ORCID

Abstract

Abstract: A critical challenge during volcanic emergencies is responding to rapid changes in eruptive behaviour. Actionable advice, essential in times of rising uncertainty, demands the rapid synthesis and communication of multiple datasets with prognoses. The 2020–2021 eruption of La Soufrière volcano exemplifies these challenges: a series of explosions from 9–22 April 2021 was preceded by three months of effusive activity, which commenced with a remarkably low level of detected unrest. Here we show how the development of an evolving conceptual model, and the expression of uncertainties via both elicitation and scenarios associated with this model, were key to anticipating this transition. This not only required input from multiple monitoring datasets but contextualisation via state-of-the-art hazard assessments, and evidence-based knowledge of critical decision-making timescales and community needs. In addition, we share strategies employed as a consequence of constraints on recognising and responding to eruptive transitions in a resource-constrained setting, which may guide similarly challenged volcano observatories worldwide.

Publication Date

2022-01-01

Publication Title

Nature Communications

Volume

13

Issue

1

ISSN

2041-1723

Acceptance Date

2022-07-08

Deposit Date

2022-07-26

Embargo Period

2022-07-27

Funding

For their support to the monitoring of the eruption of La Soufrière, the staff of the SRC and MVO are thanked. Roderick Stewart is thanked for his service as a Scientific Team Lead in St. Vincent. We thank the Director and staff of NEMO, the SMU, Lands and Surveys Department of St. Vincent and volunteers assisting with field work for campaign EDM and GPS occupations. Willy Aspinall is thanked for sharing his insights and expertise throughout the unrest and eruption episode. We thank the ESA and JAXA for tasking systematic Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 acquisitions over La Soufrière. We thank the Capella Space and ICEYE companies for providing high-resolution SAR images of the volcano during the explosive phase. ALOS-2 SAR data were made available by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the sixth RA proposal (PI no. 3153). Collaborating agencies such as NASA, IPGP, LOA, AERIS/ICARE, CSIC, USGS VDAP, USAID, CIMH, KNMI, CEOS Volcano Demonstrator all provided support for remote sensing data analysis. We thank the MOUNTS platform for their automated analyses of Sentinel data for La Soufrière, SVG. Fieldwork for JB and PC and petrological analysis was supported by NERC Urgency Grant NE/W000725/1 and Royal Society Apex Award APX\R1\180094. We thank David Pyle, Gregor Weber and Jon Blundy for assisting with geochemical analysis of dome samples. Funding for the VRCP project was granted to RR (Grant No. GA 43/STV) through CDB’s Community Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (CDRRF) and is supported by the Government of Canada and the European Union. We also thank the Executive Director and staff of CDEMA for logistical support and resource mobilisation efforts.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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