An approach to assess hazards in the vicinity of mountain and volcanic areas

Abstract

Landslide, lahars and lava flow will remain a major concern for many people, until governments and scientists have fully mastered these sometimes devastating phenomena occurring in a vicinity of the volcanoes and mountains. Knowing some of their properties is therefore a challenge for scientists around the world, with a view to define and guarantee harmonious and sustainable living spaces. The association of the DOWNFLOW and FLOWGO methods and the use of the remote sensing and field data, integration and destruction indices have allowed in this work to map the directions of flows and the areas at risk of landslides, together with the thermorheological parameters of any lava. The combination of all these results produces a synthetic map of the level of risk on a mountain and shows where the surrounding populations and their activities can exist peacefully and sustainably. This study has made it possible to forecast the multi-hazard risk assessment on a mountain combining methods that are generally used separately. The originality of the method lies in the fact that it can be used with most GISs (Geographic Information Systems), making attempts to forecast risks less costly when the data used are free.