During the last couple of decades, volcanology has evolved significantly, allowing for an improved understanding of volcanic processes preceding, accompanying and following eruptive events. Key elements to these achievements are (1) the huge amounts of high quality data being collected by networks of increasingly sensitive instruments deployed at active volcanoes, and (2) the establishment of a solid, multidisciplinary theoretical framework for the quantitative prediction of geophysical and geochemical measurements. Taken together, these advances now permit to study the mechanisms that control mass transfer underneath volcanoes in unprecedented detail; as a consequence, the short- to medium-term forecast of volcanic eruptions is more and more based on the understanding of the physics of the causative processes, rather than on a phenomenological approach. This short course is aimed at presenting (a) the main technological and methodological advances in the measurement of the wide-band displacement and changes in potential fields, and both the in-situ and remote measurements of gas emissions at active volcanoes; (b) a detailed overview of the theoretical background and associated modeling tools for the quantitative inversion and interpretation of the experimental data, and (c) methods and paradigms for turning these information into quantitative hazard assessment.

The short course is part of the educational and training initiatives of NEMOH - an Initial Training Network under the European Community FP7.