Satellite observations of volcanoes in the Asia-Pacific region and their potential for use in parametric insurance
Abstract
One way financial resilience to volcanic crises can be enhanced is to deploy insurance tools that respond quickly in the event of volcanic activity. A promising approach might be a parametric insurance product that provides governments and vulnerable communities with fast access to finance at the very time that supplementary funds are needed to respond to an event and kick-start recovery, analogous to parametric products already in place for governments in the Caribbean and Pacific (for earthquake, cyclone and extreme rainfall events) and Africa (for drought and cyclone events). In the context of volcanic risk, a parametric solution could also be useful if designed to pay out when there is a heightened likelihood of a damaging volcanic eruption. Providing financial resources during unrest can support preparedness, potentially including enhanced monitoring, and could also cover costs of evacuation and resulting disruption to economic activity.
Satellite observations provide global, baseline measurements which are independent and externally verifiable and are thus ideally suited as indices for parametric insurance. State of unrest is typically characterised through four major indicators: seismicity, deformation, degassing and thermal anomalies. It is now possible to detect three of these four indicators from space: deformation, degassing and thermal anomalies. During an eruption, satellites are used to detect volcanic ash in the atmosphere, monitor changes in morphology (such as dome collapse) and identify the area covered by pyroclastic flows and lahars. In this poster, we briefly summarise the capabilities and limitations of Earth Observation data for measuring volcanic phenomena and as a means to provide early warning, with reference to their potential utility for parametric insurance. We focus on five target countries in the Asia-Pacific Region: Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMPA22A..11Y
- Keywords:
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- 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings);
- GENERAL OR MISCELLANEOUSDE: 4328 Risk;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 4337 Remote sensing and disasters;
- NATURAL HAZARDSDE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES