Final Report Summary - VOLDIES (Dynamics of volcanoes and their impact on the environment and society)
The forecasting of volcanic eruptions and assessment of associated hazards and risks is central to the management of volcanic emergencies and planning for future eruptions. Forecasting and assessment are greatly enhanced by improved understanding of how volcanoes work. VOLDIES has made major advances in understanding volcanism, has applied this understanding to assess volcanic hazards and has been engaged with providing advice on volcanic risk on local, regional and global scales, including during emergencies. From this research a new paradigm of the magma systems in the Earth's crust beneath volcanoes has emerged. It is now apparent that volcanic systems are governed by very slow accumulation of magmas with development of multiple layers of molten rock and gas when volcanoes are dormant and very fast destablisation of these layers when volcanoes erupt. The new theory helps explain both what triggers eruptions and how volcanoes behave during eruptions. VOLDIES research has explained how volcanic conduits and vents from and how this controls eruptions. VOLDIES has answered the question how often volcanoes erupt and how large are these eruptions. The global database created by VOLDIES has enabled the relationship between eruption size and frequency to be established, and can be viewed as the volcanic equivalent of the long establish relationship between earthquake size and frequency. The project has developed new approaches to assessing volcanic hazards and risk. This understanding has been applied in three different volcanic emergencies, including the eruption at the Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, the aviation crises in Europe and the UK related to ash hazard from Iceland in 2010 and 2011, and the volcanic disturbances at Santorini volcano in Greece in 2011 and 2012. In each case VOLDIES team members contributed important scientific analysis or hazard and risk and gave advice to pertinent authorities to aid either planning for future eruptions or decisions during emergencies. The VOLDIES team played a leading role in developing regional and global assessments of volcanic hazard and risk for the World Bank and UN.