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3 - Volcanic hazards and risks: a geomorphological perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2011

By
Jean-Claude Thouret
Edited by
Irasema Alcántara-Ayala  and
Andrew S. Goudie
Irasema Alcántara-Ayala
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City
Andrew S. Goudie
Affiliation:
St Cross College, Oxford
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Summary

Introduction

The burial of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius, the devastation produced by the tsunami generated during the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 and the city of St Pierre laid waste by Mount Pelée's ‘nuées ardentes’ are but a few awesome examples of disasters caused by powerful volcanic eruptions. Since AD 1783 eruption-related deaths have totalled 220,000 (Tanguy et al., 1998). Most resulted from post-eruption famine and epidemic disease (30%), pyroclastic flows and surges (27%), lahars (17%) and volcanogenic tsunamis (17%). Volcanic fatalities are small compared to those of floods and earthquakes but the potential threat from a massive eruption is greater today than ever before, because of the large concentrations of populations living around volcanoes. More than 500 million people live in active volcanic areas (Tilling, 2005) and at least 200 million now live in cities within 200 km of an active or potentially active volcano (Chester et al., 2001). A volcanic eruption of ‘modest’ size (VEI 3), such as the Nevado del Ruiz event in 1985, results in about 7.7 billion US$ in loss. This figure may look small when compared to the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake in Japan but the modest 1985 eruption affected an estimated 20% of Colombia's domestic growth.

The sense of volcanic risk can be defined by Fournier d'Albe's qualitative ‘risk equation’ (1979): volcanic risk = hazard × vulnerability × value.

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Information
Geomorphological Hazards and Disaster Prevention , pp. 13 - 32
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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