Communication with Hazard Maps in Central America: A multidisciplinary science-media-community network (HazMap_CA)

Lead Research Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Geosciences

Abstract

Countries along the Pacific coast of Central America are exposed to high environmental risk from earthquakes, volcanic activity, tsunamis, meteorological hazards and landslides. Over the past two decades, disasters in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua alone have caused over US$9 billion in damage and affected more than 13.5 million people. Their exposure to these environmental hazards and their vulnerability to being adversely affected by them are exacerbated as a result of both the complex socio-political setting and approaches used in those countries for economic development.

Information about hazards and disasters is very commonly disseminated through maps. Hazard maps that are useful, usable and used have the potential to prevent disasters and build societal resilience. Although maps represent the important outward face of hazard research, they are cartographic representations of inherently complex information, with large associated uncertainties. Further, the effective understanding, perception, experience and usage of maps calls for multidisciplinary engagement. This proposal will bring together and form, for the first time, a network of researchers and practitioners to understand how hazard maps can be used more effectively to communicate hazard information with decision makers, emergency managers, NGOs, and the public before, during and after times of crisis.

The challenges that need to be addressed in doing this demand input from diverse groups, including academic researchers and practitioners and stakeholder groups. Further, while knowledge informed by Western scientific approaches has an extremely important role to play in hazard and disaster management, its utility remains limited if it is not brought into a meaningful dialogue with alternative approaches and understandings. Our intention is therefore to create a network that brings together expertise from natural sciences, cartography, visual geographies, landscape perception, media and communication studies and Central American development studies to facilitate engagement between disciplines that would not normally interact. In combination these can produce a more detailed and multifaceted understanding of how maps are used to convey hazards associated with the landscape. The network will involve bringing together existing, yet separate, working groups who are actively engaged in initiatives to address development and disaster preparedness in Central America. This will be facilitated through two workshops, one in the UK and one in Central America.

Our central aim is to address developmental issues in the region by strengthening existing emergency management systems and creating useful modes of hazard communication that empower communities, enhance the effectiveness of communication and increase resilience.

Planned Impact

This project proposes foundation-building activities, and as such direct impact through these activities will be largely focused on activities and engagements that take place at the main workshop in Guatemala in Spring 2017. We identified four principal socio-economic beneficiary groups that could benefit from this work:

1. Hazard practitioners: Individuals at government agencies in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua that are responsible for undertaking volcano monitoring and hazard assessments.

2. Decision makers/Civil Protection: that utilize hazard assessments and information on the state of unrest of a particular volcano to make hazard management decisions for short term hazard mitigation as well as long term planning.

3. Academics in our partner countries from any of the main disciplinary areas covered by this network.

4. NGOs and Charities: Any non-profit, voluntary citizens group which is organized on a local, national or international level in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua that take responsibility for administering aid and/or improving wellbeing.

5. General public: People living in hazardous areas are often aware of hazards in the landscape, and may have prior experience of them will be benefited by being able to make decisions about their own livelihood.

In particular we wish to highlight our partnership with the Charity MapAction. MapAction is a humanitarian mapping charity based in the UK that works through specialist volunteers. Its aim is to save lives and minimize suffering by making the response to humanitarian emergencies as efficient and effective as possible. When a disaster strikes, MapAction deploys volunteer mapping professionals to the scene to help inform and coordinate response activities and get aid to where it is needed most. In their letter of support MapAction outline 5 separate ways in which the proposal is directly relevant and will impact the work that they undertake.

These groups will all be represented at the Guatemala workshop. Therefore the methods and activities for engagement will be directly through the workshop activities.

Broader Impacts and impacts extending beyond the workshop

Policy makers: Through facilitating major improvements to the development of effective hazard maps, this project offers pathways to reducing risk. As well as addressing NERCs increasing resilience to natural hazard impact area, this research follows the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction guidelines for natural hazards and risk management by addressing hazard phenomena with the highest impact on lives, and potentially livelihoods, and property assets. We will engage directly with UNISDR Science and Technical Advisory group. The proposed project will address all three of the UNISDR Science and Technical Advisory Group recommendations to help strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) policies and practices: (i) share knowledge for action; (ii) use a multidisciplinary approach to research; and (iii) build systems resilience through local, national, regional and international partnerships.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title The performance of 'Enlighten' written by Catherine Wilson and Eliza Calder in June 2017. 
Description Involvement with Experimental Words: A High-energy Collision of Science and Spoken Word. This youtube video shows the performance of 'Enlighten' a poem written by Catherine Wilson and Eliza Calder in June 2017. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact Conveying to general public the human side of living with a volcano. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcJg3ddTDHg&feature=youtu.be
 
