Beyond eruptive scenarios: assessing tephra fallout hazard from Neapolitan volcanoes

Assessment of volcanic hazards is necessary for risk mitigation. Typically, hazard assessment is based on one or a few, subjectively chosen representative eruptive scenarios, which use a specific combination of eruptive sizes and intensities to represent a particular size class of eruption. While su...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sandri, Laura, Costa, Antonio, Selva, Jacopo, Tonini, Roberto, Macedonio, Giovanni, Folch, Arnau|||0000-0002-0677-6366, Sulpizio, Roberto
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/87532
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/87532
https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep24271
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Volcanic activity prediction
Volcanic hazard analysis
Probabilistic Volcanic Hazard Analysis (PVHA)
Hazard assessment
Volcanic ash
Quantitative study
Activitat volcànica--Previsió
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica
Descripción
Sumario:Assessment of volcanic hazards is necessary for risk mitigation. Typically, hazard assessment is based on one or a few, subjectively chosen representative eruptive scenarios, which use a specific combination of eruptive sizes and intensities to represent a particular size class of eruption. While such eruptive scenarios use a range of representative members to capture a range of eruptive sizes and intensities in order to reflect a wider size class, a scenario approach neglects to account for the intrinsic variability of volcanic eruptions, and implicitly assumes that inter-class size variability (i.e. size difference between different eruptive size classes) dominates over intra-class size variability (i.e. size difference within an eruptive size class), the latter of which is treated as negligible. So far, no quantitative study has been undertaken to verify such an assumption. Here, we adopt a novel Probabilistic Volcanic Hazard Analysis (PVHA) strategy, which accounts for intrinsic eruptive variabilities, to quantify the tephra fallout hazard in the Campania area. We compare the results of the new probabilistic approach with the classical scenario approach. The results allow for determining whether a simplified scenario approach can be considered valid, and for quantifying the bias which arises when full variability is not accounted for.