Will my house resist to volcanic hazards? Let's be prepared!

Lucia Dominguez¹, Luigia Sara Di Maio¹, Angie S. Ramirez-Huerta¹, Carolina Diaz-Vecino¹, Maria Paz Reyes-Hardy¹, Riccardo Simionato¹, Allan Fries¹, Jonathan Lemus, Simon Thivet¹, Sebastien Biass¹, Alana Weir¹, Corine Frischknecht¹, Costanza Bonadonna¹

• Affiliations:  ¹Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, 1205, Switzerland  

• Presentation type: Talk

• Presentation time: Thursday 09:45 - 10:00, Room R290

• Programme No: 7.4.6

• Theme 7 > Session 4

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Abstract

Built awareness to volcanic eruptions is fundamental to understand volcanic consequences and ultimately reduce future risk. Due to the multiple nature of volcanic products, a large variety of impacts are associated with eruptions. We set up an environment with houses, people, cars and various assets exposed to lava flows, ballistics and tephra fallout. We will discuss the damage caused by these products and how the communities living around volcanoes can be better prepared to face these impacts. For lava flows we will use a slope with different viscosity fluids to show the importance of magma properties on the time of evacuation and self-protection. For tephra fallout we set up an inhabited area made of carboard houses with different built typologies. We explore then the resistance of these houses to the load due to tephra accumulation and impacts of ballistics. With this activity we introduce the concepts of i) hazard parameters ii) exposure of elements to volcanic hazards, ii) physical vulnerability of houses; and iv) the role of community preparedness in reducing impacts. This activity can be used by teachers and stakeholders located in volcanic settings to raise awareness in the residents but also in the people susceptible to travel to volcanic areas.