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UB to hold workshop on analyzing probabilities of volcanic hazards
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“Generating probabilistic hazard maps for potentially active volcanoes is recognized as a fundamental step toward the mitigation of risk to vulnerable communities.”
Geologists, volcanologists and statisticians who work in the field of volcanic hazard analysis will gather at UB next week for a workshop aimed at considering current methodologies used in the analysis of volcanic hazards, including probability, randomness and statistical measures, in order to help define priorities for future research.
The international workshop, “Probabilistic Analysis of Volcanic Hazards,” will be held May 16-19 in the Student Union, North Campus. It is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior, the UB Strategic Strength in Extreme Events and the UB Center for Geohazards Studies.
The workshop’s scientific program will be held in the Student Union Theater; late afternoon poster sessions will be held in the Student Union Flag Room on the second floor.
Further information about the workshop and registration can be found at the conference website.
“Generating probabilistic hazard maps for potentially active volcanoes is recognized as a fundamental step toward the mitigation of risk to vulnerable communities,” says Eliza Calder, UB assistant professor of geology and an organizer of the workshop.
“As a community, we are only beginning to understand in a quantitative way the many factors that affect whether or not a particular location is at risk from a volcanic event,” says Calder, who specializes in the dynamics of volcanic systems.
“Government institutions ultimately are responsible for generating hazard maps,” she says, “but the academic community can assist in this map construction and can bring statistical tools to bear on the analysis.”
For this reason, she says it is of critical importance to understand the wide variety of methods that are currently employed to generate such maps and the respective philosophies on which they are based.
“Understanding the hazards and possible methods to ameliorate those hazards will help public officials as they plan mitigation strategies,” notes E. Bruce Pitman, professor of mathematics and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, another of the conference organizers.
To this end, the conference will bring together field scientists and international experts in modeling, computing and statistical analysis to discuss probabilistic methods, problems posed by data glut from computer models, uncertainty in digital elevation models and the prediction of extreme events and their consequences.
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