EUROVOLC: Building the European volcanological community and opening access to Research Infrastructures of Volcano Observatories and Volcano Research Institutions

Volcanic systems are complex and volcanic eruptions are difficult to predict. The volcanoes present multiple hazards, where eruptions often result in cascading effects. The European volcano monitoring and research community, including volcano observatories and their close collaborating volcanic research institutions, play a key role in mitigating volcanic risk in Europe by providing key scientific information and interpretation during volcanic crises. However, to fully benefit society, access to these infrastructures and propagation of advances in volcanological research and know-how across the European volcanological community need to be improved. The H2020 EUROVOLC Infrastructure project is addressing this need by promoting collaboration and community building within the European volcanological community and between the community and its stakeholders, advancing new research and discoveries for the benefit of improved volcano hazard monitoring and management and opening access to European volcanological Research Infrastructures.

EUROVOLC’s objectives are to overcome the fragmentation of the European volcanology community. This fragmentation is portrayed by the scattered distribution of volcano observatories across the European plate and European overseas territories, the wide range of scientific disciplines involved in volcanology, the short and time-fragmented duration of research projects and, in some cases, the lack of community standards and test beds to test new theories and methodologies. The project builds upon developments of its forerunners, the volcano Supersite projects FUTUREVOLC and MED-SUV and will rely on collaboration with the e-Infrastructures of the EPOS (European Plate Observing System) Organization to sustain long-term access to the data and products made available in EUROVOLC. The consortium includes all the main European volcano observatories and many of the strongest volcano research institutions, as well as Civil Protection agencies and geothermal industry and IT companies.

The project is structured around activities contributing to the advancement of four main themes: (i) Community building, (ii) Sub-surface processes, (iii) Volcano-atmosphere interactions, and (iv) Volcanic hazard preparedness and risk management, where within each theme the three traditional categories of Infrastructure project activities are carried out: Networking people and data, Joint Research, and Access to Research Infrastructures, both virtual and trans-national.

EUROVOLC has already substantially enriched opportunities for volcanological research in Europe through the project’s two open calls for research proposals, offering trans-national access to the Research Infrastructures of European volcano observatories and laboratories and modeling facilities of volcano research institutions. From the first call in summer 2018 twelve projects were funded, most of which were carried out during 2019. The selected proposals submitted to the second call in 2019 will be carried out during 2020. Additionally, virtual access has been constructed to several new or improved data and modeling services. In the Networking activities new standards for observations and hazard communication are being developed, suitable data sets defined for benchmarking ash-dispersion models and new data sets opened. In the Joint Research activities new methodologies for ash-dispersion modeling and pre-eruptive unrest detection are being developed, a new catalogue of European volcanoes created, and hazard tools developed and tested.

The ingredients, activities and achievements of EUROVOLC will be summarized in the presentation.