EGU22-12949
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12949
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Mitigating the highest volcanic risk in the World: a multidisciplinary strategy for the Neapolitan area

Claudia Troise1,2, Giuseppe De Natale1,2, Renato Somma1,3, Massimo Buscema4, Guido Maurelli4, Adriano Giannola5, and Stefano Petrazzuoli6
Claudia Troise et al.
  • 1INGV - Osservatorio Vesuviano, Via Diocleziano 328, Naples 80124, Italy
  • 2INO-CNR, Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, Italy
  • 3IRISS-CNR, Via Guglielmo Sanfelice 8, 80134 Napoli, Italy
  • 4SEMEION Research Center, Via Sersale 117, 00128 Rome, Italy
  • 5SVIMEZ, via di Porta Pinciana 6, 00187 Rome, Italy
  • 6Free Lance Engineer, Via Rodolfo Falvo 20, 80127 Naples, Italy

The Neapolitan volcanic area is by far the highest volcanic risk one in the World, due to the presence of three active volcanic areas (Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, Ischia) with an extreme population density: three millions people live within 20 km from a possible volcanic vent. Volcanic risk in these areas is strictly associated to seismic risk, and to other secondary risks as landslides and flooding.

The mitigation of such an extreme risk can only be afforded by considering volcanological, as well as economical, urbanistic  and social issues. All these highly multidisciplinary aspects must be jointly recognized and shared by both volcanologists and decision makers, in a global, effective risk reduction policy.

We start considering the very high number of people living in the ‘red zones’ (the most risky areas, in terms of the actual emergency plans) of Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei, and the economic losses linked to a complete evacuation of these areas. We then demonstrate, from volcanological considerations, that evacuated people could not come back in the red zones in short times, but rather after years or decades, perhaps never again.From such basic considerations, we proceed to propose a multidisciplinary, effective mitigation strategy and emergency planning, which can significantly decrease the volcanic and associated risks in the area and to make effectively feasible and sustainable an evacuation, in case of high probability for an impending eruption. The proposed strategy also uses the most advanced Artificial Intelligence methodologies to plan an optimal, complete relocation of the population living in the most risky areas, in case of sudden as well as progressive evacuation. In addition, our mitigation strategy takes into account other key demographic and economic issues: problems affecting several internal areas of Southern Italy, which can help to handle the problem of risk mitigation, and to possibly jointly solve them.

How to cite: Troise, C., De Natale, G., Somma, R., Buscema, M., Maurelli, G., Giannola, A., and Petrazzuoli, S.: Mitigating the highest volcanic risk in the World: a multidisciplinary strategy for the Neapolitan area, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12949, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12949, 2022.