Background

Volcanic eruptions can cause loss of life and livelihoods, damage critical infrastructure and have long-term impacts, including displaced populations and long-lasting economic implications. Many factors contribute to disasters from natural hazards. One of these is the institutional capacity to enable hazard assessment for pre-emergency planning to protect populations and environments, provide early warning when volcanoes threaten to erupt, to provide forecasts and scientific advice during volcanic emergencies, and to support post-eruption recovery and remediation. Volcano observatories play a critical role in supporting communities to reduce the adverse effects of eruptions [Chapter 15]. Their capacity to monitor volcanoes is thus a central component of disaster risk reduction.

The resources are not available for extensive monitoring of all 596 historically active volcanoes. The availability of resources varies on local, national, regional and global scales, resulting in highly variable monitoring levels from volcano to volcano. Some countries have observatories dedicated to volcano monitoring, others monitor from within larger organisations, and still others have no permanent monitoring group. Individual volcanoes may have large comprehensive monitoring networks of multiple monitoring systems whilst a neighbouring volcano is unmonitored.

It is therefore vital to understand the monitoring capacity at local, national, regional and global scales to establish how well volcanoes are monitored, the distribution of monitoring equipment, the human resources, experience and education and the instrumental and laboratory capabilities. To this end a database has been developed: Global Volcano Research and Monitoring Institutions Database (GLOVOREMID).

GLOVOREMID

In 2011 IAVCEI funded the development of VOMODA (Volcano Monitoring Database), whose main purpose was to obtain a realistic diagnosis of volcano monitoring and training of the human resources working on volcanological research and monitoring institutions (VRMI) in Latin America. In 2013, VOMODA was adopted and adapted for worldwide use as GLOVOREMID. The Global Volcano Model (GVM) supports this work. It is currently in both Spanish and English. This database will contribute to improving communication and cooperation between scientists and technicians responsible for volcano monitoring and may help to reduce the effects of volcanic crises. GLOVOREMID can be accessed online via http://132.248.182.158/glovoremid/.