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Airborne volcanic ash is one of the most common, far-travelled, direct hazards associated with explosive volcanic eruptions worldwide. Management of volcanic ash cloud hazards often requires coordinated efforts of meteorological, volcanological, and aviation authorities from multiple countries. These international collaborations during eruptions pose particular challenges due to variable crisis response protocols, uneven agency responsibilities and technical capacities, language differences, and the expense of travel to establish and maintain relationships over the long term. This report introduces some of the recent efforts in enhancing international cooperation and collaboration in the Northern Pacific region.

The effective management and response to either volcanic eruptions or (often prolonged) periods of heightened unrest, is fundamentally dependent upon effective relationships and communication between science advisors, emergency managers and key decision makers. To optimise the effectiveness of the scientific contribution to effective prediction and management decision making, it is important for science advisors or scientific advisory bodies to be cognisant of the many different perspectives, needs and goals of the diverse organisations involved in the response. Challenges arise for scientists as they may need to be embedded members of the wider response multi-agency team, rather than independent contributors of essential information. Thus they must add to their competencies an understanding of the different roles, responsibilities, and needs of each member organisation, such that they can start to provide information implicitly rather than in response to explicit requests. To build this shared understanding, the team situational awareness (understanding of the situation in time and space), and the wider team mental model (a representation of the team functions and responsibilities), requires participating in a response environment together. Facilitating the availability of this capability has training and organizational development implications for scientific agencies and introduces a need for developing new inter-agency relationships and liaison mechanisms well before a volcanic crisis occurs. In this chapter, we review individual and team decision making, and the role of situational awareness and mental models in creating “shared meaning” between agencies. The aim is to improve communication and information sharing, as well as furthering the understanding of the impact that uncertainty has upon communication and ways to manage this. We then review personal and organisational factors that can impact response and conclude with a brief review of methods available to improve future response capability, and the importance of protocols and guidelines to assist this in a national or international context.

For decades, and especially in recent years, there has been an increasing amount of research using statistical modelling to produce volcanic forecasts, so that people could make better decisions. This research aims to add confidence by arming users with quantitative summaries of the chaos and uncertainty of extreme situations, in the form of probabilities—that is to say the measure of the likeliness that an event will occur.

Although probabilistic insurance loss models, particularly for ash fall, are currently being developed volcanic risk has been widely ignored by insurers and policy holders alike. Volcanic eruption cover is often grouped in insurance and reinsurance policies with earthquake and tsunami cover. Many volcanic eruptions include several perils occurring in different spaces around the volcano, with widely varying intensities and consequences, sometimes all at once, sometimes sequentially, and sometimes repeatedly. Given the possibly large differences in hazard characteristics, event durations and potential losses the policy alignment with earthquake and tsunami covers can be unfortunate. Does ‘volcanic activity’ have the same meaning as ‘volcanic eruption’? Do the terms ‘ash fall’ and ‘pyroclastic fall’ have identical meanings to an insurer—or to a volcanologist? Some policies cover all volcanic perils while others include only named volcanic perils such as pyroclastic flows, ash falls, and/or lava flows. Often the intent of the coverage is not clear—were some volcanic perils missing from a list excluded by accident or design? Does a policy that covers damage occasioned by a fall of volcanic ash also cover the cost of clean-up, removal, transport and appropriate storage of the ash—even if the fall of 5–10 mm of ash causes almost no property damage? Clear communication between the insurance sector and policy holders (and the media) is dependent upon informed understanding of the nature of volcanic perils and volcanic eruptions, insurance wordings, and the potential losses to property and business interruption covers. This chapter explores these issues using examples of policy wordings, evidence from past eruptions, insurance case law, and potential losses in future eruptions.