Description The main outcome of the work was that we formed, an engaged network involving researchers, high-level governance, civil society organisations, and community groups and have mapped out a path for further research. Other Outcomes:
Two interdisciplinary workshops took place in Edinburgh and Guatemala, each with around 35 participants.
Our network has a comprehensive and bilingual, website: http://www.hazmap.org
Three literature reviews were produced which cover the topics of GIS aspects of hazard maps, non-volcanic hazard maps and studies on hazard perception in landscape.
A substantial network of practitioners and researchers across Central America has been established and is still growing.
An active Facebook group was created and currently has 68 members.
The project was presented at least four international conferences (EGU Vienna, April 2017; IAVCEI Portland Jul 2017; UNISDR Cancun; and at the Central America Geological Congress, in San Salvador).
An official letter of recommendations and suggested areas for further research has been developed by, and received from, Wilson Galo, Director, Concertación Regional para la Gestión de Riesgos.
Some of the outcomes we are most proud of are the exciting extra projects and collaborations which have happened as a result of this project which were not originally anticipated:
1. Involvement with Experimental Words: A High-energy Collision of Science and Spoken Word. This youtube video shows the performance of 'Enlighten' written by Catherine Wilson and Eliza Calder in June 2017.
2. A spin-off research project based in Ecuador- Luke Bowman (PI) Bowman, L. (PI). 2017. Improving the disconnect between natural hazard knowledge and risk perceptions at Cayambe Volcano, Ecuador. Yachay Tech University, Ecuador, Internal Award ($18k USD) Calder, E.S. (Project Partner)
3. A Taster Film - A short film that shows the extreme vulnerability of communities in close proximity to Fuego volcano in Guatemala. Under commission by Mischa Prince, Xocomil Productions, Guatemala.
4. Involvement with GCRF Hub application - pre-proposal stage (PI McClosky).
5. Inspired a dedicated session at 2017 Geological Congress of Central America, held in El Salvador.
6. An MSc Project - This was a feasibility study of how you could make a regional-scale Volcanic hazard map by Jonathan Paul Collin.
7. A cross GCRF additional award: Relative risk infohackit event in Nottingham. This event was as a result of extra funding and involved five GCRF projects. A Storify of the day was compiled.
8. Collaboration with Dr Matt Watson (UoB), creating new high-resolution DEM of Fuego Volcano, Guatemala.
9. Securing a NERC PhD studentship, to research methods for combining community participatory maps with science-based hazard maps.
Exploitation Route We have prepared the ideas and partnerships for developing a longer-term, challenge-driven research project on resilience in Central America to Natural Hazards
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy

Construction

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Environment

Government

Democracy and Justice

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

Security and Diplomacy

URL http://www.hazmap.org
 
Description Our award was network-building through the organisation of two workshops. The workshops involved diverse players including researchers, division-makers, civil society groups, and charity organisations. After the workshops, we have found that: - In country, diverse groups of people are now interacting that did not interact and work with each other before. - There is a greater awareness in country that the problems faced need interdisciplinary solutions. - There is an Increased understanding of the role and importance of local knowledge in the science of disaster risk management. - On the basis of the network that we built through this award, and a broader research project that we co-developed with the collaborating team, in 2020 we were awarded a GCRF grant in the Multihazards and Systemic Risk programme. The project started in Jan 2021.
First Year Of Impact 2017
Sector Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice
Impact Types Societal

 
Description NERC PhD Studentships
Amount £70,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Edinburgh 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2018 
End 12/2021
 
Description NERC-AHRC-ESRC GCRF top-up award for cross-project initiatives
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2016 
End 10/2017
 
