Matthieu Kervyn

Matthieu Kervyn
Vrije Universiteit Brussel | VUB · Department of Geography

PhD in Geology

About

225
Publications
143,055
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
4,319
Citations
Additional affiliations
September 2010 - present
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Position
  • Lecturer in Physcial Geography
May 2010 - July 2010
Université Clermont Auvergne
Position
  • PostDoc Position

Publications

Publications (225)
Article
Full-text available
Climate change induces high and erratic rainfall which triggers landslides and floods. With the increasing population and food needs, households in mountainous, densely populated areas turn fragile ecosystems into farms. This exacerbates landslide and flood risks requiring Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures. Tree planting and diversion channels...
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
Composite volcanoes are dynamic landforms that require comprehensive morphological analysis to understand their formation, degradation and associated controlling processes. Establishing Digital Elevation Model (DEM) source, spatial resolution and edifice delineation method are the first essential steps to quantify volcano morphometry. The delineati...
Article
Full-text available
The erosional state of a landscape is often assessed through a series of metrics that quantify the morphology of drainage basins and divides. Such metrics have been well explored in tectonically active environments to evaluate the role of different processes in sculpting topography, yet relatively few works have applied these analyses to radial lan...
Article
This study investigates the localities of low and high F⁻ groundwaters in the aquifer system on the flanks of Mount Meru to come up with guidelines to provide groundwater that can be used for drinking water supply without health impacts on the population. Our study focuses on parts of the flanks which were only partially or not at all covered by pr...
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
Estimating groundwater recharge, direct runoff and baseflow is essential for understanding groundwater resource availability and managing groundwater systems. This study estimates groundwater recharge, direct runoff and baseflow on two slopes of Mount Meru: the northern and southern slopes using the water-table fluctuation (WTF) method and baseflow...
Article
Full-text available
Gullies experience varying states of activity during their life cycle. For example, their highest growth rates are commonly observed in the period that follows their initiation, whereas they are less active when reaching stability. Understanding the environmental conditions under which gullies initiate, expand, and stabilize is therefore vital to m...
Article
Full-text available
Impacts of natural hazards are on an increase globally. To mitigate these impacts, sound disaster risk reduction strategies must rely on comprehensive inventory of natural hazards. However, to date, many regions worldwide still suffer from a dearth of information. The goal of our research is to assess how, with limited means and several methods, en...
Article
Full-text available
The Bora-Baricha-Tullu Moye (BBTM) volcanic complex is located in a transition zone between the central and northern sectors of the Main Ethiopian Rift where tectonic and volcanic features show complex interplays. We mapped and characterized volcanic and tectonic features using high-resolution digital elevation models and performed morphometric and...
Preprint
Full-text available
The erosional state of a landscape is often assessed through a series of metrics that quantify the morphology of drainage basins and divides. Such metrics have been well-explored in tectonically-active environments to evaluate the role of different processes in sculpting topography, yet relatively few works have applied these analyses to radial lan...
Article
Active volcanic craters are highly dynamic geological features that undergo morphological changes on a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. Such changes have implications for the stability of the edifice, the eruptive style and the associated hazards. However, monitoring the morphological evolution of active craters at high spatial resolutio...
Article
Full-text available
Key advantages of modelling landslide susceptibility at the level of slope units—homogeneous landscape elements bound by drainage and divide lines—instead of grid cells have recently been highlighted. However, there has been limited investigation into the sensitivity of a slope unit landslide susceptibility approach to the characteristics of the la...
Article
Full-text available
Bangladesh is renowned in disaster risk reduction (DRR) for active involvement of community people and local disaster management institutions in DRR activities. Our study aimed to describe the disaster risk management (DRM) institutions and assess their functioning in six coastal unions across the three coastal zones of Bangladesh. Both qualitative...
Preprint
Full-text available
Gullies experience varying states of activity during their life cycle. For example, their highest growth rates are commonly observed in the period that follows their initiation, whereas they are less active when reaching stability. Understanding the environmental conditions under which gullies initiate, expand, and stabilize is therefore vital to m...
