Integrating Community Volcanic Hazard Mapping, Geographic Information Systems, and Modeling to Reduce Volcanic Hazard Vulnerability

This dissertation is composed of an introductory chapter and three papers about vulnerability and volcanic hazard maps with emphasis on lahars. The introductory chapter reviews definitions of the term vulnerability by the social and natural hazard community and it provides a new definition of hazard vulnerability that includes social and natural hazard factors. The first paper explains how the Community Volcanic Hazard Map (CVHM) is used for vulnerability analysis and explains in detail a new methodology to obtain valuable information about ethnophysiographic differences, hazards, and landscape knowledge of communities in the area of interest: the Canton Buenos Aires situated on the northern flank of the Santa Ana (Ilamatepec) Volcano, El Salvador. The second paper is about creating a lahar hazard map in data poor environments by generating a landslide inventory and obtaining potential volumes of dry material that can potentially be carried by lahars. The third paper introduces an innovative lahar hazard map integrating information generated by the previous two papers. It shows the differences in hazard maps created by the communities and experts both visually as well as quantitatively. This new, integrated hazard map was presented to the community with positive feedback and acceptance. The dissertation concludes with a summary chapter on the results and recommendations.