Description University if Edinburgh - Global Impact Accelerator Account; "A new generation of Volcanic Hazard Maps that are useful, usable, and used."
Amount £33,315 (GBP)
Organisation University of Edinburgh 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Description University of Edinburgh - Global Impact Accelerator Account: "Fuego Volcano Eruption: Understanding and communicating risk - Using film as a visual methodology"
Amount £59,820 (GBP)
Organisation University of Edinburgh 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Description Collaboration with MapAction NGO 
Organisation Map Action
Country Mali 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Multi-disciplinary research collaboration to build understanding of the physical, socio-economic and cultural drivers of risk of mass flows (e.g., landslides, mid flows, pyroclastic flows) in the Guatemala highlands.
Collaborator Contribution Map Action are supporting the GIS needs of the Ixchel GCRF-funded project through the contribution of skilled personnel time and computing resources. Past outcomes and outputs associated with the collaboration with Map Action include a three-dimensional, interactive digital volcano hazard map hosted on a web platform, which was co-developed following the disaster in San Miguel Los Lotes at Fuego Volcano on 3rd June 2018, and was the first of its kind globally.
Impact Outputs and outcomes from this collaboration have been associated with previous awards, such as the interactive digital volcano hazard map from Fuego volcano (https://arcg.is/0418vK) which was the first of its kind globally, and a website hosting a collection of three-dimensional, interactive digital volcano hazard maps (https://volcanichazard-mapaction.opendata.arcgis.com/). There are no outputs and outcomes associated with the GCRF-funded "Ixchel award yet" as the collaboration is ongoing. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary: geosciences, geography, anthropology, urban studies, landscape architecture, GIS.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Collaboration with the volcanological and seismological monitoring agency of Guatemala (INSIVUMEH) 
Organisation National Institute for Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology of Guatemala
Country Guatemala 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution In the Ixchel GCRF-funded project, this is a research collaboration to study the physical drivers of risk of mass flows (e.g., mud flows, landslides, pyroclastic flows) in the Guatemalan cordillera. Our research team is providing multi-disciplinary support for developing models of physical hazards, probabilistic event trees, and expertise in hazard maps. Past collaboration was focussed on studying the risk of volcanic hazards around Fuego volcano. The current collaboration is broader and involves a greater number of researchers from a wider range of institutions.
Collaborator Contribution INSIVUMEH are contributing substantial time of their personnel to supporting the project outcomes, including better understanding of the physical drivers of risk in the Guatemalan highlands.
Impact There are no outputs or outcomes associated with the GCRF-funded "Ixchel" project to report yet as the collaboration is still in process. The collaboration is multi-disciplinary: geosciences, geography, geophysics, meteorology, GIS. Past outputs and outcomes have involved the co-development of an interactive digital, 3D volcano hazard map of Fuego volcano for use by local authorities and humanitarian agencies following the disaster at San Miguel Los Lotes on 3rd June 2018 (https://arcg.is/0418vK).
Start Year 2008
 
Description HazMap Network Building 
Organisation National Institute for Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology of Guatemala
Country Guatemala 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution This award was to form a new network through the organisation of two workshops, one in Edinburgh, one in Guatemala. Invitees to the two workshops were project investigators, project partners and collaborators, as well as individuals and new groups we were reaching out to.
Collaborator Contribution Most of the participants at the workshop contributed talks and everybody contributed to the discussion and break-out groups. In particular the new partners were important for co-designing the next phase of the work.
Impact Multi-disciplinary outcomes in geoscience, engineering, social science, human geography, and architecture.
Start Year 2017
 
Description "Fire up a mountain and nobody there to put it out" - Living with Volcanoes in Song, Story, Poetry, and Music - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Thomas A. McKean, Maxwell 'Tajoe' Francis, James Christie
Session description:

How do people use song, story, poetry, and music to make sense of the multi-valent complexities of living with volcanoes?
In dormancy, a volcano may be a rich source of productive soil, connection to the land, geothermal heat, wood for cooking, tourist income, and more, while at other times full of risk, and danger. Thus our emotional responses may range from the spiritual and aesthetic to powerful mechanisms for processing loss, death, and tragedy.
Joy, respect, relief, or fear and sorrow, structured communicative forms give us bounded and safe frameworks for the expression of our deepest feelings. From poems of quotidian life on a volcano's flanks to school children's specifically elicited responses in song twenty years after the Montserrat eruption of 1997, these artistic products offer a mechanism for processing experiences and their lasting legacies. Narrative responses can also be used in preventive ways, as with the New Zealand government's 'Matt's Volcano Story' leaflet, which brings to life emergency response advice in the event of an eruption or related phenomena.
We invite contributions in any format from academics, composers and poets, performers, and other artists looking at responses to volcanic environments, whether reflecting human-place interdependence, or catastrophic environmental events.
Contributors could include community members, scientists involved with community co-production, artists (singers, musicians, poets), creative workshop leaders, and more.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Beyond hazard maps? Exploring methods, media and the map-making process to consider new opportunities in map making practices and their alignment with disaster risk reduction - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Neil Stuart, Lisa Mackenzie, Thomas McKean, Jeremy Phillips, Matthew Watson, Eliza Calder
Session description:

