STREVA: Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas
An Interdisciplinary Project funded by the UK Natural Environment
(NERC) and Economic and Social (ESRC) Research Councils.
What is the Problem?
Understanding volcanic eruptions is never going to actually prevent them from happening.
When volcanoes do erupt they can cause both direct loss of life and indirect loss of
livelihoods via the destruction of resources and infrastructure such as crops, buildings and
water supplies. Volcanoes are also notorious for the widespread losses they can cause to
business and tourism via disrupted air travel and their long-term climate impacts. The nature
of the activity and its impact can also shift over the course of an eruption. Thus, volcanic risk
is a complex problem and helping communities to prepare for and to mitigate against
changing volcanic activity requires researchers not only to anticipate better that activity but
also to understand the role that society, politics and culture plays in creating and eroding
resilience to eruptions.
To be successful, risk reduction strategies must promote
collaboration, integrate diverse knowledge and communicate effectively with populations at
risk to allow them to prepare for, cope with and recover from volcanic activity.
What is STREVA ?
STREVA is an innovative interdisciplinary project that aims to work collaboratively across
different disciplines to develop and apply a risk assessment framework. This can be used to
generate plans that will reduce the negative consequences of volcanic activity on people and
assets. Led by the University of East Anglia (UK), the STREVA project brings together
diverse researchers from universities and research institutes from within the UK and from
those areas affected directly by volcanic activity. We will collaborate with those responsible
for monitoring, preparing for and responding to those threats and through them with the
communities facing volcanic threats including disaster managers and policy makers. The
main focus will be on six volcanic sites across the Lesser Antilles, Ecuador and Colombia;
these countries are faced with multiple volcanic threats often in close proximity to large
towns and cities. However, by working across multiple sites STREVA will identify common
issues in volcanic disaster risk in these settings and consider how lessons could be applied
worldwide.
What will STREVA do?
The project will begin by examining three well monitored, active volcanoes (Soufrière Hills,
Montserrat; Galeras, Colombia, and Tungurahua, Ecuador) to analyse what happened
during several volcanic emergencies; including how well activity was forecast and the
community and policy responses. These are STREVA’s forensic volcanoes.
Using this analysis we will develop:
(i)
better methods for forecasting the start of eruptions and changes in activity
during eruption;
(ii)
better ways to predict areas at-risk (the "footprint") from different volcanic
hazards;
(iii)
an understanding of the factors that make people and their assets more
vulnerable to volcanic threats;
(iv)
an understanding of institutional constraints and capacities and how to improve
incentives for risk reduction
We will then integrate these new data and methods to develop a new dynamic risk
assessment framework. This will be further tested at three high-risk volcanoes where
monitoring and understanding is less advanced (Soufrière St Vincent, St Vincent; Cerro
Machin, Colombia, and Cotopaxi, Ecuador). These are known as STREVA’s trial volcanoes.
All six case studies will help the team to identify common issues in volcanic disaster risk to
develop regional risk assessment processes, improve long-term planning and consider the
applicability of our findings in other settings worldwide.
By the end of the project, this new knowledge will help us to measure volcanic risk more
accurately and monitor how that risk is changing. Importantly, by taking this interdisciplinary,
collaborative approach, STREVA will have real impacts in real places, and will significantly
advance the fields of volcanic risk analysis and disaster risk reduction.
School boy observing the eruption of Soufrière Hills, Montserrat. © Jon Stone