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The Integrated Mobile Volcano-Monitoring System Used by the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP)

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Monitoring and Mitigation of Volcano Hazards

Abstract

Following the tragic 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz Volcano, Colombia, the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) initiated the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). The primary mission of this interagency cooperative program is to reduce eruption-caused fatalities and economic loss during volcanic crises or disasters in developing countries. The VDAP concept grew out of the proposed, but never implemented International Mobile Early Warning System for volcanic eruptions and related Scismic activities (IMEWS), which was the subject of several international workshops in the early 1980s supported by the United Nations. The principal components of VDAP are a small core of full-time scientists at the USGS’ Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) in Vancouver, Washington, and a cache of volcano-monitoring equipment kept ready for rapid deployment. A third component is an ongoing effort to develop and enhance the hardware and software systems that VDAP uses to monitor volcanoes.

The USGS has developed a mobile volcano-monitoring system (MVMS) for the VDAP, which includes instrumentation to monitor Scismicity, deformation, certain geochemical parameters, and surface-flow phenomena. Also included are instruments to detect eruptions at times when it is not possible to observe the volcano because of inclement weather. Data are telemetered from the field via three distinct systems: (1) an analog Scismic telemetry system; (2) a low-data-rate digital telemetry system for slowly changing phenomena (e.g., ground deformation or chemical parameters); and (3) a digitally telemetered acoustic-flow monitor system. Data acquisition and analysis are accomplished through a network of personal computers (PC) that are interfaced to the telemetry systems. Nontelemetered data from monitoring activities such as leveling, electronic distance measurements (EDM), sulfur dioxide flux measurements, are entered into the system manually.

In April 1991, VDAP was dispatched to the Philippines to assist the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Scismology (PHIVOLCS) in assessing the volcanic hazards at Mt. Pinatubo. The joint Philippine US team worked quickly to install the MVMS, conduct reconnaissance mapping and dating studies to better understand Pinatubo’s eruptive history, prepare a preliminary hazards-zonation map, and to educate and alert the populations at risk. Timely warning advisories issued by the PHIVOLCS-VDAP team combined with effective communications between the scientists, emergency-management officials, and the public enabled the safe evacuation of at least 58 000 people prior to the volcano’s climactic eruption on 15 June 1991. The successful scientific response to the Mount Pinatubo eruption validated the IMEWS mobile-team concept. An important lesson was learned: A rapid response team can be deployed in time to significantly assist a host country to mitigate risks associated with a major volcanic eruption.

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  1. Cascades Volcano logical Observatory, US Geological Survey, 5400 MacArthur Blvd., Vancouver, WA, 98661, USA

    R. G. LaHusen

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  1. T. L. Murray
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  2. J. W. Ewert
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  3. A. B. Lockhart
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  4. R. G. LaHusen
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Murray, T.L., Ewert, J.W., Lockhart, A.B., LaHusen, R.G. (1996). The Integrated Mobile Volcano-Monitoring System Used by the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). In: Monitoring and Mitigation of Volcano Hazards. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-80087-0_10

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