Although volcanos may not be a top of mind natural disaster for many countries, eruptions can affect not only people’s lives, such as the recent Fuego volcano eruption, but also overall temperature variations around the globe. An article on Inverse looks at a database that may be of use for other disaster management professionals tracking natural events, and demonstrate some interesting lessons in terms of futurecasting such disasters.
WOVOdat (World Organization of Volcano Observatories) links scientists around the world to record volcanic activity data in a free repository. Comparing the database to a medical team’s work, Emma Betuel writes in Inverse, “with WOVODat, the volcano is the patient and the data is the scan. Scientists might be able to input the ‘symptoms’ of a local volcano — the frequency of earthquakes around it or types of gas spewing from the top, for instance — and find similar patterns in other volcanoes around the world. Eventually, the scientists might use that data to make a diagnosis of how tumultuous an eruption might be based on similar cases.”
The WOVOdat team has learned to forge ties with scientists around the world, but there can be challenges that may be familiar to other global disaster recovery workers. Project leader Fidel Costa spoke to Betuel of dealing with reluctance to share data from other researchers (he found face to face meetings were often helpful) and pressure due to the high stakes.
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