Susanna Jenkins

• geology
• Professor (Assistant) at Nanyang Technological University

Lahar damage to buildings can include burial by sediment and/or failure of walls, infiltration into the building and subsequent damage to contents. The extent to which a building is damaged will be dictated by the dynamic characteristics of the lahar, i.e. the velocity, depth, sediment concentration and grain size, as well as the structural charact...

Hazard assessments for long-dormant volcanoes, where information is rarely available, typically have to be made rapidly and in the face of considerable uncertainty and often poor information. A conditional (assuming an eruption), scenario-based probabilistic approach to such an assessment is presented here for Santorini volcano (Greece). The rapid...

This paper presents structured and cost-effective methods for assessing the physical vulnerability of at-risk communities to the range of volcanic hazards, developed as part of the MIA-VITA project (2009-2012). An initial assessment of building and infrastructure vulnerability has been carried out for a set of broadly defined building types and inf...

The large explosive eruption of Merapi volcano, Indonesia, in 2010 presented a key, and rare, opportunity to study the impacts of a major explosive eruption in a densely populated area. Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) produced throughout the 2010 eruption were unusually destructive, causing near complete devastation across a 22 km2 swath of the...

Volcanic ash is one of the farthest-reaching volcanic hazards and ash produced by large magnitude explosive eruptions has the potential to affect communities over thousands of kilometres. Quantifying the hazard from ash fall is problematic, in part because of data limitations that make eruption characteristics uncertain but also because, given an e...

Cities near volcanoes expose dense concentrations of people, buildings, and infrastructure to volcanic hazards. Identifying cities globally that are exposed to volcanic hazards helps guide local risk assessment for better land-use planning and hazard mitigation. Previous city exposure approaches have used the city centroid to represent an entire ci...

In the wake of a volcanic eruption, the rapid assessment of building damage is paramount for effective response and recovery planning. Uncrewed aerial vehicles, UAVs, offer a unique opportunity for assessing damage after a volcanic eruption, with the ability to collect on-demand imagery safely and rapidly from multiple perspectives at high resoluti...

When disasters occur, rapid impact assessments are required to prioritise response actions, support in-country efforts and inform the mobilisation of aid. The 15 January 2022 eruption of Hunga volcano, Tonga, and the resulting atmospheric shockwave, ashfall, underwater mass disturbance and tsunami, caused substantial impacts across the Kingdom of T...

La caída y acumulación de ceniza volcánica es un riesgo importante para las operaciones aeroportuarias, que ha provocado más de 40 cierres de operaciones en los últimos 45 años debido a la acumulación de ceniza en el terreno, así como muchos más ocasionados por la ceniza aerotransportada/atmosférica. Como apoyo a nuestro conjunto de datos globales...

Building damage from tephra falls can have a substantial impact on exposed communities around erupting volcanoes. There are limited empirical studies of tephra fall impacts on buildings, with none on tephra falls impacting traditional thatched timber buildings, despite their prevalence across South Pacific island nations and parts of Asia. The 2017...

In the wake of a volcanic eruption, the rapid assessment of building damage is paramount for effective response and recovery planning. Uninhabited aerial vehicles, UAVs, offer a unique opportunity for assessing damage after a volcanic eruption, with the ability to collect on demand imagery safely and rapidly from multiple perspectives at high resol...

When disasters occur, rapid impact assessments are required to direct response priorities, support in-country efforts and inform the mobilisation of aid. The 15 January 2022 eruption of Hunga volcano, Tonga, and the resulting atmospheric shockwave, ashfall, underwater mass disturbance and tsunami, caused substantial impacts across the Kingdom of To...

Submarine volcanism makes up approximately 85 % of volcanism that occurs on Earth, and its eruptions have the potential to cause several hazards including ash dispersal, pumice rafts, pyroclastic density currents, sector collapses, and tsunamis. Recent examples include the eruptions in Japan and in the Kingdom of Tonga in 2021 and 2022 respectively...

The recent destruction of thousands of homes by lava flows from La Palma volcano, Canary Islands, and Nyiragongo volcano, Democratic Republic of Congo, serves as a reminder of the devastating impact that lava flows can have on communities living in volcanically active regions. Damage to buildings and infrastructure can have widespread and long-last...

