GWB Category: Volcano Preparedness

This project is focused on Pico de Orizaba, a 5,675 meter-high, active stratovolcano located between Veracruz and Puebla states in East Central Mexico. The project team will examine the nature of the geologic and glacier related hazards on this mountain, utilizing a variety of geophysical and meteorological techniques with the overall objective of designing, siting, and building a permanent lahar warning system for downstream communities in an effort to prevent significant loss of infrastructure and

Using geochemical analyses and social science, project members developed a better understanding of how persistent gas flux from the volcanoes at Masaya and Telica impact humans and their environment (e.g., grazing land for cattle, cultivated land for various crops, and natural vegetation) and examined how rapidly the local environment responds to changes in volatile flux.

Increasing Natural Hazard Resiliency in Guatemala This project aims toward increasing the geohazard resiliency and safety of the communities in Guatemala through implementing community-based educational workshops about earthquake and volcanic hazards, increasing Instituto Nacional de Sismología, Vulcanología, Meteorología e Hidrología (INSIVUMEH)’s seismic and volcanic monitoring capacity, and reducing disaster response time by using the implementation of a regional seismic array consisting of low-cost “Raspberry Shake” 3C seismometer stations in Zacapa near the Motagua-Polochic fault system

International Partnership to Develop Volcano Monitoring Capacities in Guatemala Project Partners: The University of Liverpool, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), and INSIVUMEH. This project: Present Day- PhD students from University of Liverpool, interns at INSIVUMEH, and post-docs contributed to the success of this project by helping with the field work support and data processing. As a result of this GWB grant, the PI has also been invited to participate in a multi-year, multi-lateral, multi-faceted project

Pacaya volcano near Guatemala City is one of the country’s most active volcanoes. It is located in the Pacaya National Park and serves as a tourist site for nearly 25,000 people each year. The goal of this project was to improve the monitoring and forecasting capacity at Pacaya volcano and improve the chances of successful crises management in case of a large explosive eruption in the future.