The Volcano Disaster Assistance Program: 30 Years of Saving Lives Worldwide

From a U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet by Jacob B. Lowenstern and David W. Ramsey, 2017.

What do you do when a sleeping volcano wakes up? For more than three decades, countries around the world have called on the USGS Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) for expertise and equipment in a crisis. Co-funded by the USGS and the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA), the program has grown to include new monitoring technology, training and exchanges, and eruption forecasting methods — and what it learns abroad strengthens the United States' response to its own volcanoes.

Born of a tragedy

VDAP was formed in 1986 after an eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia triggered a volcanic mudflow that destroyed the city of Armero on the night of November 13, 1985, killing more than 25,000 people in the city and nearby. The tragedy was avoidable: better public education and clear communication between scientists and officials could have let warnings be received, understood and acted on.

The program's mission is to help foreign partners, at their request, to monitor volcanoes, and to equip them to lead the reduction of hazards at their own dangerous volcanoes.

• Responses: since 1986, more than 70 major volcanic crises at more than 50 volcanoes.
• Capacity: response capacity strengthened in 12 countries.
• Team: about 20 geologists, geophysicists and engineers, based at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.
• Recognition: in 2016 VDAP was a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal.

Volcanoes where VDAP has responded in its first 30-plus years. USGS.

Warnings that saved lives

Successful responses combine geophysical data, fieldwork, satellite observations, history and effective communication.

• Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, 1991 — VDAP's first major test. The volcano threatened two U.S. military bases and towns and villages home to hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. At the request of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, the two teams installed monitoring networks and assessed the chance of a cataclysmic eruption. With VDAP's input, the U.S. military evacuated more than 15,000 service members and dependents from Clark Air Force Base. Evacuations of nearby communities saved between 5,000 and 20,000 lives, and hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of equipment was moved or protected before the eruption days later.
• Nevado del Huila, Colombia, 2008 — on November 20, a mudflow swept through the town of Belalcázar. With earlier support from VDAP, the Colombian Geological Survey avoided a repeat of Armero through timely warnings, strong public education and good communication: people knew the danger and were ready, and 12,000 evacuated the town at night.
• Merapi, Indonesia, 2010 — on October 22, Indonesian scientists saw unusually intense earthquakes, gas and ground movement. Every available satellite was tasked to watch a lava dome grow at the summit, radar seeing through the clouds. Local authorities evacuated everyone within 10 kilometres (6 miles) on October 25; twenty-three hours later, pyroclastic flows — scorching clouds of ash and rock — reached 8 kilometres (5 miles). VDAP and the Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geologic Hazard Mitigation kept tracking the dome by radar, and on November 4 the evacuation zone was widened to 20 kilometres (12 miles). Hours later, Merapi's largest eruption in 100 years sent flows as far as 15 kilometres (9 miles). The warnings and evacuations saved between 10,000 and 20,000 lives.

Equipment that makes a difference

VDAP engineers build robust instruments that are simple to install, easy to maintain and long-lasting. Seismic and GPS stations detect the small earthquakes and ground movements that can signal a waking volcano; they run on solar power and send data in real time by low-power radio. Partner engineers learn to install and maintain them at home or at the Cascades Volcano Observatory, and can then help neighbouring countries.

Volcanic gases are key to forecasting, but measuring them once meant working in dangerous places or flying helicopters through the plume. Now VDAP deploys scanning ultraviolet spectrometers that measure sulfur dioxide — a sign of shallow magma — from a distance, and MultiGAS "sniffers" that measure the ratio of sulfur dioxide to gases such as carbon dioxide, revealing how deep the magma is and how gas reaches the surface. Both send data straight to the observatory.

Installing a solar-powered scanning spectrometer at Sinabung volcano, Sumatra, in 2016; it measures the volcano's sulfur dioxide. Christoph Kern, USGS.

Training

Many countries lack the means to train specialists. VDAP gives travel grants to an annual seven-week course at the University of Hawaiʻi's Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes and in Vancouver, Washington, and sponsors workshops on seismology, volcanic gas, lahar (mudflow) modelling, hazard mapping, ground deformation, remote sensing and crater lakes. USGS mentors help partners publish their research, so that they become the recognised experts on their own volcanoes.

VDAP staff and Indonesian colleagues review seismic data for possible eruption warning signs. Jeffrey Marso, USGS.

Better forecasts

VDAP writes and shares software that observatories around the world use to assess their data, and builds forecasting tools from global statistics with universities and observatories. In 2015, working with Indonesian partners and a statistical model developed by university colleagues, VDAP estimated that the lava eruption at Sinabung would probably continue at least three more years — a forecast that helped Indonesian authorities decide to evacuate permanently the villages that would stay in harm's way. Over years of monitoring, VDAP seismologists have also documented the earthquake patterns that come before different kinds of activity, work now built into forecasts around the world.

Exchanges and best practices

Even the best science fails without clear communication. VDAP sponsors exchanges in which U.S. emergency managers, first responders and land managers visit the sites of foreign volcanic disasters, and foreign counterparts come to the United States to learn about the Incident Command System, multi-agency plans and how new monitoring tools are used in U.S. observatories. One American participant in the U.S.–Colombia exchange said that seeing Armero brought home how much Mount Rainier resembles Nevado del Ruiz, and showed what the Colombians had done well and how U.S. emergency systems could improve so that Armero is never repeated at Rainier.

VDAP also works with observatories to develop best practices for response, communication and alerts; with Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia it helps fund representatives from countries that could not otherwise attend, and it contributes to best-practice workshops at international volcano conferences.

Readiness at home

Foreign responses keep USGS experts' skills sharp for eruptions at home. Equipment improves with each new challenge, collaboration produces protocols for U.S. observatories, and observing eruptions abroad refines understanding of how volcanoes work. The program depends on the infrastructure, staff and funding of USAID/OFDA and the USGS.

Science as diplomacy

The work also builds friendship, trust and goodwill. After Chaitén volcano in Chile erupted unexpectedly in 2008 — later rains turned its ash into floods that buried the evacuated town's streets and airport in 3 to 6 feet of mud and destroyed the harbour — VDAP helped set up a seismic network on the previously unmonitored volcano, joined research on its history and hazards, and advised Chile's government at the highest levels. Chile has since built strong volcano expertise and monitoring, and works with Argentine geologists on the dangerous volcanoes along their border.

Sources

• Jacob B. Lowenstern and David W. Ramsey, The Volcano Disaster Assistance Program — Helping to Save Lives Worldwide for More Than 30 Years, U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2017–3071. https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20173071 — the text order and three pictures recovered from the PDF.
• The fact sheet's cover photograph of Cotopaxi (copyright Henri Leduc), its Merapi image on Google and DigitalGlobe base-map data and its Chaitén satellite photograph are not reproduced.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.