Effective risk management requires accurate assessment of population exposure to volcanic hazards. Assessment of this exposure at the large-scale has often relied on circular footprints of various sizes around a volcano to simplify challenges associated with estimating the directionality and distribution of the intensity of volcanic hazards. Howeve...

We present FlowDIR, a MATLAB tool that rapidly and objectively quantifies future travel direction probabilities for topographically controlled hazardous flows, based on analysis of summit topography. FlowDIR can achieve probabilistic forecasts of future travel directions in minutes and provides a basis for choosing the starting co-ordinates require...

Calculating the tephra volume is important for estimating eruption intensity and magnitude. Traditionally, tephra volumes are estimated by integrating the area under curves fit to the square root of isopach areas. In this work, we study two sources of uncertainty in estimating tephra volumes based on isopachs. The first is model uncertainty. It occ...

Determining the eruption frequency-Magnitude (f-M) relationship for data-limited volcanoes is challenging since it requires a comprehensive eruption record of the past eruptive activity. This is the case for Melimoyu, a long-dormant and data-limited volcano in the Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ) in Chile with only two confirmed Holocene eruptions (VEI...

Submarine volcanism represents approximately 85% of volcanism taking place on Earth, and submarine eruptions can be particularly hazardous due to their potential to cause large-scale hazards from sector collapses, tsunamis, and ash dispersal. While recent eruptions in the Kingdom of Tonga and Japan have highlighted the significant hazards posed by...

Submarine volcanism makes up approximately 85% of volcanism taking place on Earth, and its eruptions can be particularly hazardous, with the potential to cause large-scale sector collapse of the volcanic edifice, tsunamis, and ash dispersal. Recent examples include the eruptions in Japan and in the Kingdom of Tonga in 2021 and 2022 respectively, bu...

In this study, we use bibliometric methods to assess the way in which local researchers are included in volcanological publications by comparing the affiliation of authors with the country in which researched volcanoes are located. Globally, 40 % of articles about a specific volcano do not include an author whose affiliation is based in the country...

The recent destruction of thousands of homes by lava flows from Cumbre Vieja, La Palma, Spain and Nyiragongo volcano, Democratic Republic of Congo, serves as a reminder of the devastating impact that lava flows can have on communities living in volcanically active regions. Damage to buildings and infrastructure in particular can have widespread and...

Lahar is an Indonesian term, and Merapi volcano is arguably one of the most renowned lahar producers worldwide. Frequent and voluminous lahars at Merapi result from a combination of four factors: (1) large volumes of pyroclastic debris, in particular dome growth and collapse block-and-ash flows (BAF); (2) high frequency of eruptions; (3) abundant r...

Calculating the volume of tephra erupted is important for estimating eruption intensity and magnitude. Traditionally, tephra volumes are estimated by integrating the area under curves fit to the square root of hand-drawn isopach areas. Previous studies have attempted to quantify the uncertainty in this approach, but not all sources of uncertainty h...

Fire from volcanic activity (FFVA) is a highly dangerous and largely understudied hazard arising from volcanic activity. FFVA can be caused by a variety of volcanic hazards and can greatly compound the damage and losses associated with volcanic activity, in addition to creating complications for event response and mitigation. In this study, we deve...

Since the start of the twentieth century, 101 potentially active volcanoes have produced their first Holocene eruption, as recorded in the volcanoes of the world (VOTW) database. The reactivation of potentially active volcanoes is often a surprise, since they tend to be less well-studied and unmonitored. The first step towards preparing for these u...

The `Millennium Eruption’ of Changbaishan/Paektu-san Volcano, situated today on border between the People's Republic of China and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, ranks as one of the largest eruptions of the Common Era. Dated to 946 CE, its tephra deposits represent a critical marker spanning terrestrial and marine archives, as well as the gl...

In this study, we use bibliometric methods to assess the way in which local researchers are included in volcanological publications by comparing the affiliation of authors with the country in which researched volcanoes are located. Globally, 40% of articles about a specific volcano do not include an author whose affiliation is based in the country...

Although the generally high fertility of volcanic soils is often seen as an opportunity, short-term consequences of eruptions on natural and cultivated vegetation are likely to be negative. The empirical knowledge obtained from post-event impact assessments provides crucial insights into the range of parameters controlling impact and recovery of ve...

