Volcanoes are dominant geologic features that shape the landscape and pose risks to ever-expanding critical infrastructure and population centers. Government agencies around the globe operate volcano observatories to monitor active volcanoes, issue activity warnings and eruption updates, and develop hazard models and maps to help prepare members of the public in the event of an eruption. It is crucial to understand the range of complex processes associated with volcanic hazards. However, each volcano poses unique challenges related to gathering data, developing eruption models, interpreting precursors of an eruption, and quantifying the potential hazards that might occur. These challenges make it difficult to standardize the identification and evaluation of volcanic hazards. Additionally, the methods of how to best estimate volcanic hazards remain an open area of research, which can lead to disparate outcomes depending on methodology. This symposium brings together volcanologists from universities, volcano observatories, and consulting firms to discuss their work with the goal of furthering the scientific understanding of volcanic hazards and the methods applied for evaluation of those hazards.

There will be three keynote speakers at the symposium. Dr. William Hackett will discuss the essentials of how volcanoes work with a history of characterizing volcanic hazards and provide context on the evolution of the field. Dr. Chuck Connor will provide insights into modern methods for probabilistic assessment of volcanic hazards in complex volcanic fields and their potential impacts to nuclear power facilities. Dr. Raphaël Paris will discuss his work reflecting the importance of laboratory studies to better understand and forecast volcanogenic tsunamis. In addition, other speakers at the symposium will address a wide range of topics including field mapping and data collection for characterizing volcanic fields, building infrastructure for modeling volcanic hazards, creating real-time monitoring networks for active volcanoes, and developing regulatory guidance for assessing volcanic hazards that might affect critical infrastructure.​

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