The Government of the Canary Islands and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), through the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA), are working together, through the European project VOLCAN, to improve the management of the risks associated with volcanic eruptions that may occur in the archipelago.
The VOLCAN project, financed by the European Commission, will allow providing the Government of the Canary Islands with scientific advice to modify the Special Plan for Civil Protection and Emergency Care for Volcanic Risk in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands (PEVOLCA), as well as to develop volcanic hazard maps of all the islands, which will be developed by the natural risk assessment and management service (NRAMS) of IDAEA-CSIC.
These maps, which will offer a visual representation of the areas potentially affected by volcanic hazards, will be a crucial tool for establishing scenarios, designing preventive measures, prioritizing resources, coordinating interventions during emergencies, and raising citizen awareness about the risks and action protocols.
In addition, the project, which also involves the National Geographic Institute (IGN), includes the training of Civil Protection and research personnel and different outreach activities aimed at the population so that they become familiar with the volcanic environment in which they live and know the risks they face and how to act.
The analysis of all the data from the VOLCAN project will allow integrating the results of scientific research on volcanic activity in the archipelago with emergency management, which will facilitate decision-making in the face of the volcanic risks faced by the Canary Islands.
As the first action of this project, Tenerife has hosted this week the first working days in which the project manager and researcher at IDAEA-CSIC, Joan Martí, has shared with scientists from different entities and Civil Protection personnel the basic lines of work of this project, the main objectives, the systems for assessing volcanic hazard in the short and long term, as well as the tools for hazard maps.
Personnel from the General Directorate of Emergencies of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Coordinating Center for Emergencies and Security (CECOES) 112, the Cabildo of Tenerife, the Lanzarote Emergency Consortium, the National Geographic Institute (IGN) and the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME) have participated in these first days.
These same conferences will be held in the coming months on the islands of El Hierro, La Palma and Lanzarote.