Article
Smallholder farmers’ vulnerability to climate-related disasters in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, partly due to land-use changes and poor adoption behavior for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures. Such behavior can be explained by poor beliefs about DRR measures due to limited access to information. Agricultural extension workers are increasi...
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...
Poster
Full-text available
Session: From shape to process: geomorphology as a tool to unravel volcanic processes Abstract: Composite volcanoes have diverse morphologies due to their inextricably intertwined eruption, intrusion, and degradation histories. Surface runoff, a major erosional process involved in volcanic degradation, is dominantly controlled by both climatic, l...
Conference Paper
Exposure to fine-grained particulate matter (sub-10 μm, i.e., PM10) is associated with adverse health effects. Compared to explosive eruptions, limited studies have been conducted on the products of low explosivity events (e.g., lava fountains, strombolian eruptions) as they generally generate rather coarsegrained deposits. Yet, reworking of tephra...
Presentation
Full-text available
Abstract: Composite volcanoes have diverse morphologies due to their inextricably intertwined eruption, intrusion, and degradation histories. Surface runoff, a major erosional process involved in volcanic degradation, is dominantly controlled by both climatic, lithologic, and topographic factors. Analogue models offer the opportunity to examine rai...
Conference Paper
Volcanoes with frequent explosive eruptions are highly dynamic geological features, displaying morphological variations on a broad range of timescales (from hours to years). Morphological changes at the vent can significantly influence the resulting volcanic activity’s properties, such as eruption type and magnitude. Documenting the morphological e...
Article
The role of indigenous knowledge in increasing context specificity and exposing blind spots in scientific understanding is widely evidenced in disaster studies. This paper aims to structure the processes that shape indigenous knowledge production and its optimization using the case of floods. An inductive analytical approach is applied among ripari...
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
Study region Mount Meru located in Northern Tanzania. Study focus Groundwater level monitoring is essential for uncovering the spatial-temporal variation of groundwater levels in a studied aquifer, helping discussions on the sustainable use and management of groundwater resources. This study analyses the spatial and temporal variability of groundw...
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...
Article
Understanding of the aquifer structure and its hydraulic properties provides comprehensive knowledge for proper groundwater utilisation and management. This study delineated the aquifer structure using litho-hydrostratigraphical cross-sections, and estimated the hydraulic parameters using single well pumping tests for various locations on and aroun...
Article
Full-text available
Like many other lakes in the world, the interconnected Abaya and Chamo lakes in the Southern Main Ethiopian Rift are affected by rapid sediment accumulation. Although land degradation is a well-known issue in this part of the African continent, the main sediment sources, their spatial distribution and interaction in the Abaya–Chamo lakes’ basin hav...
Article
Full-text available
Like many other lakes in the world, the interconnected Abaya and Chamo lakes in the Southern Main Ethiopian Rift are affected by rapid sediment accumulation. Although land degradation is a well-known issue in this part of the African continent, the main sediment sources, their spatial distribution and interaction in the Abaya–Chamo lakes’ basin hav...
Article
Full-text available
The way people perceive the volcanic risk and how this leads them to take protective measures is an essential topic in volcanology. We apply the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to analyse the threat and coping appraisal of individuals living at different distance ranges from Volcán de Colima, Mexico. We assessed respondents’ perceived vulnerabil...
Conference Paper
Ol Doinyo Lengaï (OL) in north Tanzania is the only active volcano in the world emitting natrocarbonatite lavas. This stratovolcano (2962 m a.s.l) is mostly characterized by effusive lava emissions since 1983. However, on the 4th of September 2007, explosive events marked the beginning of a new eruptive style that lasted until April 2008. This new...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A water quality problem exists in populated areas along the flanks of Mt. Meru in northern Tanzania, with excessively high fluoride (F-) concentrations exceeding the WHO drinking water standards (1.5 mg/L). Little is known about the potential sources of F-among the various rocks types forming the Meru aquifers. Nineteen samples (Debris avalanche de...