This session will address how we might think with conceptual precision about the future of map-making practices and their alignment with DRR. The session invites presentations that open new questions as to the agency of cartographic practices to think, feel, envisage and explore the complex social and ecological relationships that exist in Volcanic Landscapes.
The session also seeks to understand how practices formulated through mapping might usefully attend to both inclusions and exclusions between people and nature in the living landscape. We are further interested in the way in which dynamic processes in the landscape (both in terms of environmental change and socio-cultural displacements and recoveries) might be meaningfully represented through collaborative mapping action.
We particularly welcome presentations that address the way in which map making can facilitate exchanges between practices of scientific and non-scientific thinking, to gain relevance and weave different realities of place together. The session seeks contributions that are both pragmatic and speculative in their orientation and that are unafraid to release mapping from its habits and conventions towards transformative relationships of enablement with the living landscape. For these reasons, methods and outputs of participatory mapping, counter-mapping, speculative mapping, sketch mapping and other relevant approaches for extending more traditional forms of volcanic hazard mapping and hazard representation, in both digital and physical media, are warmly encouraged.
After the talks we propose a short synthesis session where we begin drawing together insights and assertions. Speakers and session participants will be encouraged to help us jointly formulate how these current practices and outputs can be recognised as valid inclusions in the set of future map-making practices for recording, drawing, writing, and moving through space.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Co-production of risk management in volcanic contexts: supporting equitable knowledge and power relations - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Convenors: Amelia Bain, Soledad Garcia Ferrari
Session description:

Risk management in Latin American cities and rural settlements is usually the responsibility of government departments, which tend to focus on post-disaster relief rather than on prevention and mitigation. These top-down initiatives tend not to be well connected to urban planning processes or actions taken by affected communities before disasters occur. In addition, risk management approaches often consist of technical analyses with little attention to the human processes and behaviours driving the impacts of these hazards, nor the knowledge and capacities of local people.
To tackle this gap, co-production is increasingly explored as a process and methodology to develop risk management strategies. Within this approach, community organisations, state institutions and other relevant actors (such as NGOs and the private sector) re-evaluate and negotiate monitoring and mitigation activities, with support from academic institutions. Crucially, implementing co-production processes in risk management requires that community-based knowledge is understood, accepted and legitimized, through a horizontal dialogue of knowledges that allows the identification and implementation of innovative and appropriate risk management processes and systems on the basis of co-responsibility of all relevant local actors. Co-production combines technical data with studies of socio-economic and cultural aspects and specific impacts of hazardous events within local communities. Research has shown that, with training and support from a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, vulnerable communities are capable of implementing participatory and inclusive monitoring and risk mitigation actions. In addition, relevant local government bodies and civic organisations are often willing to engage with these processes. Through co-production, trust can be strengthened between the diverse actors involved in risk management and communities can collectively gain in autonomy and agency.
We invite all contributions relating to co-producing or co-creating risk management strategies in volcanic contexts. This includes all studies where communities take an active or leadership role in developing risk management protocols.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Communities on the move: understanding resettlement processes after a disaster - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Ana Cabrera Pacheco, Carlos Alfredo Puac, Lisa MacKenzie
Session description:

After disasters, some affected communities are resettled in new places. This can happen because their original homes were destroyed or the original location is deemed an unsafe place to live. Sometimes communities move together, while for others, resettlement is a piecemeal process that disperses them and fractures social cohesion. The conditions of the resettlement processes are often determined by those leading infrastructure development, but community agency, advocacy and forms of resistance are important for communities to secure better living conditions for themselves. For this session, we call for presentations on all aspects of resettlement processes. We are interested in questioning how resettlements can facilitate appropriate recovery conditions for communities in the short- and long-term, and what it means for these communities to "start over again". We invite contributions that discuss the social, cultural, environmental and political contexts and specificities, which aid or hinder these processes, and the complex challenges that both communities and other decision-makers face in these situations. We welcome presentations on the lessons learnt in resettlement processes from around the world, and from different temporalities - from emergency shelters (which often extend in time) to permanent resettlements. For some communities, relocation means having better access to services and infrastructure, often in urban areas, but also being displaced from their land, livelihoods and culture. We want to learn from processes that accounted for these aspects, and from those that only provided housing solutions. How are these processes contributing (or not) to community wellbeing? We invite perspectives from grassroots initiatives as well as from government, international cooperation, and civil society organisations' projects, to ask how they might inform each other. Finally, we welcome contributions on cases of communities that have returned to the areas at risk and of those who move between safe and unsafe spaces in their everyday life.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Community and Indigenous voices in Disaster Risk Reduction - Plenary session at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.
As this was a plenary talk, it was also open to the general public.

