Assessing qualitative long-term volcanic hazard at Lanzarote Island (Canary Islands)

Abstract

Abstract. Conducting long-term hazard assessment in active volcanic areas is of primordial importance for land planning and to define emergency plans able to be applied in case of a crisis. Definition of scenario hazard maps helps to mitigate the consequences of future eruptions by anticipating to the events that may occur. Lanzarote is an active volcanic island that has hosted the largest (> 1.5 km3 DRE) and longest (6 years) eruption, the Timanfaya eruption, on the Canary Islands in historical times (last 600 years). This eruption brought severe economic losses and forced local people to migrate. In spite of all these facts, no comprehensive hazard assessment neither hazard maps have been developed for the island. In this work, we present an integrated long-term volcanic hazard evaluation using a systematic methodology that includes spatial analysis and simulations of the most probable expected eruptive scenarios.