Volcanic Hazard Estimations for Volcán de Colima

Volcán de Colima has one of North America’s highest rates of eruption, producing a wide range of eruptions ranging from effusive episodes to Plinian phases and sector collapses. Such activity potentially endangers over 350,000 people dwelling within the reach of volcanic products and runouts. To widen the hazard assessment derived from this activity, a statistical analysis of the volcano past events must include as many historically and geologically reported eruptions and debris avalanches as possible. However, in doing this, factors such as the complex dependence of flank collapse avalanches with the eruptive activity and other external factors, the increased underreporting with age and the uncertainties in the magnitudes, intensities, and dates of past activity, as well as the possible time dependence of the rate of eruptions must be accounted for. This chapter describes the statistical methods used to estimate the probabilities of different hazard scenarios for Volcán de Colima whilst addressing those factors.