1. "Learning to Live with Volcanic Risk" - NZ govt FRST program that aims to improve national resilience to activity from the cone-building andesitic volcanoes in New Zealand (especially Mt Taranaki and Mt Ruapehu).

A programme led by Assoc. Prof Shane Cronin.

Programme Outcome Statement:

Providing probabilistic hazard forecasts and new risk management tools in order to reduce socioeconomic losses from volcanic events to New Zealand.

The programme responds to the investment signals and priorities relating to the Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (RIC) portfolio. It will address the need for improved identification of New Zealand 's natural hazards and risks, particularly those posed by volcanism at Taranaki, Ruapehu and Tongariro. It will also focus on the need for developing new risk management tools and knowledge to improve community resilience and well being. When achieved, this outcome will also support the main aims of the Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM) Act (2002) of "reducing the risks from hazards through application of risk management".

This 6-year program involves two objectives: Volcanic hazardscape modelling for Taranaki and Ruapehu North Island volcanic risk management

Research under this umbrella includes:

• Understanding the magmatic and environmental driving forces of eruption styles at Egmont (see Thomas Platz).

• Evaluating and calibrating numerical mass-flow models to provide new forecasting and maps of hazards at our cone volcanoes - in conjunction with colleagues from the State University of Buffalo, USA. (see Jon Procter, Shane Cronin).

• Developing new and improved eruption records and eruption magnitude/frequency relationships for Taranaki and Ruapehu (see Michael Turner).

• Developing probabilistic eruption forecasts using statistical models of temporal and spatial recurrence of volcanism at Ruapehu and Taranaki (e.g. Graph of probabilistic output from Taveuni Fiji).

• Understanding the long-term cycles, drivers and processes of cone volcano growth and destruction at Taranaki, (see Anke Zernack).

• Understanding the long-term geochemical evolution of Andesitic volcanoes in conjunction with Ian Smith from University of Auckland and Richard Price from Waikato University (see also Anke Zernack).

• Evaluating the eruption properties and hazards of tephra eruptions from Ruapehu and Tongariro volcanoes (see Anja Möbis).

• Developing GIS tools for quantifying infrastructure risk in the Taranaki area.

• Developing emergency management tools for volcanic scenario development.

2. "Capturing the secrets of a life-sized lahar" a 3-yr New Zealand Royal Society, Marsden Fund Research program (2006-)

A programme led by Assoc. Prof Shane Cronin and Dr Vernon Manville (GNS Science)

In a highly opportunistic experiment, afforded by an expected lahar on Ruapehu volcano, we will develop new techniques for understanding and monitoring geologic mass-flows. Since eruptions of 1996, Crater Lake has risen behind a barrier of loose debris. Sudden failure of this dam to trigger a lahar is expected at any time from late 2005 onward. Similarly, new eruptions could also generate mass-flows at any time. Making use of this unique environmental circumstance, we will use pre- and post-event aerial LiDAR and digital photographic surveys to analyse post-event changes in channel morphology, sediment erosion and redistribution. In addition, we will develop innovative methods of applying mechanical, electro-magnetic, vibration, and pressure detection systems to understanding the velocities, sediment distribution, flow behaviour and erosion/deposition processes within rapidly moving sediment-water slurries.

The new monitoring systems will be tested in the lab as well as at Ruapehu and a debris flood-prone area at Semeru in Indonesia . These experimental results will form a globally unique dataset to enable the testing of evolving scientific hypotheses of sediment-water flow mechanics. The data will also serve as a global-standard against which the new generation of numerical and physical mass-flow models can be calibrated and refined.

One of the problems with effectively modelling and planning for lahars on Ruapehu and many other similar volcanoes is that they begin as watery floods, but through sediment entrainment develop a complex rheology in medial reaches, where the central portions of the lahar wave are highly concentrated debris flows (A in figure above, from Cronin et al., 1999). The sediment-swollen flows are later diluted in distal reaches to hyperconcentrated flows and muddy floods (B) by selective deposition and by overrunning stream water in their paths (e.g. Cronin et al., 2000).

