VolcTools -- enhancing ease of use and uptake of tools to improve prediction and preparedness of volcanic hazards.

火山喷发对生命和生计构成重大威胁。众所周知，最大的喷发可能会产生灾难性的影响，人们越来越认识到，更频繁的较小的喷发可能会对当地和区域范围内的人民、他们的资产和经济产生重大影响。2010年艾雅法拉火山喷发等事件表明，像英国这样远离火山的国家仍然会受到火山活动的很大影响。2010年空中交通中断对全球经济产生了非常大的影响(估计为50亿美元)。在火山活跃地区，有许多城镇在靠近火山的地方发展起来，持续的城市化使更多的社区面临火山灾害。这里的影响更为严重，火山喷发(泥石流)和火山碎屑流对生命构成严重威胁，而火山灰落下会破坏财产和生命。管理火山灾害需要详细了解火山活动和预测未来行为的能力。学术研究表明，火山过程的数学模拟可以极大地帮助制定强有力的危险评估，供决策者、决策者和灾害管理人员使用，以保护人民及其生计不受火山活动的影响。尽管如此，在进行火山灾害评估时，使用的数学研究模型相对较少。负责向决策者(该项目的目标终端用户)提供火山灾害建议的机构的科学家将从获得预测性数学模型中受益匪浅。这一知识交流奖学金将提供一套用户友好的基于网络的建模工具，称为VolcTools，使世界各地的用户能够访问最新尖端研究的最先进的火山灾害模型。关键是，我的项目将与最终用户进行持续的双向接触：我将从潜在用户那里了解他们的建模需求和帮助他们操作的工具的要求；我将就我开发的工具向用户提供培训，并支持他们应用工具；我将收集用户的反馈并修改工具，以确保VolcTools满足用户的需求。网络工具为用户提供了许多优势，例如很少的计算要求，因此即使是非常复杂的数学模型也可以在移动设备上运行，并在高性能计算机上远程执行计算。基于网络的工具的用户保证使用最新的版本，并且该模型可以很容易地维护和升级。现代网络编程允许网络工具通过建立模型来指导用户，并可以为用户提供即时、直接的支持。对网络工具的监测是直截了当的，并允许提供详细的用户支持。这一奖学金拥有强大的国际用户社区，他们将直接为VolcTool的发展做出贡献。VolcTools将为世界各地的火山灾害管理人员提供新的能力，利用模型通过量化、基于证据和强有力的预测来加强他们的活动。加强备灾是减少灾害风险的关键。科学研究，特别是在预测未来活动及其影响方面，对实现这一目标至关重要，VolcTools将为火山灾害管理人员带来最新的研究模型。更好的预测的结果将是根据数学建模的最新进展改进减灾战略和决策。这可以通过改进灾害准备、提高对政策和决策的信心以及减少对经济和社会活动的干扰，为受火山活动影响的人们的生活带来非常实质性的好处。

Volcanic eruptions pose a major hazard to life and livelihood. It is well-known that the largest eruptions can have catastrophic impacts and there is an increasing awareness that smaller eruptions that are much more frequent can have a large effect on people, their assets and the economy on a local and regional scale. Events like the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull have shown that countries like the UK that are quite far from volcanoes can still be greatly affected by volcanic activity. The disruption to air traffic in 2010 had very large global economic impact (estimated at US$5bn). In volcanically active regions there are many towns and cities that have grown close to volcanoes and continued urbanization is exposing many more communities to volcanic hazards. Impacts here are more acute, with volcanic flows like lahars (mudflows) and pyroclastic flows presenting severe risk to life, while ash fall can destroy property and ruin livelihoods.Managing volcanic hazards requires a detailed understanding of volcanic activity and the ability to predict future behaviour. Academic research has demonstrated that mathematical modelling of volcanic processes can greatly assist in the production of robust hazard assessments that can be used by policy-makers, decision-makers and hazard managers to protect people and their livelihoods from volcanic activity. Despite this, relatively few mathematical research models are used when volcanic hazard assessments are made. Scientists in agencies that are tasked with providing advice on volcanic hazards to decision-makers (the targeted end-users of this project) would benefit greatly from access to predictive mathematical models. This knowledge exchange fellowship will provide a suite of user-friendly web-based modelling tools, called VolcTools, allowing users around the world to access state-of-the-art volcanic hazard models from recent cutting-edge research.Crucially, my project will have a continuous two-way engagement with end-users: I will learn from potential users about their modelling needs and the requirements of tools that would assist their operations; I will provide training to users on the tools that I develop and support their application of the tools; I will gather feedback from users and modify the tools to ensure that VolcTools meets the needs of users. Web-tools provide many advantages to users, such as very few computational requirements so that even very sophisticated and complex mathematical models can be run from mobile devices with the calculations performed remotely on high-performance computers. Users of web-based tools are guaranteed to be using the most up-to-date version, and the model can be easily maintained and upgraded. Modern web-programming allows web-tools to guide users through the set-up of a model and can provide instant, direct support to users. Monitoring of the web-tools is straight-forward and allows detailed user support to be provided.This fellowship has a strong international user community who will directly contribute to the development of VolcTools. VolcTools will provide volcano hazard managers around the world with new capabilities to use models to enhance their activities with quantitative, evidence-based and robust predictions. Improved preparedness is key to disaster risk reduction. Scientific research, particularly in forecasting future activity and its impacts, is crucial to achieving this and VolcTools will bring the latest research models to volcano hazard managers. The result of better predictions will be improved hazard mitigation strategies and decision-making based on the latest advances in mathematical modelling. This can have a very substantial benefit on the lives of people affected by volcanic activity, through improved hazard preparations, higher confidence in policies and decisions, and less disruption to economic and social activities.