Panelists: Alex Petzey, Community researcher, Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala; Christine Kenney, Professor of Disaster Risk Reduction at Massey University, New Zealand; Clyornique Williams, Community researcher, Fancy, St. Vincent; Edy Maldonado, CONRED, Guatemala
Introducer & discussant: Eliza Calder, University of Edinburgh, UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Deciphering magmatic processes and eruptive triggering at open conduit volcanoes: multidisciplinary approaches for hazard assessment and risk mitigation - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Maurizio Mulas, Matthew Watson, Marco Viccaro, Amelia Bain, Mario Ruiz, Andrew Bell, Roberto Mérida
Session description:

The determination of parameters controlling the temporal development of volcanic processes is crucial for monitoring and emergency response. Persistently active volcanoes offer a rich opportunity to build understanding of volcanic and magmatic processes, hazards and risk. This thematic session is inspired by our insufficient awareness of how open-conduit volcanoes can produce unexpected energetic eruptions driven by pre- to syn-eruptive magmatic processes that occur during storage and/or ascent towards the surface. These frequent volcanic crises require effective monitoring, communication, sometime evacuations, and established roles and relationships between government institutions, communities and other actors. We currently know little about the conduit conditions that move volcanic systems from a steady-state, typically characterized by effusive and/or weak Strombolian activity, to energetic eruptions as in the case of Etna and Stromboli (Italy), Santiaguito and Volcán de Fuego (Guatemala), Reventador and Sangay (Ecuador).
This lack of knowledge is related to incompletely understood spatial-temporal dynamics of magma movements in the crust and relative feedbacks among the different processes. Illuminating these volcanic phenomena implies building understanding of the chemical and physical processes preceding and accompanying these energetic eruptions, including magma ascent, and plugging or sealing of the conduit, through the interpretation of geochemical and geophysical monitoring signals, field and experimental data.
We invite contributions in the fields of physical volcanology, geochemistry, petrology and geophysics, especially interdisciplinary studies, aimed at providing updated working models for open conduit, persistently active volcanoes worldwide. The primary goal of the session is to share models and ideas offering new elements for volcanic hazard assessment, in order to improve monitoring, management of volcanic crises, and the development of risk mitigation plans for people and infrastructure.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Developing a Volcano Early Warning System for Guatemala 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Workshop at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Following on from the Early Warning System workshop, focused upon Fuego and Santiaguito, we held in March 2023, this workshop brought together experienced practitioners, academics, and Guatemalan government researchers for a workshop around Volcano Early Warning System development. Participants from a broad range of stakeholders came together to design a
framework for a Volcano Early Warning System for Fuego volcano. The workshop pulled together current and future monitoring efforts, community and institutional preparedness plans and hazard mapping to enhance disaster risk reduction. The intended outcome of the workshop was a roadmap towards development, testing and deployment of a Volcanic Early Warning System, built from the ground up, that listens to and supports a range of stakeholders.

Organisers: Matthew Watson, Ailsa Naismith
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/content/uploads/2023/10/post-4.pdf
 
Description Eruption! The (Re)mediation of Volcanoes in Film, Media and Popular Culture - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Charlotte Gleghorn, Julie Cupples, Raquel Ribeiro, Kevin Glynn
Session description:

Glynn and Cupples (2022: 16) write that 'volcanoes have become powerful cultural signs that have repeatedly been mobilized in the service of distinct Central American political projects and narratives, both colonial and decolonial'. This session aims to build upon, expand and explore this insight by examining the meanings and uses of volcanoes that have developed through popular cultural practices of representation, including narrativization, appropriation and (re)mediation in music, television, film, social media and other digital spaces. There is, for example, a long history of the deployment of volcanoes for purposes of both narrative and spectacle in popular media, including in films such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1926, 1935, 1959), Krakatoa, East of Java (1968), Dante's Peak (1997), and Cenizas (Ashes, 2018), and TV shows like Doctor Who (1963-), Children of Fire Mountain (1979), and Katla (2021). In Nicaragua, a revolutionary musical genre of protest song known as VolCanto was powerfully resurrected during the 2018 uprising under the slogan 'juntos somos un volcán' ('together we are a volcano'). Moreover, there is an expanding body of social media engagement with and around volcanic activity and disasters, and a recent cycle of high-profile films that explore volcanoes and their enthusiasts, destructive powers, and audiovisual archives, including Into the Inferno (2016), The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari (2022), and Fire of Love (2022), all of which invite scholarly examinations of volcanic narratives, tropes, landscapes, particularities, and political potencies, provocations and potentialities. We invite scholars working on these and related areas to propose 20-minute presentations on issues around volcanic media, such as the meanings they ascribe and attach to volcanoes and volcanism, their contributions to and production of popular imaginaries (including regarding how to live with volcanoes), and the political narratives and projects to which they may give rise across different sites of struggle.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Experimental Words: A High-energy Collision of Science and Spoken Word. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Involvement with Experimental Words: A High-energy Collision of Science and Spoken Word. A poet and scientist collaborate to write a poem about volcanic hazards in Guatemala. This youtube video shows the performance of 'Enlighten' written by Catherine Wilson and Eliza Calder in June 2017.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcJg3ddTDHg&feature=youtu.be
 
