(Press-News.org) The Volcano Alert Level (VAL) system, standardized by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 2006, is meant to save lives and keep citizens living in the shadow of an active volcano informed of their current level of risk.
A new study published in Risk Analysis suggests that, when an alert remains elevated at any level above "normal" due to a period of volcanic unrest, it can cause a decline in the region's housing prices and other economic indicators. Because of this, the authors argue that federal policymakers may need to account for the effects of prolonged volcanic unrest -- not just destructive eruptions -- in the provision of disaster relief funding.
A team of geoscientists and statistical experts examined the historical relationship between volcano alerts issued by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and regional economic growth for three of the country's most dangerous volcanoes: Washington State's Mount St. Helens, Hawaii's K?lauea, and California's Long Valley Caldera.
They analyzed the effect of VALs and their predecessors (such as hazard alerts and volcano alerts) on local housing prices and business patterns over a 42-year period, from 1974 to 2016. The economic indicators used in the analysis included annual housing price, number of business establishments per 1,000 square kilometers, the number of employees per 1,000 inhabitants, and payroll per employee.
The team used econometric models to observe economic indicator trends during times when an increase in volcanic activity above "normal" led to a public alert. "Signs of volcanic unrest include ground deformation, rising C02 emissions, and increased earthquake frequency," says Justin Peers, East Tennessee State University.
Both lower and higher alert level notifications were shown to have short-term effects on housing prices and business indicators in all three regions. The most significant negative impacts were seen for California's Long Valley Caldera area from 1982-83 and 1991-97. Home to Mono Lake, Mammoth Mountain, and the very popular Mammoth Lakes ski area, this complex volcanic region has experienced prolonged episodic unrest.
Not all of the volcanic regions experienced a significant long-term economic impact from an elevated VAL. The greatest exception was Mount St. Helens. Peers suggests this could be due to "volcano tourism and close proximity to the major tech hub of Portland, Oregon." Despite catastrophic volcanic potential, the regional economy in the footprint of Mount St. Helens has benefited from tourism to the volcano -- accelerated by the establishment of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in 1982.
The study's findings are consistent with those from other natural hazards studies that have documented temporary declines in housing prices following successive hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. With natural hazards, the mere presence of information about hazard potential in the form of a public alert level notification may have an adverse effect on local economies.
This sheds light on a systemic issue in disaster resilience, the authors argue. The federal government currently provides disaster relief for direct impacts of volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters, but limited or no assistance for the indirect effects experienced from long periods of volcanic unrest. Durations of volcanic unrest are often protracted in comparison to precursory periods for other hazardous events (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods). As Peers points out, this makes the issue of disaster relief for indirect effects particularly important in high-risk volcanic regions.
For experts who study the risks of natural hazards, the team suggests they have developed a repeatable and reliable methodology to test hazard alert effects on local economies using publicly available federal U.S. business statistics. "This could be utilized to examine the impacts of all hazard alerts, such as those for wildfires or earthquakes," the authors write.
And for citizens, "we hope this research will help people better understand that the risks involved with living around a volcano are not entirely from the physical hazards associated with volcanism. It's more financially complicated than that," says Peers.
INFORMATION:
About SRA
The Society for Risk Analysis is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those interested in risk analysis. SRA was established in 1980 and has published Risk Analysis: An International Journal, the leading scholarly journal in the field, continuously since 1981. For more information, visit http://www.sra.org.
As researchers push the boundaries of battery design, seeking to pack ever greater amounts of power and energy into a given amount of space or weight, one of the more promising technologies being studied is lithium-ion batteries that use a solid electrolyte material between the two electrodes, rather than the typical liquid.
But such batteries have been plagued by a tendency for branch-like projections of metal called dendrites to form on one of the electrodes, eventually bridging the electrolyte and shorting out the battery cell. Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found ...
Even though a fruit fly doesn't have ears, it can hear with its antennae. In a END ...
The first known study to explore optimal outpatient exam scheduling given the flexibility of inpatient exams has resulted in shorter wait times for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) patients at END ...
FINDINGS
A new UCLA study shows that while men and women who have high muscle mass are less likely to die from heart disease, it also appears that women who have higher levels of body fat -- regardless of their muscle mass -- have a greater degree of protection than women with less fat.
The researchers analyzed national health survey data collected over a 15-year period and found that heart disease-related death in women with high muscle mass and high body fat was 42% lower than in a comparison group of women with low muscle mass and low body fat. However, women who had high muscle mass and low ...
A global review of coastal drowning science has found there is only one study worldwide that has evaluated beach safety education programs in schools.
Researchers from UNSW's Beach Safety Research Group have conducted the first in-depth review specific to coastal drowning.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, reviewed 146 coastal drowning studies from around the world.
"We found that evaluation of coastal drowning prevention strategies is rare," said William Koon, the lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in the School of Biological, Earth ...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) selected an NYU Tandon School of Engineering professor who is developing new approaches to training deep learning (DL) artificial intelligence frameworks, to receive its most prestigious award for promising young academics.
Anna Choromanska, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), received a 2021 NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award, more widely known as a CAREER Award, which supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.
A five-year, $532,892 grant will support a project that focuses on new, more efficient ways of training ...
The continuous improvement of imaging technology holds great promise in areas where visual detection is necessary, such as with cancer screening. Three-dimensional imaging in particular has become popular because it provides a more complete picture of the target object and its context.
"More doctors and radiologists are looking at these 3D volumes, which are new technologies that allow you to look not just at one image, but a set of images," said UC Santa Barbara psychology professor Miguel Eckstein(link is external), whose expertise lies in the field of visual search. "In some imaging modalities this gives doctors information about volume and it allows them to segment what they're interested in."
Common wisdom is that with all ...
Bring on Twilight. Lee Child's Jack Reacher? Yes, please. More of James Patterson's Alex Cross while we're at it. And let's finish off with revisiting the million-plus words of the Harry Potter saga.
No one will confuse the above book series with high literature. But a new study published in the journal Reading and Writing shows that the more people read any kind of fiction -- even mass market stuff sniffily derided as pulp -- the better their language skills are likely to be.
The piece was written by Sandra Martin-Chang, professor of education in the Faculty of Arts and Science, and PhD student Stephanie Kozak. They found that people who enjoyed reading fiction for leisure and who identified as a reader scored higher on language tests, whereas ...
It's not uncommon for crescent-shaped swaths of sand to dot the shorelines of meandering rivers. These swaths usually appear along the inner side of a river bend, where the bank wraps around the sandy patch, forming deposits known as a "point bars."
When they appear along an outer bank, which curves the opposite way, they form "counter-point" bars, which are usually interpreted by geoscientists as an anomaly: a sign that something - such as a patch of erosion-resistant rocks - is interfering with the river's usual manner of sediment deposition.
But according to research led by The University of Texas at Austin, counter-point bars are not the oddities they're often ...
PHILADELPHIA (March 16, 20201) - After a traumatic injury, returning to work (RTW) can be a strong indication of healing and rehabilitation and may play a pivotal role in promoting physical and functional recovery. But how does RTW after a traumatic injury affect mental health recovery, particularly in individuals who experience social and economic marginalization?
In a new study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing), researchers investigated the ways that RTW after an injury predict mental health outcomes in Black men living and recovering in Philadelphia. The study found that men ...
