Probabilistic volcanic hazard and risk assessment quantifying long‐ and short‐term volcanic hazard: Building up a common strategy for Italian volcanoes, Erice, Italy, 8 November 2006

Abstract

The term “hazard” can lead to some misunderstanding. In English, hazard has the generic meaning “potential source of danger,” but for more than 30 years [e.g., Fournier d'Albe, 1979], hazard has been also used in a more quantitative way, that reads, “the probability of a certain hazardous event in a specific time‐space window.” However, many volcanologists still use “hazard” and “volcanic hazard” in purely descriptive and subjective ways. A recent meeting held in November 2006 at Erice, Italy, entitled “Quantifying Long‐ and Short‐Term Volcanic Hazard: Building up a Common Strategy for Italian Volcanoes” (http://www.bo.ingv.it/ erice2006) concluded that a more suitable term for the estimation of quantitative hazard is “probabilistic volcanic hazard assessment” (PVHA).