Volcano early warning systems are used globally to communicate volcano-related information to diverse stakeholders ranging from specific user groups to the general public, or both. Within the framework of a volcano early warning system, Volcano Alert Level (VAL) systems are commonly used as a simple communication tool to inform society about the status of activity at a specific volcano. Establishing a VAL system that is effective for multiple volcanoes can be challenging, given that each volcano has specific behavioural characteristics. New Zealand has a wide range of volcano types and geological settings, including rhyolitic calderas capable of very large eruptions (>500 km) and frequent unrest episodes, explosive andesitic stratovolcanoes, and effusive basaltic eruptions at both caldera and volcanic field settings. There is also a range in eruption frequency, requiring the VAL system to be used for both frequently active ‘open-vent’ volcanoes, and reawakening ‘closed-vent’ volcanoes. Furthermore, New Zealand’s volcanoes are situated in a variety of risk settings ranging from the Auckland Volcanic Field, which lies beneath a city of 1.4 million people; to Mt. Ruapehu, the location of popular ski fields that are occasionally impacted by ballistics and lahars, and produces tephra that falls in distant cities. These wide-ranging characteristics and their impact on society provide opportunities to learn from New Zealand’s experience with VAL systems, and the adoption of a standardised single VAL system for all of New Zealand’s volcanoes following a review in 2014. This chapter outlines the results of qualitative research conducted in 2010–2014 with key stakeholders and scientists, including from the volcano observatory at GNS Science, to ensure that the resulting standardised VAL system is an effective communication tool. A number of difficulties were faced in revising the VAL system so that it remains effective for all of the volcanic settings that exist in New Zealand. If warning products are standardised too much, end-user decision making and action can be limited when unusual situations occur, e.g., there may be loss of specific relevance in the alert message. Specific decision-making should be based on more specific parameters than the VAL alone, however wider VAL system standardisation can increase credibility, a known requirement for effective warning, by ensuring that warning sources are clear, trusted and widely understood. With a credible source, user groups are less likely to look for alternatives or confirmation, leading to faster action. Here we consider volcanic warnings within the wider concept of end-to-end multi-hazard early warning systems including detection, evaluation, notification, decision-making and action elements (based on Carsell et al. ).

Volcanic hazard maps depict areas that may be affected by dangerous volcanic processes, such as pyroclastic density currents, lava flows, lahars, and tephra fall. These visualisations of volcanic hazard information are used to communicate with a wide variety of audiences both during times of dormancy and volcanic crisis. Although most volcanic hazard maps show similar types of content, such as hazard footprints or zones, they vary greatly in communication style, appearance, and visual design. For example, maps for different volcanoes will use different combinations of graphics, symbols, colours, base maps, legends, and text. While this variety is a natural reflection of the diverse social, cultural, political, and volcanic settings in which the maps are created, crises and past work suggest that such visual design choices can potentially play an important role in volcanic crisis communication by influencing how people understand the hazard map and use it to make decisions. Map reading is a complex process, in which people construct meaning by interpreting the various visual representations within the context of their information needs, goals, knowledge, and experience. Visual design of the map and the characteristics of the hazard map audience can therefore influence how hazard maps are understood and applied. Here, we review case studies of volcanic crises and interdisciplinary research that addresses the relationship between hazard maps, visual design, and communication. Overall, this growing body of work suggests that volcanic hazard maps can be very useful visual tools for crisis communication if they are designed in a way that provides clear and useful information for the audience. Further, while it is important that each map is designed for its unique situation and setting, engaging with hazard map audiences to better understand their information needs and considering lessons learnt from interdisciplinary work on visual communication can help inform and guide knowledge exchange using maps.

Remote sensing data and the application of geo-spatial technologies have progressively been built into real-time volcanic hazard assessment. Remote sensing of volcanic processes provides a unique synoptic view of the developing hazard, and provides insights into the ongoing activity without the need for direct, on-the-ground observations. Analysis and visualization of these data through the geospatial tools, like Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and new virtual globes, brings new perspectives into the decision support system. In this chapter, we provide examples of (i) how remote sensing has assisted in real-time analysis of active volcanoes; (ii) how by combining multiple sensors at different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions one is able to better understand a given hazard, leading to better communication and decision making; and (iii) how visualizing this in a common platform, like a GIS tool or virtual globe, augments effective hazard assessment system. We will illustrate how useful remote sensing data can be for volcanic hazard assessment, including the benefits and challenges in real-time decision support, and how the geo-spatial tools can be useful to communicate the potential hazard through a common operation protocol.

