Abstract
At Campi Flegrei caldera, volcanic unrest hazards during 1982–1984 caused significant building damage and led to the evacuation of over 40,000 residents in the central town of Pozzuoli. Past hazard assessments in this region have focused on eruption hazards rather than on hazards from volcanic unrest. In this study, we developed a hypothetical unrest hazard scenario applied to three locations within Campi Flegrei caldera: Pozzuoli, Agnano and Baia. We also collated GIS exposure datasets and used vulnerability models of building and road damage to carry out an impact assessment for future volcanic unrest at these three test locations. The resulting impact maps provide useful insight into the effects future unrest could have on businesses, buildings and livelihoods within Campi Flegrei.The impact maps show that, depending on the location of unrest, evacuations associated with future unrest may involve displacement of large numbers of residents, and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure. The Agnano scenario is associated with the greatest impact and involves the potential evacuation of 136,000 people and damage to about 2400 buildings, with up to 200 km of roads and 17 km of high-voltage electricity network also exposed. Agnano also lies between Naples and the rest of Campi Flegrei, so that damage to infrastructure may trigger a cascade of obstacles to managing evacuations and repairs during an emergency. The results highlight how a simple impact assessment can be used to explore the possible effects of future unrest hazard, and the importance of considering scenarios in which renewed ground uplift is not necessarily focused beneath Pozzuoli.
Highlights
About 20 large calderas show episodes of volcanic unrest each year (Newhall and Dzurisin 1988; Acocella et al 2015)
In order to understand more about future unrest at Campi Flegrei, we present a new set of impact maps, exploring the potential effect of hazards from noneruptive unrest on the population and built assets in Campi Flegrei
By overlaying the unrest hazard scenario on the distributions of population, buildings and other assets (Tables 3, 4 and 5) at three locations, we were able to carry out first-order impact assessments
Summary
About 20 large calderas show episodes of volcanic unrest each year (Newhall and Dzurisin 1988; Acocella et al 2015). The hazards from unrest include volcano-tectonic (VT) seismicity, ground uplift, hydrothermal explosions, the opening of faults and fractures, increased degassing and landslides (Newhall and Dzurisin 1988) They may cause severe physical damage to buildings, transportation networks and critical infrastructures, Charlton et al Journal of Applied Volcanology (2020) 9:7 such as electricity, water and telecommunications networks (Barberi et al 1984; Mader et al 1987; Johnston et al 2002). When extended evacuations are necessary, the impacts of unrest are exacerbated by restrictions on effecting repairs (Deligne et al 2017) and by uncertainty and fear amongst local communities (Longo 2019), often fuelled by ambiguous and sensational media reports (Blong 1984; Lowenstein 1988; Johnston et al 2002; Benson 2006) The latter was experienced by communities at Rabaul caldera in Papua New Guinea, where unrest between 1983 and 1985 and subsequent media attention caused losses estimated at over US$22.2 million (Lowenstein 1988). This was primarily due to a fall in property values, increases in seismic risk levies on insurance premiums and 10,000 people being evacuated (Kuester and Forsyth 1985; Benson 2006)
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