都同时喷出气体，强火山喷发巨量的气体喷入空中，会给全球气候和环境造成极大的灾害。     

腾冲火山区地震的震源参数

火山区地震与非火山区或者说一般构造区地震的震源参数有何差异?本文使用2002-06-13～09-13腾冲火山区流动数字地震观测台网记录到的火山区地震资料,用波谱分析方法测算腾冲火山区地震的震源力学参数。对其中33个地震分析得出:腾冲火山区的地震震源浅,震级偏小;地震矩M0在8.32×1010～8.96×1012N·m之间;震级与地震矩之间的关系式为logM0=0.98ML+10.48,与姚安构造区得出的结果基本一致;震源位错半径在0.124～0.418km;地震应力降在(0.005～0.277)×105Pa,仅为姚安构造区地震应力降的1/5。这些结果表明腾冲火山区存在浅的岩浆体活动,在该区无大的应力积累。     

Risk transference and related trends: driving forces towards more mega-disasters

Abstract

In recent decades, the global cost of natural disasters has increased substantially. There are several trends in society and nature that suggest this pattern may continue, with more frequent mega-disasters occurring in the future. In particular, risk perception that is at odds with the “reala” risk underlies the process of risk transference which encourages development that increases long-term vulnerability.     

Volcanic Disaster Mitigation in the Philippines: Experience from Mt. Pinatubo

Considerable progress has been made in volcanic disaster mitigation in the Philippines during the last four decades, since the devastating Hibok-Hibok eruption in 1951 and the establishment of the Commission on Volcanology (COMVOL), the forerunner of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) in 1952. The management of the Pinatubo Volcano eruption crisis of 1991-92 marks the highest point in the development of volcanic disaster mitigation in the country. State-of-the-art volcano monitoring techniques and instruments were applied; the eruption was accurately predicted; hazards zonation maps were prepared and disseminated a month before the violent explosions; an alert and warning system was designed and implemented; and the disaster response machinery was mobilized on time. The unprecedented magnitude and lingering nature of the hazards, however, and their widespread, long-term impacts have sorely tested the capability of the country's volcanic disaster mitigation systems. In particular, the lahar threat has triggered controversies and put decision makers in a dilemma of choosing between adaptive versus confrontational/control approaches. At least three strategies have been articulated and adopted in varying degrees and forms: (1) the establishment of a lahar monitoring-warning-evacuation system to deal with the lahar problem on an emergency basis; (2) relocation of settlements from the hazard zones; and (3) installation of engineering countermeasures to control/divert the lahar flows and protect settlements. A combination of the three appears to be the best, but the most effective and least costly mix remains to be determined.