Identifying the most complete (best recorded) portion of an eruption record is essential before estimating eruption recurrence and probability. This is typically achieved by plotting cumulative eruptions through time. Here, we evaluate eruption data completeness from a new perspective, by compiling the first dated Holocene eruption from each volcan...

Road networks in volcanically active regions can be exposed to various volcanic hazards from multiple volcanoes. Exposure assessments are often used in these environments to prioritise risk management and mitigation efforts towards volcanoes or hazards that present the greatest threat. Typically, road exposure has been assessed by quantifying the a...

Cataloguing damage and its correlation with hazard intensity is one of the key components needed to robustly assess future risk and plan for mitigation as it provides important empirical data. Damage assessments following volcanic eruptions have been conducted for buildings and other structures following hazards such as tephra fall, pyroclastic den...

Frequency-magnitude relationships are a fundamental aspect of volcanic hazard and risk analysis. Typically, frequencies of previously recorded eruptions are used to identify such relationships. This works well for volcanoes that are well-studied, but it can take a long, sustained, and resource intensive research effort to compile complete eruption...

Forecasting the likely style and chronology of activity within an eruption is a complex issue that has received far less attention than forecasting the onset and/or the magnitude. By developing a global data set of coded phases (discrete styles of activity within previous eruptions), we can model the resulting data using a semi‐Markov chain. Given...

Southeast Asia is home to a large number of active and well-studied volcanoes, the majority of which are located in Indonesia and the Philippines. Northern Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) also hosts volcanoes that for several reasons (post-World War II conflicts, poor accessibility due to dense vegetation, no known hi...

Regional volcanic threat assessments provide a large-scale comparable vision of the threat posed by multiple volcanoes. They are useful for prioritising risk-mitigation actions and are required by local through international agencies, industries and governments to prioritise where further study and support could be focussed. Most regional volcanic...

Although the generally high fertility of volcanic soils is often seen as an opportunity, short-term consequences of eruptions on natural and cultivated vegetation are likely to be negative. The empirical knowledge obtained from post-event impact assessments provides crucial insights into the range of parameters controlling impact and recovery of ve...

Over the past 20 years, our understanding of volcanic eruption impacts on the built environment has transformed from being primarily observational with small datasets to one grounded in field investigations, laboratory experiments, and quantitative modeling, with an emphasis on stakeholder collaboration and co-creation. Here, we summarize key advan...

Tephra plumes can cause a significant hazard for surrounding towns, infrastructure, and air traffic. The current work presents the use of a small and compact X-band multi-parameter (X-MP) radar for the remote tephra detection and tracking of two eruptive events at Merapi Volcano, Indonesia, in May and June 2018. Tephra detection was performed by an...

Pyroclastic density currents are one of the deadliest hazards produced by a volcano. Understanding their dynamics and generation mechanisms is key for developing better hazard mitigation strategies. This study presents a method for retrieving velocity profiles across a natural moving PDC, applied here to a PDC generated by collapsing column during...

Tephra plumes can cause a significant hazard for surrounding towns, infrastructure, and air traffic. The current work presents the use of a small and compact X-band Multi-Parameter (X-MP) radar for the remote tephra detection and tracking of two eruptive events at Merapi Volcano, Indonesia, in May and June 2018. Tephra detection was done by analysi...

The Millennium Eruption (AD 946–947) of Changbaishan Tianchi Volcano is one of the largest known eruptions in recorded history. With the help of previously published isopachs and distal ash thicknesses, we re-calculate the bulk volume of its distal eruptive product, the B-Tm ash, as 27–62 km3 and the total eruption volume as 40–98 km3. The updated...

Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) that escape their confining channels are among the most dangerous of volcanic hazards. These unconfined PDCs are capable of inundating inhabited areas that may be unprepared for these hazards, resulting in significant loss of life and damage to infrastructure. Despite their ability to cause serious impacts, uncon...

Devastating disasters that are predicted but ignored are known as Black Elephants—a cross between a Black Swan event and the proverbial elephant in the room. It’s time we acknowledged the looming natural hazard risks that no one wants to talk about.

Modern tsunami events have highlighted the vulnerability of port structures to these high-impact but infrequent occurrences. However, port planning rarely includes adaptation measures to address tsunami hazards. The 2011 Tohoku tsunami presented us with an opportunity to characterise the vulnerability of port industries to tsunami impacts. Here, we...