Description Festival of the Volcanic Arts: a dialogue of knowledges inspired by volcanoes - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Art festival organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Convenors: Teresa Armijos, Monique Johnson, Naomi Irapta, Ailsa Naismith, Thomas McKean

Session description:
Inviting submissions based on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methods, visual expressions and reflections from researchers/practitioners in the field. Visual art including photography, textiles, illustrations, paintings and more invited along with short abstracts of process description and reflection (200 words max). Submissions invited in English or Spanish.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Fieldtrip to Santiago Atitlán (Guatemala) associated with Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This field trip introduced participants to the Indigenous Tz'utujil Maya communities of Panabaj, Chuk Muk, Cerro de Oro, and Santiago Atitlán on the flanks of Tolimán volcano in the Atitlán caldera (Guatemala). Participants met with community members and learned about living and working there, explored Indigenous ways of relating to these landscapes, and visited sites associated with the Indigenous-centred Guatemalan feature film Cordillera de Fuego. The fieldtrip explored ongoing realities of balancing environmental risk with complex socio-economic pressures in marginalised communities and post-disaster resettlements in the wake of the 2005 Panabaj landslide. This was a unique opportunity for a diverse audience ranging from students to professional risk management practitioners to gain in-depth, first-hand experience with people to whom this 'red zone' is home.
Led by Alex Petzey, Diego Reanda Sapalu, Eliza Calder, Ana Cabrera Pacheco, Thomas McKean, Teresa Armijos, Cristina Sala Valdes, Maya Sosof.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/tzutujil-maya/
 
Description Fieldtrip to the west side of Fuego Volcano associated with the Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua Guatemala 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This field trip combined observations of volcanic activity, a discussion of the hazards at Fuego with Guatemala scientists and community engagement. Participants spent three days and two nights at the Fuego Observatory in Panimache, with the opportunity to camp, watch Fuego erupt at night, eat over a campfire and discuss the challenges of living and working in the shadow of one of the most active volcanoes in Central America. Participants visited several valleys (Seca, Ceniza and Taniluya) on the Western flanks of Fuego down which pyroclastic flows and lahars travel and talked to leaders from communities exposed to volcanic such hazards, all under the leadership of Guatemala's most experience volcanologist, Gustavo Chigna. The fieldtrip highlighted the complexity of risk management in these remote communities on the west flank of Fuego Volcano.
Led by Matthew Watson, Ailsa Naismith, Beth Bartel, Gustavo Chigna, William Chigna, Matthew Purvis
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/volcan-de-fuego-guatemala/
 
Description Finding resonance: Building an IAVCEI Commission on Indigenous People and Volcanology - Workshop at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Workshop at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

This workshop sought to identify and connect people who value and are invested in Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, and volcanology. Workshop goals centered on relationship-building and sharing knowledge, visions, and science. The workshop was a step in building community support, especially from Indigenous volcanologists, to create an IAVCEI Commission on Indigenous People and Volcanology, intended to provide an ongoing forum and resource for Indigeneity and volcanology across international groups.

Organisers: Jonathan Procter, Eliza Calder, Alex Petzey, Carla Chun
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/content/uploads/2023/10/pre-4.pdf
 
Description Making the magic happen: methods and case studies for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange in volcanic risk - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Teresa Armijos Burneo, Monique Johnson, Jenni Barclay, Jeremy Phillips, Diego Sapalu, Eliza Calder, Nélida Manrique
Session description:

This session invites presentations from a variety of research projects or practice communities who have developed or implemented methodologies that support dialogues of knowledges between disciplines and beyond academia to understand and reduce volcanic risk. Finding ways to prevent disasters in the future while also learning from past experiences requires an understanding of the intersection between the social, environmental and cultural factors that define volcanic hazards and risk. This, in turn, requires interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogues. However, epistemological and cultural differences between different types of knowledge and disciplines pose important challenges for successful dialogue to take place. Although there are always differences in methodologies and approaches between disciplines, deeper structural differences, including hierarchies attached to some forms of knowledge, can prevent genuine and respectful exchanges taking place. This can stifle the creation of new knowledge for disaster risk reduction.
In recent years, various projects and initiatives have incentivised exchange and dialogues between different groups of people, disciplines and practice communities. However, there is a need to share examples on how to do it in practice. This session therefore aims to explore methods and approaches that enhance knowledge co-creation and transcend methodological and epistemological differences between different actors, disciplines and groups of people to reduce volcanic disaster risk. We seek to invite presentations with a strong empirical component to discuss methodologies to co-produce knowledge around volcanic risk (be it hazard-related, policy, cultural, or social) while also reflecting on the challenges of doing this type of work.
Presentations that discuss a wide variety of topics across different sectors, and stem from diverse academic and other traditions are encouraged. These might include but are not restricted to: participatory methodologies, citizen-science, instruments, data production through the use of social cartography and arts-based methods.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Participatory and Transdisciplinary work related to Disaster Risk Reduction - Plenary session at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.
As this was a plenary talk, it was also open to the general public.

Panelists: Eliza Calder, Professor of Volcanology, University of Edinburgh, UK; Rudiger Escobar-Wolf, Associate Professor, Michigan Technological University; Margarita Kenefic, Scriptwriter and actress, Casa de Producción, Guatemala
Introducer & discussant: Teresa Armijos, University of Edinburgh, UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Relationships with the Red Zone - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Eliza Calder, Monique Johnson, Ana Cabrera, Teresa Armijos, Thomas McKean
Session description:

We invite presentations related to the realities and complexities of living within, or reinhabiting, Red Zones, "exclusion zones", or areas deemed by state authorities as being "uninhabitable" around volcanoes. While these demarcated spaces are no-go areas in geological or disaster risk management terms, the lived reality and immediate needs of those that sometimes inhabit, or inhabited, them is more complex. In many cases, and for diverse reasons, people need to continue to live and/or work in these spaces. Common drivers for this are the sustainability of livelihoods, no viable alternative living spaces provided by governments or municipalities, and lack of resources. In other cases, people leave for periods of time, returning when immediate danger is past, and/or life elsewhere becomes difficult. Some live a mobile life between their old home and their new, negotiating a complex re-imagining of "home", drawing on the resources of both spaces to piece together new lives. In some places communities are condemned to an increasingly marginal existence with no provision of water, electricity, or schools by a state which does not support their existence. In turn, such conditions can increase risk further. In other cases there are blatant double standards in which communities condemned to little or no infrastructural support have to witness high-profile infrastructure like roads and bridges being restored or constructed because these places are economically important thoroughfares. Macro-scale economic imperatives often contradict and take precedence over DRR and basic human rights at the local level. We invite presentations related to on-the-ground knowledge of conditions, spaces, and places disturbed, destroyed, or at risk from environmental impact as well as the community's history, cultural and livelihood needs and ways of life. We aim to discuss the complex and often contradictory realities of the red zone. We will conclude the talk session with a panel discussion.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Risk and disaster scholarship in Latin America - Plenary session at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.
As this was a plenary talk, it was also open to the general public.

Panelists: Alex Guerra , Instituto Privado de Investigación sobre Cambio Climático (ICC), Guatemala; Irasema Alcántara-Ayala, Instituto de Geografía, UNAM, México; Wotzbely Suarez, CONRED, Guatemala
Introducer & discussant: Lizzette Rodriguez, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Mayagüez
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Scenes from film - The Colour of Ash and discussion with director Mischa Prince - Two film screenings at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Two screenings of the first cut of documentary film 'The Colour of Ash' by Mischa Prince at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Sharing lessons from working alongside communities at risk from volcanic eruptions: where are we now and how can we improve - Workshop at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Workshop at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

This workshop had two main purposes: a) to share and celebrate the different methods in use in working with communities, their positives and pitfalls and b) to synthesize and compare this work to understand commonalities in approach, essential ethical considerations and consider the lessons volcano-focussed work has to offer other contexts.

