Improving communication during volcanic crises on small, vulnerable islands

Tourists are looking increasingly for adventurous experiences by exploring unusual and interesting landscapes. Active volcanic and hydrothermal landscapes and their remarkable manifestations of geysers, fumaroles and boiling mud ponds are some of the surface features that fascinate visitors of National Parks, Geoparks and World Heritage areas worldwide. The uniqueness of hydrothermal activity based on volcanism has provided popular tourist attractions in many countries for several thousand years. The Romans for example have used hydrothermal springs on the Italian island Ischia and visited the Campi Flegrei for recreational purposes. In Iceland the original Geysir already attracted international visitors over 150 years ago, who came to observe this spectacular hydrothermal phenomenon. In Greece and Turkey volcanic hot springs have historically provided attractive destinations, as well as in New Zealand, Japan and the Americas. The fact that locations with hydrothermal activity based on active volcanism have acquired various forms of protected site status, adds a further dimension to their attraction and demonstrates a significant contribution to sustainable and nature based tourism. Countries such as Iceland, New Zealand and Japan have a long tradition of using hydrothermal activity in its various forms to offer tourists a unique natural experience. These environments however are also known for their unpredictable and potentially hostile nature, as the use of hydrothermal features as a natural resource for tourism does harbour certain risks with the potential to affect human health and safety. to several hundred metres in diameter. Apart from unexpected eruptions of hydrothermal vents with the potential to cause thermal burns, further risk factors include seismic activity such as earthquakes, lethal gas emissions of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) as well as ground instability through hydrothermal alteration. While it is essential to prevent injuries to tourists the management of hydrothermal hazards remains problematic. Precursory signs are not well understood by the general public and the communication of imminent danger is frequently unachievable. As a consequence serious thought needs to be given to the risk factors and the potential danger of areas in the proximity of active hydrothermal manifestations such as extreme hot springs and geysers. To improve the safety standards in hydrothermal landscapes that are used as main features in tourism, strategic guidelines for best practice management must cover ALL active volcanic and hydrothermal areas. This chapter looks at management issues at hydrothermal destinations with special consideration of areas where these unique features are integrated as tourist attractions. Examples from destinations traditionally based on active volcanic and hydrothermal phenomena are presented as case studies to highlight the risk management processes in individual countries. Potential hazards in volcanic and hydrothermal areas are assessed with a focus on the prevention of acciden...

Section: Definitions Of Hazard Risk and Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hazard and Crisis Communication 41 Alerting The Publiccommumentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Main Stakeholders and Their Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Active Hydrothermal Features as Tourist Attractions

Erfurt-Cooper¹

2017

“…Since the late 1990s there has been significant focus on improving communications during volcanic crises (IAVCEI 1999;McGuire et al 2009;Aspinall 2010;Donovan et al 2012a, b;Sobradelo et al 2014). A common factor that emerges is the value of probabilities as a way to communicate scientific forecasts and their associated uncertainties, for natural hazards in general (Cooke 1991;Colyvan 2008;Stein and Stein 2013), or more specific for volcano forecasting (Aspinall and Cook 1998;Marzocchi et al 2004;Aspinall 2006;Sobradelo and Martí 2010;Marzocchi and Bebbington 2012;Donovan et al 2012c).…”

Section: Using Probabilities To Communicate Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What is the dimension of the problem? These are basic questions that civil protection asks to the scientist once an alert has been declared, and the process of managing a volcanic crisis has started (IAVCEI 1999;McGuire et al 2009;Aspinall 2010;Donovan et al 2012a, b;Sobradelo et al 2014). Usually, scientists can answer these questions with approximations (probabilities) based on knowledge of previous cases from the same volcano, or from other volcanoes with similar characteristics, knowledge of the past eruptive history of the volcano, warning signals (geophysical and geochemical monitoring), and knowledge about the significance of these warning signs.…”

Section: Using Probabilities To Communicate Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Statistics to Quantify and Communicate Uncertainty During Volcanic Crises

Sobradelo

Martı́²

2017

For decades, and especially in recent years, there has been an increasing amount of research using statistical modelling to produce volcanic forecasts, so that people could make better decisions. This research aims to add confidence by arming users with quantitative summaries of the chaos and uncertainty of extreme situations, in the form of probabilities-that is to say the measure of the likeliness that an event will occur.

Decision-Making: Preventing Miscommunication and Creating Shared Meaning Between Stakeholders

Doyle

Paton

2017

The effective management and response to either volcanic eruptions or (often prolonged) periods of heightened unrest, is fundamentally dependent upon effective relationships and communication between science advisors, emergency managers and key decision makers. To optimise the effectiveness of the scientific contribution to effective prediction and management decision making, it is important for science advisors or scientific advisory bodies to be cognisant of the many different perspectives, needs and goals of the diverse organisations involved in the response. Challenges arise for scientists as they may need to be embedded members of the wider response multi-agency team, rather than independent contributors of essential information. Thus they must add to their competencies an understanding of the different roles, responsibilities, and needs of each member organisation, such that they can start to provide information implicitly rather than in response to explicit requests. To build this shared understanding, the team situational awareness (understanding of the situation in time and space), and the wider team mental model (a representation of the team functions and responsibilities), requires participating in a response environment together. Facilitating the availability of this capability has training and organizational development implications for scientific agencies and introduces a need for developing new inter-agency relationships and liaison mechanisms well before a volcanic crisis occurs. In this chapter, we review individual and team decision making, and the role of situational awareness and mental models in creating "shared meaning" between agencies. The aim is to improve communication and information sharing, as well as furthering the understanding of the impact that uncertainty has upon communication and ways to manage this. We then review personal and organisational factors that can impact response and conclude with a brief review of methods available to improve future response capability, and the importance of protocols and guidelines to assist this in a national or international context.