Caroline Michellier

Caroline Michellier
Royal Museum for Central Africa · Department of Earth Sciences, Natural hazards Service

Dr

About

59
Publications
22,331
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
536
Citations

Publications

Publications (59)
Preprint
Full-text available
Studying natural hazards in the context of human-induced landscape transformation is complex, especially in regions with limited information. Elderly narratives can play a role in filling these knowledge gaps at the multi-decadal timescale. Here, we build upon a citizen-based elderly approach to understand natural hazard patterns and landscape tran...
Article
Full-text available
In many administrative entities, there is little information on the accessibility of critical resources such as food, water, healthcare and fuel. Yet the lack of accessibility to critical resources can be a risk-mitigating factor. Indeed, people who are not physically threatened by a hazard can be put at risk by the fact that they lack critical res...
Book
Full-text available
UNESCO and its Regional Office in Yaoundé are pleased to present their new booklet « L’Afrique centrale face aux Géorisques ». In Africa, and particularly in Central Africa (Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe and Chad), many regions ar...
Article
Full-text available
Impacts induced by natural hazards are increasing globally. Some of these hazards, such as volcanic eruptions, cannot be prevented. Thereby, mitigating impacts is crucial, especially in densely populated areas, like in Goma city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which is exposed to volcanic threats from Nyiragongo. Mitigation requires th...
Article
Full-text available
This qualitative study takes a translocal perspective by considering migrants’ views on environmental change, migration decisions and translocal practices in favour of environmental adaptation. This article addresses the following question: To what extent do migrants’ perceptions of environmental change in their region of origin influence their tra...
Article
Full-text available
Assessing volcanic hazards in locations exposed to multiple central volcanoes requires to consider multiple potential eruption sources and their respective characteristics. While this is common practice in ashfall hazard assessment, this is generally not considered for topography-controlled volcanic flow processes. Yet, in volcanic areas with close...
Article
Full-text available
Citizen science (CS) is gaining global recognition for its potential to democratize and boost scientific research. As such, understanding why people contribute their time, energy, and skills to CS and why they (dis)continue their involvement is crucial. While several CS studies draw from existing theoretical frameworks in the psychology and volunte...
Poster
Full-text available
Connaître Gérer Réduire Aménager Informer Surveiller Prévenir les géorisques majeurs aux niveaux régional et local pour assurer la protection des populations et un développement durable des territoires CONTEXTE En Afrique, et particulièrement dans la région centrale, les pays sont exposés à de nombreux aléas d'origine géologique, qui menacent les p...
Article
Full-text available
Rapid urbanization, demographic pressure, and sprawl of cities are key factors in the vulnerability and damage related to geo-hydrological hazards. Dysfunctional urban services that favor informal settlements are at the forefront of elements that increase vulnerability. Cases of cities that suffer from geo-hydrological hazards are increasingly repo...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In urban areas, networks and life-support systems, such as roads, power lines and drinking water pipes, are key infrastructures which contribute to the functioning of the city. Their damaging or destruction can lead to harmful consequences for the population. Such situation has already occurred in several African cities following the impact of a ha...
Article
Full-text available
Risk perception is an essential element to consider for effective risk management at the time of eruption, especially in densely populated cities close to volcanoes like Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is highly exposed to volcanic hazards from Nyiragongo. The perception of volcanic risk involves the processes of col...
Article
Full-text available
The movement of large, slow-moving, deep-seated landslides is regulated principally by changes in pore-water pressure in the slope. In urban areas, drastic reorganization of the surface and subsurface hydrology—for example, associated with roads, housings or storm drainage—may alter the subsurface hydrology and ultimately the slope stability. Yet o...
Article
Full-text available
Classical mechanisms of volcanic eruptions mostly involve pressure buildup and magma ascent towards the surface1. Such processes produce geophysical and geochemical signals that may be detected and interpreted as eruption precursors1–3. On 22 May 2021, Mount Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of the Congo), an open-vent volcano with a persistent lava...
Poster
Full-text available
Understanding risk perception and factors controlling the willingness to implement DRR actions is essential for effective crisis management, especially in densely populated cities close to volcanoes, like Goma in the East of the DRC. Willingness to implement DRR actions is assumed to be influenced by risk perception, but also by the individual eval...
Poster
Full-text available
The willingness to implement risk protective measures (protection motivation) differs between individuals and informing people at risk about the risk they face may not be sufficient to generalize the implementation of protective measures. Therefore, an assessment of the individual psychological appraisal of the risk (threat appraisal) and of the ri...
