Volcano Case Study - Iceland Flashcards
What is the case study called
Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland
What are the characteristics of the place?
28th richest country in the world
Officially nobody lives below the poverty line
Rural areas, sparsely populated
They have prediction methods in place such as ongoing monitoring and risk mapping for informal settlements
They have a few methods of protection such as;
Community preparedness and education
Mitigation - board up houses / bring in animals
Exclusion zones (evacuation)
Close roads (infrastructure designed to be swept away from Lahar)
What are the characteristics of the hazard?
VEI 4
Glacier covered stratovolcano (basaltic and andesitic lava )
Constructive boundary (oceanic hotspot)
Interaction between lava and ice produces ash
Steam creates highly explosive eruption (high in atmosphere) and fine grained ash (goes higher into the atmosphere and travels further)
Eruption lasted 1 month as magma chamber from 1821 reactivated
High pressure system - northerly winds long lasting
What were the primary impacts?
What are the secondary impacts?
What were the impacts for?
Social -
Economic-
Environmental -
Political -
Social
10 million people affected due to airport closures and other events
Embankments protecting local communities broke, leading to flooding of the land
Economic
Crops were contaminated and destroyed
Fresh food couldn’t be imported
Reconstruction was expensive
Over 8 days, 100,000 flights were cancelled resulting in a total loss of £80 million
Environmental
Ash coated agricultural land, which also caused air pollution
Flooding caused by the glacier and water contaminated with fluoride
Hay was contaminated
20 farms were destroyed by the eruption
Political
What were the risks?
low risk as the people were educated on what to do if an eruption occurred. Therefore people knew to get all their resources inside and board up their houses.
Was the area vulnerable?
In Iceland nobody dies because the country could afford to evacuate over 700 people. This very strong evidence supports the reason for no loss of life
What are the long term management strategies?
Iceland after the event invested into prediction of volcanic eruptions and the flight of ash clouds. Therefore it would be less vulnerable to another event
What are the short term response strategies?
700 people were evacuated
Livestock were taken inside to escape the ash.