The load a tephra fall deposit applies to an underlying surface is a key factor controlling its potential to damage a wide range of assets including buildings, trees, crops and powerlines. Though it has long been recognised that loading can increase when deposits absorb rainfall, few efforts have been made to quantify likely load increases. This st...

Abstarct Understanding past eruption dynamics at a volcano is crucial for forecasting the range of possible future eruptions and their associated hazards and risk. In this work we use numerical models to recreate the footprints of pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) and tephra fall from three eruptions at Gede volcano, Indonesia, with the aim of ga...

International disaster databases and catalogs provide a baseline for researchers, governments, communities, and organizations to understand the risk of a particular place, analyze broader trends in disaster risk, and justify investments in mitigation. Perhaps because Singapore is routinely identified as one of the safest countries in the world, Sin...

In this work we couple the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with the volcanic ash transport model Tephra2 , and present the coupled algorithm as a new method to estimate the Eruption Source Parameters of volcanic eruptions based on mass per unit area or thickness measurements of tephra fall deposits. Outputs of the algorithm are presented as sample po...

In volcanology, remote sensing provides a global observation framework that is becoming increasingly valuable at multiple spatio-temporal scales. Satellite observations have improved monitoring for even the most remote volcanoes, provided a large-scale context to extrapolate field-based observations, and is now routinely used to characterize and mo...

Deposition of early Holocene Eastern Mediterranean S1 tephra and a Black Sea cryptotephra coincides with cultural transitions in the Fertile Crescent termed the Neolithic Revolution as well as sapropel formation during climate variability of the African humid period, classifying them as paramount regional marker horizons for archaeology as well as...

Tephra from large explosive eruptions can cause damage to buildings over wide geographical areas, creating a variety of issues for post-eruption recovery. This means that evaluating the extent and nature of likely building damage from future eruptions is an important aspect of volcanic risk assessment. However, our ability to make accurate assessme...

Disaster risk research’s reliance on past events has proved inadequate when it comes to extreme events. This shortcoming stems from limited records (for example, due to the vast differences in timescales between geological processes and human records) and the dynamic nature of all three components of risk–drivers of change in hazard (e.g., climate...

Modern tsunami events have highlighted the vulnerability of port structures to these high-impact but infrequent occurrences. However, port planning rarely includes adaptation measures to address tsunami hazards. The 2011 Tohoku tsunami presented us with an opportunity to characterise the vulnerability of port industries to tsunami impacts. Here, we...

For some volcanoes, the only evidence for past eruption is provided by historical accounts. When interpreted carefully, these have the potential to be a rich source of information, and yet they have so far been under-utilised in reconstructing eruption histories. The navigator Thomas Forrest describes a large eruption at Makaturing volcano, souther...

In this work we couple the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with the volcanic ash transport model TEPHRA2, and present the coupled algorithm as a new method to estimate the Eruption Source Parameters of volcanic eruptions based on mass per unit area or thickness measurements of tephra fall deposits. Basic elements in the algorithm and how to implement...

In this work we couple the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with the volcanic ash transport model Tephra2, and present the coupled algorithm as a new method to estimate the Eruption Source Parameters of volcanic eruptions based on mass per unit area or thickness measurements of tephra fall deposits. Outputs of the algorithm are presented as sample pos...

Since 1990, natural hazards have led to over 1.6 million fatalities globally, and economic losses are estimated at an average of around USD 260–310 billion per year. The scientific and policy communities recognise the need to reduce these risks. As a result, the last decade has seen a rapid development of global models for assessing risk from natur...

The dichotomy between probabilistic and scenario-based volcanic hazard assessments stems from their opposing strengths and weaknesses. The quantification of uncertainty and lack of bias in the former is balanced against the temporal narrative and communicability of the latter. In this paper we propose a novel methodology to bridge between the two,...

Abstract. Since 1990, natural hazards have led to over 1.6 million fatalities globally, and economic losses are estimated at an average of around $260–310 billion per year. The scientific and policy community recognise the need to reduce these risks. As a result, the last decade has seen a rapid development of global models for assessing risk from...

Ballistic projectiles are the most frequently lethal volcanic hazard close to the vent. Recent eruptions of Ontake in 2014 and Kusatsu-Shirane in 2018 showed that un-reinforced, timber-framed buildings - those typically considered highly vulnerable to the dangerous penetration of ballistics - provided life-saving shelter from ballistic impact. Mode...