Organisers: Jenni Barclay, Teresa Armijos
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/content/uploads/2023/10/pre-12.pdf
 
Description Volcanic hazard assessment in Latin America: innovative methods and opportunities for risk reduction strategies and knowledge transfer - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Roberto Mérida, Amilcar Roca, María Luisa Monsalve, Marco Rivera, S. Daniel Andrade, Álvaro Amigo, Lucía Capra, Heather Wright, Jeremy Phillips, Pablo Tierz Roberto Merida, Amilcar Roca, Jeremy Phillips, Pablo Tierz
Session description:

The objective of this session is to exchange knowledge about the different methods used, results and experiences acquired during the evaluation of volcanic threat in volcanoes in Latin America. We want to include contributions that cover a variety of methods (e.g. based on hazard inventories, eruption scenarios, and/or probabilistic methods) and time scales (e.g. short-term during emergency response and/or in relation to long-term planning). This variety will make it possible to demonstrate the requirements in terms of data and highlight examples of methods and applications successfully carried out on volcanoes in Latin America, highlighting the learning derived from their application. These methods may include data collection during the eruption and/or mapping of eruptive products, analysis in Geographic Information Systems, the application of physical or statistical models (e.g. "event trees"), etc. Contributions that delve into the relationships between volcanic hazard assessment and risk management from an operational point of view, whether at a local, regional or national scale, as well as examples in which scientific methods, established or innovative, are combined with community and indigenous knowledge, in order to increase knowledge about threats and improve risk mitigation strategies.
The session will include a group discussion with the objective of investigating the following questions: What challenges exist for the assessment of volcanic threats in Latin America? What opportunities are foreseen for the exchange of knowledge and data (e.g. using analogous volcanoes) within Latin America, and in relation to other volcanic regions in the world? What would be the most effective way to establish a reciprocal exchange of experience and knowledge between operational (e.g. volcano observatories) and academic institutions?
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Volcanology in Latin America; Shaping the Horizon (Plenary session at COV12) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.
As this was a plenary talk, it was also open to the general public.

Panelists: Gustavo Chigna, INSIVUMEH, Guatemala; Marta Calvache, Servicio Geológico Colombiano, SGC (retired); Andrew Lockart, Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, USGS (retired); Mariana Patricia Jácome Paz, Instituto de Geofísica, UNAM, Mexico
Introducer & discussant: Pablo Forte, Servicio Geológico Minero Argentino, SEGEMAR
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Whose Mountain is it Anyway? Volcanoes, Knowledge, and Tourism - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Conveners: Thomas McKean, Romario Magzul, Robert Fraser Harris
Session description:

For many, volcanoes equal risk, danger, and unstoppable force. But they are also homes, places people live, raise families, and work. Into these environments comes the tourist gaze, often bringing with it outsider understandings of the space, its risks, and how to interact with it.
This panel session seeks diverse insights from tour guides, residents, academics, adventure tour operators, and others, on tourism in volcanic environments: motivations and aesthetics, local experiential knowledge, economic drivers, sources of information about safety, amateur and/or professional access, historical examples. We could explore authority (science, situated knowledge, economic drivers, personal choices re risk and safety), the general educative value of such tourism, and varying ideas of 'perceived susceptibility' to risk (Goldstein 2004, 63).
On the volcano's slopes, the different stakeholders must strike a delicate balance between closely interdependent, sometimes opposing priorities, as judgements are made about safety (based on volcanic activity, local knowledge, observatory data, weather, client fitness and experience), capacity (infrastructure and supply chains), and monetization (income, employees, and where the money goes). Many of these parties will have different risk tolerances, economic drivers can cloud judgements about safety and risk, and thus a complex moral maze involving multiple dynamic components must thus be negotiated.
Contributors included local guides, tour operators, community members, local observatory staff, volcanologists with experience of this dimension of the environment.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/
 
Description Women on and around volcanoes: Care in the community - Session organised at COV12 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Session organised at Cities on Volcanoes 12 conference in Antigua, Guatemala (February 2024). This is a conference with a diverse audience that comprised professional practitioners, academics, people from communities in Guatemala (many of which are involved in different aspects of the Ixchel project), monitoring agencies, and civil protection.

Convenors: Cristina Sala Valdés, Amy Donovan, Norma Beltrán, Teresa Armijos, Eliza Calder, Jenni Barclay, Jan Lindsay
Panelists: Eliza Calder, Jenni Barclay, Jan Lindsay, Marta Calvache, Norma Beltrán, Carmen Soledad Azurdia, Liliana Argueta, Sarai Perez
Session description:

This session will focus particularly on the role(s) and experiences of women working on applied aspects of volcanic risk - whether within the academy or beyond it. We seek to explore feminist approaches to understanding volcano-human relationships, paying attention to the experiences, identities and connections within those relationships, exploring how the stresses and responsibility associated with a territory, livelihood and/or community at risk leaves an imprint in the body. At the same time, we aim to unfold situated concepts such as resistance, recovery and power. All of the latter includes the practice of an 'ethic of care' in how we work with communities and with each other.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://congress.iavceivolcano.org/program/