‘Everyday’ Natural Hazards: Dynamic and Extensive Risk Arising from Volcanic and Hydrometeorological Activity
Event Type: Seminar
Event Date: 30 April 2019 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Venue: ASE 3D Viz Laboratory Room (N2-B1c-16c)
Speaker: Dr Jeremy Philips
About the speaker:
Jeremy Phillips is a Volcanologist with broad interest in environmental hazard, risk and resilience. He received his BSc degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Birmingham UK and his PhD in fluid mechanics of pesticide dispersion jointly from Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham. The primary theme of his postdoctoral research is the fluid mechanics of volcanic activity, from fundamental volcanic processes through to volcanic hazard and risk, and their impacts on global sustainable development. Major foci include dynamics of explosive and persistently-active volcanism, volcanic ash dispersion and impacts, and impacts of hazardous surface flows, including flash floods, volcanic mudflows and landslides. Most of his research now crosses disciplines to integrate hazard assessment with social and physical vulnerability, risk management structures and community engagement, in collaboration with social scientists, engineers, mathematicians and statisticians. He led the hazard workpackage of the UK multidisciplinary research project Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas, and is part of the hazards research team in the new UK £20M Urban Disaster Risk Research Hub. He has been Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University and Chargé de Cours at Université de Genève, and has published more than 90 research papers and book chapters. Most of his postdoctoral research has been conducted at University of Bristol, where he is now Reader in Physical Volcanology.
About the event:
Volcanic activity has traditionally been viewed as leading to a cataclysmic event, ‘the volcanic eruption’ around which hazard and risk assessment have been framed. The development of global inventories of volcanic activity shows a different picture; most active volcanoes typically produce a succession of eruptions that are disruptive and pose an ‘extensive’ risk that is comparable to that which individuals or communities face from other forms of threat including poverty, health risks, or crime, and that have significant, sustained and cumulative impact on livelihoods and wellbeing. Volcanic activity can thus be viewed as an extensive hazard, similar to hydrometeorological events such as intense or rapid flooding, which primarily threaten livelihood, rather than life, and for which affected communities can develop purposeful adaptations to mitigate their impacts. A critical challenge for understanding disaster risk is improved knowledge and understanding of how people respond to extensive or ‘everyday’ risks, and how this interacts with external interventions in disaster risk management.
In this talk, I will present results from recent studies that show the extensive character of volcanic and hydrometeorological hazards, including where these hazards form part of a linked cascade, and highlight successful risk management practices built around livelihood maintenance and community adaptation. This will include analysis of the relationship between threat to life and threat to livelihood from recent eruptions and evacuations, and case study examples of extensive risk from volcanic mudflows (lahars) and flash floods in Ecuador and Perú, and volcanic ash transport and impacts in St Vincent, Ecuador and the UK. A particular focus will be on the challenges of using predictive models for hazard assessment for smaller hazard events which have localized impacts, and how these can be addressed through engagement with affected communities.