Preprint
Full-text available
Risk perception is an essential element to consider for effective risk management at time of eruption. This is especially the case in densely populated cities close to volcanoes like Goma in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo highly exposed to volcanic hazards from Nyiragongo. The perception of volcanic risk involves the processes of coll...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The city of Goma is located in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. With around one million inhabitants, it is built on lava flows, 15 km south of the active Nyiragongo volcano. Historically, the town was affected twice by eruptions, in 1977 and 2002 and severe destructions were reported. At that time, no volcanic risk preparedne...
Article
Full-text available
Environmental migration is a growing concern of academics and policymakers, who foresee a rise in the number of such migrants. However, most prevailing academic and policy discourses ignore the variety of perceptions of environmental changes among people living in highly affected areas across the world. We examine the perceptions of environmental c...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Disasters related to hydrological hazards are frequent, occur worldwide, and regularly devastate many African cities. The victims are commonly among the population in precarious situations, without solid infrastructure and with incomes too low to recover from disasters. Located in the western branch of the East African Rift, and squeezed between th...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Uvira is a rapidly growing city of about 600,000 inhabitants in DR Congo. Squeezed between the shore of Lake Tanganyika and steep mountains hillslopes, and under the influence of a tropical climate, the city is familiar with flash floods. Nevertheless, the impacts of the flash flood event of April 2020 have been unprecedented in the last decades. D...
Chapter
Beyond the normative definitions of an all-encompassing development as a goal to achieve, exploring the diverse, complex, and sometimes contradictory relationships between development and risk leads to question both concepts, each one through the lens of the other. The present chapter represents a contribution to the so-called “risk-informed,” or “...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Final report of the Belspo-BRAIN funded MIGRADAPT-project. Context Environmental changes are increasingly part of migration journeys, and count amongst the factors that call into question the distinction made between migrants and refugees. Additionally, in the international negotiations on climate change, migration is increasingly perceived as a p...
Article
Full-text available
Human activity influences both the occurrence and impact of landslides in mountainous environments. Population pressure and the associated land-use changes are assumed to exacerbate landslide risk, yet there is a lack of statistical evidence to support this claim, especially in the Global South where historical records are scarce. In this work, we...
Article
The population at risk from sudden hazards, such as volcanic eruptions, is often estimated based on the location of the residents. Crisis management tools, such as evacuation and emergency plans, are usually based on this information. Therefore, they often do not reflect over- and underpopulation in areas where the present population is different f...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Background Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo are active volcanoes situated close to Goma (North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo). These volcanoes are among the most prolific sources of volcanic SO2 pollution on earth. Objective We investigated the possible spatiotemporal relationships between volcanic degassing represented by eruptive emission...
Article
Full-text available
Based on a literature review and two case studies, this article presents the difficulties inherent in the main disaster risk reduction conceptual models. The method used to highlight such evidence is to compare two programs on disaster risk reduction with mainstream conceptual models. The authors participated in these programs, which were confronte...
Article
Full-text available
Goma city, at the eastern border of DRCongo, is highly exposed to natural hazards, especially from Nyiragongo volcano, located directly North of it. In January 2002, the city centre of Goma was devastated by lava flows and several thousands of people were temporarily displaced. Defining and quantifying population vulnerability to natural hazards, a...
Article
Full-text available
Hazards and disasters have occurred throughout Earth's History and thus the geological record is an important resource for understanding future hazards and disasters and its Impact. The Earth Science Group (ESG) of the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) carried out a “Hazard and Disaster Event Survey” to identify Earth Science coll...
Article
Full-text available
Hazards and disasters have occurred throughout Earth's History and thus the geological record is an important resource for understanding future hazards and disasters. The Earth Science Group (ESG) of the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) carried ‡ § | ¶ # ¤ «,» ˄ ˅ ‡ ¦ ‡ © Tilley L et al. This is an open access article distributed...
Poster
Full-text available
