New Zealand's Volcanic Risk Research on the International Stage
Damage to Ketetahi hut following the Tongariro eruption. Photo: Brad Scott, GNS Science.
The 27 September 2014 eruption of Ontake Volcano in Japan was a wake up call for scientists and emergency personnel faced with managing the risk posed by small, fast-onset volcanic eruptions. We were lucky in the 2012 Te Maari eruption that the event happened on a winter night when no one was using the Tongariro Alpine Crossing track or Ketetahi Hut. Both were impacted by ballistics (flying rocks) and pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) from the eruption. This kind of activity can potentially happen at any time from Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro, and Platform partners are working closely with the international science community to share and improve methods for volcanic risk management.
New Zealand is quite advanced in the calculation of life safety for staff and the public to inform decisions about safety distances during eruptions. The calculation was developed collaboratively between GNS Science and the Department of Conservation around the Te Maari eruption. It was published along with discussion of the wider multi-agency coordinated response in a paper in the 2014 special issue of the International Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. The special issue was edited by Art Jolly (GNS Science) and Shane Cronin (Massey University, and includes papers on ballistics, PDCs, meteorological monitoring of ash, seismology, ash characterisation, impacts and the development of hazard maps.
A wide group of Platform partners produced a suite of maps before and during the 2012 eruption, and recognised that some things could have been done better. We’re now helping lead a hazard map working group for the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI), tasked with developing an international guideline for volcanic hazard maps. The working group had its first workshop as part of the Cities on Volcanoes Conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in September 2014.
The University of Canterbury and GNS Science have initiated a PhD study by Rebecca Fitzgerald on ballistics linking the deposits from Ontake and Te Maari to computer models and calculations of life safety for improved hazard zones for future hazard maps (♦ See VIDEO below). This will involve collaborative field work with scientists at Mount Ontake. Graham Leonard of GNS science was sponsored by the Geological Survey of Japan to present New Zealand and IAVCEI hazard mapping initiatives as part of a workshop on hazard risk reduction at the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai.
There is also Platform effort around pyroclastic density current (PDC) models and PDC experiments underway that will also inform hazard map zones (♦ VIDEO Link). This includes primary field research as part of the DEVORA project in Auckland, and simulating Ontake and Tongariro style PDCs on the pyroclastic flow machine at Massey University. The size of ballistic and flow hazard zones on hazard maps is a critical issue, which should be linked to acceptable life safety.
Laboratory simulations of pyroclastic density currents. Photo: Massey University.
Finally, Platform partners have been working closely with the Global Volcano Model, to produce the first inclusion of an estimate of global volcanic risk in the United Nations UN-ISDR Global Assessment of Risk Report published in March 2015 (GAR2015). New Zealand team expertise around the impacts of volcanic ash and strategies for collaborative risk reduction were used and highlighted in the report.
Contacts:
- Graham Leonard, GNS Science
- Shane Cronin, Massey University, now at University of Auckland
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Last updated 16 Dec 2015