“On Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei, an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary feasibility study must be done, on the resilience and sustainability of the Neapolitan territory affected by volcanic risk and seismic risk”, “for Vesuvius the expected scenario could be apocalyptic if the Neapolitan territory is not reorganized. It is necessary to educate the population starting with a widespread activity in the schools of Naples, of the Neapolitan area and also in those of the Phlegraean area. It also emerged that medium-scale eruptions, as far as Vesuvius is concerned, occur once every 4-5 centuries. The most recent, medium-scale eruption was in 1631, which destroyed much of the territory around the volcano, causing thousands of deaths.” This is stated by Flavio Dobran, a thermo-fluid dynamics engineer, one of the most important scholars of Vesuvius and the Campi Flegrei, who - on the occasion of the international conference "Resilience and sustainability of cities in dangerous environments" held in Naples from today to Friday with the presence of more than 50 experts - presents his Global Volcanic Simulator "and the interventions necessary to make the Neapolitan area resilient". “The evacuation plans regarding the Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei risks work in the opposite direction to the resilience and sustainability of the Neapolitan territory – explains Dobran, president of GVES and former professor at New York University -. Instead, we need to create resilient and sustainable cities. Building resilient cities on volcanoes is a complex undertaking where the assessment of volcanic eruption scenarios must be performed with tools that can reliably simulate full eruptions. I have created a Global Volcano Simulator which is a tool that can do this and is continually tested and validated to ensure its usefulness. It is a physical-mathematical-computer model capable of reconstructing past eruptions of various volcanoes, and therefore also of Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei, to evaluate future ones". “This simulator – explains the researcher – was able to study the behavior of the magma of the Somma-Vesuvius volcanic complex, in the last few thousand years and therefore the ascent in volcanic conduits, the dispersion of volcanic products in the atmosphere, the propagation of pyroclastic flows on the slopes of Vesuvius. In essence, from these specific studies, based on this computer model, we can know how many people could actually be affected by various phenomena such as pyroclastic flow and ash fall. This computer model takes into account the entire volcanic complex, the magma chamber, the volcanic conduit, the conduit environment and also the environment above the volcano. The same goes for the Campi Flegrei. For example, the propagation phase of the pyroclastic flow is one of the most dangerous scenarios of an explosive volcanic eruption because it can significantly affect the surrounding area surrounding the volcanic vent. In such an area that could be affected by the pyroclastic flow, all human habitats should be prohibited and beyond this area the built environment should be made resilient and sustainable. A geohazard assessment for cities located on active volcanoes requires the use of appropriate tools. These risks must be assessed with different volcanic eruption scenarios that depend on the chemical compositions, storage and feeding characteristics of the magmas within the volcanoes, and the structures of volcanic edifices that may contain a variety of fractured and diverse aquifers and systems. Historical records of eruptions for cities on volcanoes are incomplete because they are subject to different interpretations of eruptive dynamics and can be distorted (as in the densely populated Neapolitan area) due to built environments that hide some or most of this geological evidence. The computer model created and which I will illustrate in Naples, has studied past eruptions". Naples and all the municipalities in the red zone but also in the Phlegraean area could network with other European cities at seismic, hydrogeological or nuclear risk to develop European cooperation projects aimed at concretely addressing two important issues: resilience and sustainability. A meeting with schools is scheduled for Friday at Maschio Angioino. “School is certainly fundamental to be able to raise public awareness and educate not only children but also their families – said Grazia Paolella, head teacher and university professor -. Teachers and students will express the degree of perception of risk in these territorial realities”, “Vesuvius, that emblematic profile of the Neapolitan 'postcard', that friendly face, almost familiar to us Neapolitans … can suddenly awaken and reveal itself for what it is, a great impending danger. It is time to get to work to immediately launch a serious and careful operational program and create adequate conditions for sustainability and real resilience.
Article published on November 26, 2018 - 09:40