Purpose Using risk-related data often require a significant amount of upfront work to collect, extract and transform data. In addition, the lack of a consistent data structure hinders the development of tools that can be used with more than one set of data. The purpose of this paper is to report on an effort to solve these problems through the deve...

"Levantine ash" was first described around Cyprus 45 years ago, but it took until the last decade to be rediscovered in the Yammouneh basin (Lebanon) and a sediment core offshore Israel. It was subsequently named "S1 tephra" based on its stratigraphic position within the lower part of the eponymous sapropel layer, the youngest in the Mediterranean....

Forecasting eruption onsets has received much attention, in both the short and long term. However, an eruption is not easily reduced to an instant in time, and forecasting what happens after eruption onset has received little attention. Any useful definition of an eruption has to allow for activity over scales ranging from days to decades, and can...

Forecasting the repose between eruptions at a volcano is a key goal of volcanology for emergency planning and preparedness. Previous studies have used the statistical distribution of prior repose intervals to estimate the probability of a certain repose interval occurring in the future, and to offer insights into the underlying physical processes t...

Assessing the damage to buildings from volcanic eruptions is an important aspect of volcanic risk assessment and management. However, there is a limited empirical evidence base to draw upon when describing the relation between volcanic hazard intensity and resulting physical damage. The 2015 subplinian eruption of Calbuco volcano, Chile, caused dam...

Understanding the thermal behavior of pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) is crucial for forecasting impact scenarios for exposed populations as it affects their lethality and destructiveness. Here we report the emplacement temperatures of PDC deposits produced during the paroxysmal explosive eruption of Merapi (Central Java) on 5 November 2010 bas...

Volcanic eruptions are typically heralded by unrest, but its pattern and duration are extremely variable. Some are preceded by years of inflation and seismic swarms (Rabaul in 1994), others are a few days or weeks (Kelut in 2014). However, whether unrest occurs prior to phreatic eruptions is still ambiguous. This is particularly the case for volcan...

Volcanic ash has the capacity to impact human health, livestock, crops and infrastructure, including international air traffic. For recent major eruptions, information on the volcanic ash plume has been combined with relatively coarse-resolution meteorological model output to provide simulations of regional ash dispersal, with reasonable success on...

With increasing population densities and expanding urban boundaries, the potential for explosive volcanic eruptions to have adverse impacts upon urban areas is on the rise. This is particularly true for volcanoes along subduction zones, because they are almost exclusively explosive and often coincident with large populations. Explosive eruption haz...

With the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (Iceland) in 2010, interest in the transport of volcanic ash after moderate to major eruptions has increased with regards to both the physical and the emergency hazard management aspects. However, there remain significant gaps in the understanding of the long-term behaviour of emissions from volcanoes with long...

Volcanoes can produce far-reaching hazards that extend distances of tens or hundreds of kilometres in large eruptions, or in certain conditions for smaller eruptions. About a tenth of the world’s population lives within the potential footprint of volcanic hazards and lives are regularly lost through volcanic activity: volcanic fatalities were recor...

Fast-moving lava flows during the 2014–2015 eruption of Fogo volcano in Cape Verde engulfed 75% (n = 260) of buildings within three villages in the Chã das Caldeiras area, as well as 25% of cultivable agricultural land, water storage facilities and the only road into the area. The eruption had a catastrophic impact for the close-knit communities of...

This study of burns patients from two eruptions of Merapi volcano, Java, in 1994 and 2010, is the first detailed analysis to be reported of thermal injuries in a large series of hospitalised victims of pyroclastic surges, one of the most devastating phenomena in explosive eruptions. Emergency planners in volcanic crises in populated areas have to i...

Volcanic ash falls are one of the most widespread and frequent volcanic hazards, and are produced by all explosive volcanic eruptions. Ash falls are arguably the most disruptive volcanic hazard because of their ability to affect large areas and to impact a wide range of assets, even at relatively small thicknesses. From an insurance perspective, th...

Agricultural production is often concentrated in volcanically active or previously active areas where weathered volcanic products form fertile soils. However, this proximity means agriculture is exposed to tephra fall hazards. The type and severity of impacts to agricultural systems from tephra fall are dependent on both the hazard intensity metric...