Virunga Volcanoes Supersite Biennial Report: 2017- 2019

The Virunga Volcanoes is the first Supersite established on the African continent in a highly populated Multi-hazards region. This permanent Supersite was established in a critical context as little was known about the Virunga hazards sources and their dynamics, and little done as measures to evaluate, mitigate and reduce their impacts. Similarly, the active volcanoes are poorly studied and monitored, because of the lack of both qualified human resources and appropriate infrastructures. Therefore, the establishment of the “Virunga Volcanoes Supersite” aimed mostly at helping put together local and international scientists and agencies; support them to access to Earth Observatory (EO) data and potentially to equipment for ground-based data collection, as well as the building of a pool of collaboration. The expectation was that the above-mentioned collaborations and supports would improve the early warning capacity of the local scientists and agencies involved in Natural Hazards Assessment and volcano monitoring, risk reduction and management.
 

After two years of existence, the Virunga Volcanoes Supersite has allowed the building of institutional collaboration between the Goma Volcano Observatory and some of the world leading institutes specialized in the study and monitoring of active volcanoes, and the assessment of related hazards (e.g. Italian INGV, United Stated USGS-VDAP, discussions are ongoing for others). The supersite has also allowed the access-free of charge- to a variety of EO data, e.g. COSMO-SkyMed SAR data from the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Pleiades from the Centre National d’Etudes Spaciales. More importantly, the Virunga Volcanoes Supersite has brought a large number of local and international scientists and agencies work together to and study Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira active volcanoes in order to better understand their eruptive mechanism, and hence better assess the related hazards and manage risks. Through this pool of collaboration, numerus activities have been successfully conducted, going from field works to assistance ordering and processing EO data, which yielded the production of useful hazards maps. Thus, the Virunga has requested and successfully obtained the activation of the Copernicus EMS services for the Virunga volcanoes for risk analyses with a focus on volcanic hazard. The later has yielded the production of hazards maps for future eruptions management, the collection of ground-based data used to produce Risk and Recovery mapping of Virunga volcanoes, as well as the production of thorough natural hazards assessment in the Virunga region and Lake Kivu.  However, similar works have to be conducted in other parts of the Area of Interest of the Virunga Volcanoes Supersite, and hence the future works that use EO data (InSAR and Pleiades, principally) will aim at (1) continuing the ongoing  study and monitoring of ground deformation of Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira volcanoes; (2) mapping and monitoring earthquakes and earthquake-triggered landslides in Lake Kivu Basin; (3) mapping of normal and non-normal faults in the Lake Kivu Basin, (4) along with geohazards assessment and forecast in Virunga and Lake Kivu Basin regions

Most of these results were obtained while the Virunga Volcanoes Supersite has any budget, as they were conducted through voluntary international partnership, as are all the GEO Geohazard Supersites and Natural Laboratory initiative (GSNL). On the other hand, this prevented the Virunga Supersite from realizing some key activities such as long-term trainings abroad or acquiring infrastructures and equipment useful for ground-based data collection, and data processing in general. However, some of the activities that required funding have benefited from the support from INGV, the USGS-VDAP, the Volcano Active foundation, the  International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI) which for instance supported short trainings, the donation of some equipment for some ground-based data collection, the processing of EO data and the attendance to meetings and workshops. Therefore, the Virunga Volcanoes Supersite is lacking of funds to support its mid to long-term objectives which are to permit local scientists access the strong trainings, skills and experience for both ground based and EO data continuous acquisition and analysis for volcano monitoring, to continuously assess natural hazards, vulnerability and risks in the region and regularly produce the related updated maps.