Preprint
Full-text available
About 350 maar craters, tuff rings, and tuff cones are spread along the Manyara rift escarpment, and clustered around the Hanang and Kwahara volcanoes in North Tanzania. They lie in the East African Rift, an active extensional setting, where the magma composition is moderately to highly alkaline and carbonate-rich. We present newly-collected deposi...
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
Spatio-temporal inventory of natural hazards is a challenging task especially in rural or remote areas in the Global South where data collection at regional scale is difficult. Citizen science, i.e., involvement of no-experts in collecting information and co-creation of knowledge with experts to solve societal and environmental problems, has been s...
Article
The added value of indigenous practices for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is increasingly stressed by scholars. Yet this fails to translate into practical application as these scholars miss a clear understanding of the processes that shape indigenous DRR. Based on a case of floods in the Rwenzori (Uganda), in this study, the aimed is to conceptuali...
Presentation
The long-term (ka to ma) degradation of a volcanic edifice is controlled by both regional (e.g., climate, tectonics) and local factors (e.g., original morphology, lithology), resulting in both long-lasting weathering and river incision and short-term hazardous events, such as flank collapses and lahars. Trends among the morphometry of stratovolcano...
Article
Full-text available
The integration of indigenous knowledge into understanding disasters from natural hazards is hitherto hampered by the limited conceptualization of the process that shapes indigenous knowing. This study proposed a framework, structuring the processes that shape indigenous knowledge on disaster risk. Bearing that framework in mind, the evolution of d...
Article
Full-text available
Efforts in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) are widely geared towards integrating indigenous knowledge and science. Several conceptual frameworks have thus evolved towards co-creating knowledge and co-designing DRR measures from the standpoint of the communities-at-risk. This is claimed to foster optimization and sustainability of measures. This study...
Poster
Volcano morphology is the result of complex interactions between constructive and destructive phases. The dynamics of eruptive, intrusive and erosive processes are reflected in the shapes of volcanoes today. Quantifying the morphology and degradation patterns of composite volcanoes can provide new insights into the evolution of these landforms and...
Article
This study investigates the localities of low and high F⁻ groundwaters in the aquifer system on the flanks of Mount Meru to come up with guidelines to provide groundwater that can be used for drinking water supply without health impacts on the population. Our study focuses on parts of the flanks which were only partially or not at all covered by pr...
Article
Full-text available
The population of the semi-arid areas of the countries in the East African Rift Valley (EARV) is faced with serious problems associated with the availability and the quality of the drinking water. In these areas, the drinking water supply largely relies on groundwater characterised by elevated fluoride concentration (> 1.5 mg/L), resulting from int...
Presentation
Full-text available
Characterisation of the aquifer and determination of its hydraulic properties is crucial for providing comprehensive knowledge for proper groundwater utilisation and management. This study delineates the aquifer structure using litho-hydrostratigraphy cross-sections and estimates the hydraulic parameters using single well pumping tests. The study f...
Article
Full-text available
This study characterises high-fluoride groundwater in the aquifer system on the flanks of Mount Meru, focusing on parts of the flanks that were only partially or not at all covered by previous research. Additionally, we analyse the impact of rainwater recharge on groundwater chemistry by monitoring spring discharges during water sampling. The resul...
Article
This study characterises high-fluoride groundwater in the aquifer system on the flanks of Mount Meru, focusing on parts of the flanks that were only partially or not at all covered by previous research. Additionally, we analyse the impact of rainwater recharge on groundwater chemistry by monitoring spring discharges during water sampling. The resul...
Conference Paper
The (inter)national agenda continues to frame Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in hierarchies where top-down actors (scientists and policymakers) define interventions for communities-at-risk. To make this process context-specific and people-centered, especially for low-income economies, incorporating indigenous knowledge is increasingly emphasized. Th...
Preprint
Full-text available
Risk management is used in societies to mitigate the potentially dramatic effects of natural hazards. Local authorities and managers use different indicators in elaborating rescue and urbanism plans, which are not always efficient in reducing impact in the time of the crisis. This highlights society’s vulnerability in the particular context of glob...
