Lav@hazard: A web-gis interface for volcanic hazard assessment

Abstract

Satellite data, radiative power of hot spots as measured with remote sensing, historical records, on site geological surveys, digital elevation model data, and simulation results together provide a massive data source to investigate the behavior of active volcanoes like Mount Etna (Sicily, Italy) over recent times. The integration of these heterogeneous data into a coherent visualization framework is important for their practical exploitation. It is crucial to fill in the gap between experimental and numerical data, and the direct human perception of their meaning. Indeed, the people in charge of safety planning of an area need to be able to quickly assess hazards and other relevant issues even during critical situations. With this in mind, we developed LAV@HAZARD, a web-based geographic information system that provides an interface for the collection of all of the products coming from the LAVA project research activities. LAV@HAZARD is based on Google Maps application programming interface, a choice motivated by its ease of use and the user-friendly interactive environment it provides. In particular, the web structure consists of four modules for satellite applications (time-space evolution of hot spots, radiant flux and effusion rate), hazard map visualization, a database of ca. 30,000 lava-flow simulations, and real-time scenario forecasting by MAGFLOW on Compute Unified Device Architecture. © 2011 by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. All rights reserved.