Hazagora is an educational board game aimed at raising awareness about geohazards and disaster risk reduction strategies. During the game, the players have to develop communities with contrasted livelihoods on an island regularly exposed to a range of geohazards (lava flow, tephra fall, tsunami and earthquake). Each player aims at fulfilling the ba...
Article
Full-text available
Accurate precipitation data are fundamental for understanding and mitigating the disastrous effects of many natural hazards in mountainous areas. Floods and landslides, in particular, are potentially deadly events that can be mitigated with advanced warning, but accurate forecasts require timely estimation of precipitation, which is problematic in...
Article
Full-text available
Landslide hazard remains poorly characterized on regional and global scales. In the tropics in particular, the lack of knowledge on landslide hazard is in sharp contrast with the high landslide susceptibility of the region. Moreover, landslide hazard in the tropics is expected to increase in the future in response to growing demographic pressure an...
Article
Full-text available
Ground deformations in urban areas can lead to environmental constraints that must be considered in risk management and urban planning. These deformations can damage the infrastructures exposed to them. Here, the objective is to assess impacts of ground deformations on water and electricity distribution networks in the city of Bukavu (DR Congo); th...
Article
Full-text available
Many cities of the South have been facing population growth for several decades. In regions sensitive to landslides, this growth can be an issue when people, often the most vulnerable, are forced to live on unstable slopes. Bukavu (DR Congo) is particularly affected by this situation. However, despite numerous slope instability in areas with very h...
Article
Full-text available
The Eastern part of DR Congo is a region naturally prone to landslides. Their impact can be important in populated areas. The objective of this research is to make a preliminary local assessment of landslide elements at risk on a recent settlement area of Bukavu (Wesha watershed). We mapped 11 landslides by combining a Pléiades image, aerial photog...
Conference Paper
Many cities in the Global South are known for facing an important increase in their population size. Many of them are then struggling with the sprawl of new settlements and very often urban planning and sustainable management policies are limited, if not non-existent. When those cities are set in landslide-prone environments, this situation is even...
Article
This study evaluates the vulnerability facing the lava flows of Nyiragongo volcano, of the water and electricity distribution networks in the Goma city (DRCongo). The Nyiragongo volcano represents a permanent threat for this city, because of its proximity (approximately 18km to the north) and the direction followed by its lava flows during two know...
Article
Full-text available
The Eastern part of DR Congo is a region naturally prone to landslides. Their impact can be important in populated areas. The objective of this research is to make a preliminary local assessment of landslide elements at risk on a recent settlement area of Bukavu (Wesha watershed). We mapped 11 landslides by combining a Pléiades image, aerial photog...
Article
Full-text available
In central Africa, a combination of several types of major geo-hazards threatens the highly populated area centred on the Lake Kivu Basin and the Virunga Volcanic Province. Contributing to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) policies not only go through hazards mechanisms analysis, but also through vulnerability assessment. This paper stresses the method...
Article
Full-text available
Natural disasters are too often presented as resulting from extreme natural phenomena affecting helpless populations, with people being insufficiently aware of the factors leading to disasters and of the existing strategies to mitigate their impacts. We developed a board game aimed at raising awareness about geohazards and disaster risk reduction s...
Poster
Full-text available
The mountainous environments of the North Tanganyika – Lake Kivu rift zones are part of the West branch of the East African Rift. In this area, natural triggering and environmental factors such as heavy rainfalls, earthquake occurrences and steep topographies favour the concentration of mass movement processes. In addition anthropogenic factors suc...
Article
GeoRisCA is a project which aims at studying the geo-risk in the Kivu region (DRC, Rwanda, Burundi), in order to support risk management. The approach developed in GeoRisCA combines methodologies from various disciplines, which will allow the analyses of seismic, volcanic and mass-movement hazards and the vulnerability assessment of the threatened...
Article
Located in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira volcanoes are among the most active of the continent. Nyiragongo (last eruption in January 2002) hosts a sub-permanent lava lake that produces a SO2-rich plume. Its neighbor Nyamulagira makes major contributions to these emissions during its frequent eruptive...
Article
In some places, geo-hazards are a major concern for population, the assets, and the economy. This is especially the case in the East African Rift (EAR), where high volcanic and tectonic activities are sometimes coupled with geopolitical issues and dense population as in the Kivu rift area. That area is one of the most densely populated regions of C...
Article
Located in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira are two of the most active volcanoes in Africa. Nyiragongo last erupted in January 2002 and Nyamulagira in November 2011. Even if only a small number of victims resulted directly from these eruptions (notably because they both happened in the day-time), the to...

Network

Cited By