Current day volcanology largely tends to an instrumentalist view of art as, in its mimetic form, capable of providing proxy data on the timing and unfolding of particular volcanic events and, in its impressionistic form, of conveying the sublime grandeur of volcanic events and scenes. In this chapter, we note that such a reductionist view of what science unhelpfully glosses over a much more complex disciplinary lineage, wherein both art and aesthetics played a key role in knowledge production concerning volcanoes. Using the work of Sir William Hamilton and Mary Somerville as case studies, we emphasise that art and aesthetics were part and parcel of both an 18th and 19th century approach to the study of volcanoes, and the making of particular scientific audiences. What is more, it is this lineage that provides a creative reservoir for more recent efforts that cut across scientific and arts divides, such that the ‘communication’ of the nature of volcanoes becomes a multi-media, multi-affective endeavour that speaks to a diverse range of publics.

In a disaster-prone country like Japan, learning how to live disaster [] has been crucial. Particularly since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, disaster preparedness has been a primary concern of the government. Drawing on Paton’s (The phoenix of natural disasters: community resilience. Nova Science Publishers, New York, pp. 13–31, ) Community Engagement Theory, which endorses an integrated model that combines risk management with community development, this study discusses the case of Sakurajima Volcano (SV) situated in the south of Japan, with a focus on how the lessons learnt from previous eruption experiences have informed present-day preparedness activities. The study adapts Community Engagement Theory’s quantitative framework to a qualitative analysis to consider the preparedness teaching and learning of a population living with the everyday threat of volcanic hazards in the case of SV. The study argues that two particular local lores—‘do not rely on authorities’ and ‘be frightened effectively’—have been the underlying principles in volcanic preparedness in the region. The study also argues that the notion of ‘ [collaborative partnerships]’ has been central to the planning and implementation of preparedness programmes, such as the Sakurajima Taisho Eruption Centenary Project, which offered a wide range of informal teaching and learning opportunities. Applying the framework of Community Engagement Theory, the paper suggests that at the individual level, the principles of ‘do not rely on authorities’ and ‘be frightened effectively’ form the basis for positive ‘outcome expectancy’. At the community level, ‘kyojo’ is the notion which encompasses both of the community factors—‘community participation’ and ‘collective efficacy’. At the societal level, ‘kyojo’ contributes to the building of ‘empowerment’ and ‘trust’ between citizens and authorities. The paper concludes by proposing that the SV case can be considered as an example of ‘the integrated model’.

Traditional teaching of volcanic science typically emphasises scientific principles and tends to omit the key roles, responsibilities, protocols, and communication needs that accompany volcanic crises. This chapter provides a foundation in instructional communication, education, and risk and crisis communication research that identifies the need for authentic challenges in higher education to challenge learners and provide opportunities to practice crisis communication in real-time. We present an authentic, immersive role-play called the Volcanic Hazards Simulation that is an example of a teaching resource designed to match professional competencies. The role-play engages students in volcanic crisis concepts while simultaneously improving their confidence and perceptions of communicating science. During the role-play, students assume authentic roles and responsibilities of professionals and communicate through interdisciplinary team discussions, media releases, and press conferences. We characterised and measured the students’ confidence and perceptions of volcanic crisis communication using a mixed methods research design to determine if the role-play was effective at improving these qualities. Results showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in both communication confidence and perceptions of science communication. The exercise was most effective in transforming low-confidence and low-perception students, with some negative changes measured for our higher-learners. Additionally, students reported a comprehensive and diverse set of best practices but focussed primarily on the mechanics of science communication delivery. This curriculum is a successful example of how to improve students’ communication confidence and perceptions.