As part of this program Ms Suzy Cole will develop new geophysical methods to monitor the internal dynamics of moving debris flows/lahars.

Shane Cronin and Vernon Manville scoping out locations for installing monitoring instruments along the Whangaehu River in preparation for a lahar from Ruapehu (part of the Marsden Program, Capturing the secrets of a life-sized lahar).

3. Volcanic risk mitigation programs in the Southwest Pacific (see Shane Cronin)

• Community disaster and emergency management education, including the development of volcanic hazard maps and emergency response plans for Savo volcano in the Solomon islands as well as Ambae, Ambrym, Yasur and Gaua Volcanoes in Vanuatu.
  
  

• Volcanic emergency management structures, warning systems and provincial emergency response plans for Vanuatu Volcanoes, with the Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office, and Department of Geology, Mines and Water Resources.

• Eruption response, management and scientific advice for eruptions of Lopevi (2003), Ambrym (2005) and Ambae (2005-06) volcanoes in Vanuatu.
  
  

• Volcanic hazard mapping, modelling and community emergency management planning in Fiji (Taveuni and Kadavu volcanoes).
  
  

4. Facing the Challenges of Auckland’s Volcanism - NZ govt FRST program that will use a sister volcano approach with a volcanic field in South Korea to answer some of the questions surrounding the Auckland Volcanic Field

A programme led by Shane Cronin involving Dr Karoly Nemeth and Dr Mark Bebbington (Massey U.), A/Prof Ian Smith and Dr Jan Lindsay (Auckland U.), Dr Garry McDonald (New Zealand Centre for Ecological Economics), and Michele Daly (Kestrel Group Ltd)

This new research partnership between our interdisciplinary NZ team and a world-leading Korean research consortium will create innovative, probabilistic economic volcanic-risk forecasts that will help underpin the sustainable development of Auckland City. By 2012 key stakeholders in the Auckland region will be able to access tools to redefine their risk-management strategies for the Auckland Volcanic Field (AVF) founded on a new integrated understanding of the behaviour, evolution and time-varying hazards of distributed basaltic volcanic systems.

At volcanic fields, like the AVF, hazard forecasting remains enigmatic because each eruption begins in a new and unpredictable location. The geological youth of the AVF is especially problematic, because its future evolution is unpredictable. Our team will adopt a “sister-volcano” approach to build a quantifiable model of magma genesis, eruption frequency, magnitude, location and style, by analogy on an ideal sibling field at Jeju Island, South Korea. Jeju is geologically and economically matched to the Auckland region, but the volcanism is up to 5 times older, giving us a future perspective. From the joint research investment of our Korean counterparts a deep-geological drilling program on Jeju will provide the stretch needed to build a universal volcano field model. From this we can incrementally build a broadly applicable probabilistic tool to robustly forecast hazards at a wide range of volcanic fields. By combining this tool with economic futures models, a real strategic improvement in hazard management can be achieved. This research will generate information that can reduce the uncertainty around the location, timing, warning, nature and economic consequences of future eruptions at volcanic fields and improve the confidence with which risk-management decisions can be made by national and regional authorities, businesses and individuals. The results will be drivers for facilitating development of new volcanic-risk management strategies by key stakeholder groups including the Auckland Engineering Lifelines Group, the Auckland Regional Council, DEVORA and the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.

5. Volcanic health hazards research (see Shane Cronin)

• Impact of volcanic degassing on drinking water and food supplies (Ruapehu, NZ; Ambrym and Yasur volcanoes, Vanuatu).
  
• Impacts of long-term volcanic fluoride (F) contamination on human health - particularly dental fluorosis in children.
  
• Membership of the International Volcanic Health Hazard Network - Shane Cronin