The Integrated Mobile Volcano-Monitoring System Used by the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP)

Abstract

Following the tragic 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz Volcano, Colombia, the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) initiated the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). The primary mission of this interagency cooperative program is to reduce eruption-caused fatalities and economic loss during volcanic crises or disasters in developing countries. The VDAP concept grew out of the proposed, but never implemented International Mobile Early Warning System for volcanic eruptions and related Scismic activities (IMEWS), which was the subject of several international workshops in the early 1980s supported by the United Nations. The principal components of VDAP are a small core of full-time scientists at the USGS’ Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) in Vancouver, Washington, and a cache of volcano-monitoring equipment kept ready for rapid deployment. A third component is an ongoing effort to develop and enhance the hardware and software systems that VDAP uses to monitor volcanoes.