Review of the U.S. Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Program (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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First, rapid population and economic growth in the northwestern United States places more and more people, and some of our most critical industries closer to the regions' major sleeping volcanoes, including Mount Rainier and Mount Baker near SeattleTacoma, and Mount Hood near Portland. Second, the most heavily traveled transpacific air routes pass over more than 100 active Alaskan and Russian volcanoes, putting more than 10,000 people and millions of dollars worth of cargo in danger every clay.
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Monitoring requires the measurement of geophysical, geodetic, and geochemical-parameters, as weans baseline observations that allow premonitory changes to be recognized. A successful crisis response is characterized by rapid deployment of staff and equipment and by clear communication with civil defense officials and the public at large.
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From page 3... ...
Throughout most of its existence, the program's focus was concentrated in Hawaii, which commonly has a limited range of relatively benign volcanic eruption styles. Hence the expertise required of VHP personnel, the types of monitoring and assessment activities, and the appropriate scientific goals were all somewhat restricted.
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Nonetheless, the VHP has made major contributions in a number of important areas: the development and application of assessment and monitoring techniques, crisis assistance, fluvial process knowledge, and aviation safety. The implications for the VHP of the paucity of recent hiring, the prospects of flat budgets, and the shifting of staff emphasis from research to application are all the same—the program has to find better ways to leverage its resources so that it can continue to meet its mandate to mitigate volcanic hazards.
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From page 5... ...
The faster turnaround time means that revised versions of hazard analyses are completed and made available to the public in a more timely fashion. The autonomy shown by individual VHP scientists in establishing cleadlines for their hazard assessments also has been reflected in the way volcanoes are selected for study.
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From page 6... ...
in these fields, original data are commonly posted on the Internet in near real time, using widely accepted standards. In volcanology, there is a danger that the press or civil authorities might misinterpret prematurely released premonitory information, leading to inappropriate evacuations or panic.
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From page 7... ...
its staff size must be significantly increased and/or better leveraged through partnerships; or (2) its mission must be scaled back in conjunction with major retraining of existing staff so that fundamental research, hazard assessment, and outreach play subsidiary roles to monitoring and crisis response.
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