Article
Slow-moving landslides exhibit persistent but non-uniform motion at low rates which makes them exceptional natural laboratories to study the mechanisms that control the dynamics of unstable hillslopes. Here we leverage 4.5+ years of satellite-based radar and optical remote sensing data to quantify the kinematics of a slow-moving landslide in the tr...
Article
Mt. Meru, in the northern Tanzania divergence zone within the East African Rift System, is a historically active volcano, with its last eruption in 1910 CE. The flank deposits of Meru are dominated by lava flows, debris avalanche deposits as well as major pyroclastic formations indicative of Plinian-style eruptions. The stratigraphy, spatial extent...
Article
Granular materials are a useful analogue for the Earth's crust in laboratory models of deformation. Constraining their mechanical properties is critical for such model's scaling and interpretation. Much information exists about monomineralic granular materials, such as quartz sand, but the mechanical characteristics of bimineralic mixtures, such as...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Lake Abaya and Lake Chamo are located within the rift valley that cuts across eastern Ethiopia. Severe soil erosion, predominantly gully erosion in the midlands and highlands, and flash flooding along rivers in the lowlands resulted in sediment and nutrient accumulation in the rift lakes. In this study, conducted in four river catchments on the Wes...
Article
Full-text available
Exposure to volcanic ash is a long-standing health concern for people living near active volcanoes and in distal urban areas. During transport and deposition, ash is subjected to various physicochemical processes that may change its surface composition and, consequently, bioreactivity. One such process is the interaction with anthropogenic pollutan...
Article
Full-text available
Effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) presupposes awareness among key stakeholders on the causal factors that exacerbate disaster risks as well as a feeling of ownership over proposed DRR measures. Yet, the prevailing top-down communication of risk and the expert-centered knowledge have a limited impact in bringing significant positive change. Se...
Poster
Full-text available
Volcanoes are extremely dynamic landforms. They grow by the accumulation of eruptive products and intrusions and degrade by a range of erosion processes such as superficial runoff, chemical and physical weathering, fluvial and glacial incision, and mass movements. In this study, we aim at documenting and quantifying the morphology of natural compos...
Article
The Philippine Island Arc has a large number of volcanoes with diverse morphologies, making it an ideal location to study the factors controlling the morphology and spatial distribution of island arc volcanoes. We have identified 731 volcanic edifices using the SRTM 30 m digital elevation models, and computed their quantitative morphology using the...
Preprint
Full-text available
Granular materials are a useful analogue for the Earth’s crust in laboratory models of deformation. Constraining their mechanical properties is critical for such model’s scaling and interpretation. Much information exists about monomineralic granular materials, such as quartz sand, but the mechanical characteristics of bimineralic mixtures, such as...
Article
Freshly erupted volcanic ash contains a range of soluble elements, some of which can generate harmful effects in living cells and are considered potentially toxic elements (PTEs). This work investigates the leaching dynamics of ash-associated PTEs in order to optimize a method for volcanic ash respiratory hazard assessment. Using three pristine (un...
Article
Full-text available
People’s vulnerability, exposure and capacity are key components of a risk assessment. Index-based methodologies have proved useful to document spatial variation in risk-controlling factors. The objective of this study is to propose a methodology to derive quantitative indicators of household vulnerability, exposure and capacity to assess household...
Article
The continued significant impacts of disasters from natural hazards raise questions regarding the epistemic commensurability of measures recommended to achieve substantial disaster risk reduction. Using the case of Flood Risk Reduction (FRR), this study critically reviews key scientific literature on the epistemic foundations of the indigenous, sci...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
now published: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350742630_Assessing_the_biological_reactivity_of_organic_compounds_on_volcanic_ash_implications_for_human_health_hazard AGU abstract: Volcanic ash eruptions may severely impact population living near an active volcano and in distal urban areas and are a cause of continuous health concern. Dur...
Conference Paper
The population resident in areas of the East African Rift system (EARS) is faced with serious problems associated with the availability and the quality of the drinking water. Drinking water supply largely relies on the groundwater wells and springs and is characterised by elevated fluoride concentration (> 1.5 mg/L), resulting from the interactions...