Volcanic threat in developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region: probablistic hazard assessment, population risks, and information shortages  

Authors / CoAuthors

Simpson, A. | Johnson, R.W. | Cumminis, P.

Abstract

The importance of disaster-risk reduction in ensuring long-term sustainability of development and economic growth has gained increased awareness within the international development community, and thereby highlighted a need for a broad assessment of natural hazards across the Asia-Pacific region. A key component of this assessment involves qualifying, and ultimately quantifying, the frequency and potential consequences of large Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 4 or more volcanic eruptions in this region. The frequencies of large eruptions were determined from frequency-magnitude plots using eruption data provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program. However, calculated frequencies represent only minimum values. This is because roughly half of the volcanoes in the region have no eruption chronologies, the eruption record for the most part extends back only 400 years, and good records exist for only the last 180 years. A rough analysis was undertaken to estimate the populations likely to be impacted by large volcanic eruptions, where 'impacted' refers to possible death, injury, building damage, loss of access to basic services, and failure of industrial/agriculture production. The following conclusions were made from frequency-impact plots: - Indonesia and the Philippines have the highest level of risk with respect to volcanic eruptions, in terms of total population impacted. - Volcanic disasters affecting populations of 100,000 or more can be expected at least every decade in Indonesia and once every few decades in the Philippines. - Both Indonesia and the Philippines, at current population levels, have the potential to experience volcanic disasters affecting at least 1 million people, at a rate of once and twice a century, respectively. - All of the countries for which results were obtained - Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Tonga have the potential for a volcanic disaster that will impact at least 1% of the population, but at different rates: twice a century for Vanuatu, around twice a millennium for Indonesia and the Philippines, and around every millennium for Papua New Guinea and Tonga - Vanuatu has the potential for catastrophic volcanic disaster that seriously affects more than 5% of the population around once a millennium.

Product Type

nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

65932

Contact for the resource

Keywords

• External PublicationScientific Journal Paper

( Theme )

• risk assessment

( Theme )

• volcanology

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

Publication Date

2008-05-16T00:00:00

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - restricted

Use - license

Status

Purpose

Maintenance Information

unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

Series Information

Lineage

Unknown

Parent Information

Extents

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

Downloads and Links

Source Information

Source data not available.