Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu

Building damage from tephra falls can have a substantial impact on exposed communities around erupting volcanoes. There are limited empirical studies of tephra fall impacts on buildings, with none on tephra falls impacting traditional thatched timber buildings, despite their prevalence across South...

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Main Authors: Jenkins, Susanna F., McSporran, Ame, Wilson, Thomas M., Stewart, Carol, Leonard, Graham, Cevuard, Sandrine, Garaebiti, Esline
Other Authors: Asian School of the Environment
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180618
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1806182024-10-21T15:30:48Z Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu Jenkins, Susanna F. McSporran, Ame Wilson, Thomas M. Stewart, Carol Leonard, Graham Cevuard, Sandrine Garaebiti, Esline Asian School of the Environment Earth Observatory of Singapore Earth and Environmental Sciences Ambae eruption Building damage Building damage from tephra falls can have a substantial impact on exposed communities around erupting volcanoes. There are limited empirical studies of tephra fall impacts on buildings, with none on tephra falls impacting traditional thatched timber buildings, despite their prevalence across South Pacific island nations and parts of Asia. The 2017/2018 explosive eruption of Manaro Voui, Ambae Island, Vanuatu, resulted in damage to traditional (thatched timber), non-traditional (masonry), and hybrid buildings from tephra falls in March/April and July 2018. Field and photographic surveys were conducted across three separate field studies with building characteristics and damage recorded for a total of 589 buildings. Buildings were classified using a damage state framework customised for this study. Overall, increasing tephra thicknesses were related to increasing severity of building damage, corroborating previous damage surveys and vulnerability estimates. Traditional buildings were found to be less resistant to tephra loading than non-traditional buildings, although there was variation in resistance within each building type. For example, some traditional buildings collapsed under ∼40 mm thickness while others sustained no damage when exposed to >200 mm. We attribute this to differences in the pre-eruption condition of the building and the implementation of mitigation strategies. Mitigation strategies included covering thatched roofs with tarpaulins, which helped shed tephra and consequently reduced loading, and providing an internal prop to the main roof beam, which aided structural resistance. As is typical of post-event building damage surveys, we had limited time and access to the exposed communities, and we note the limitations this had for our findings. Our results contribute to the limited empirical data available for tephra fall building damage and can be used to calibrate existing fragility functions, improving our evidence base for forecasting future impacts for similar construction types globally. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. SJ acknowledges the AXA Joint Research Initiative and the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its MOE Academic Research Fund Tier 3 InVEST project (Award MOE-MOET32021-0002) for funding support. This work comprises Earth Observatory of Singapore contribution number 578. We acknowledge funding from New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Resilience to Natures Challenge (Volcano). 2024-10-15T04:53:26Z 2024-10-15T04:53:26Z 2024 Journal Article Jenkins, S. F., McSporran, A., Wilson, T. M., Stewart, C., Leonard, G., Cevuard, S. & Garaebiti, E. (2024). Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu. Frontiers in Earth Science, 12, 1392098-. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/feart.2024.1392098 2296-6463 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180618 10.3389/feart.2024.1392098 2-s2.0-85201536790 12 1392098 en MOE-MOET32021-0002 Frontiers in Earth Science © 2024 Jenkins, McSporran, Wilson, Stewart, Leonard, Cevuard and Garaebiti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Earth and Environmental Sciences
Ambae eruption
Building damage
spellingShingle Earth and Environmental Sciences
Ambae eruption
Building damage
Jenkins, Susanna F.
McSporran, Ame
Wilson, Thomas M.
Stewart, Carol
Leonard, Graham
Cevuard, Sandrine
Garaebiti, Esline
Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu
description Building damage from tephra falls can have a substantial impact on exposed communities around erupting volcanoes. There are limited empirical studies of tephra fall impacts on buildings, with none on tephra falls impacting traditional thatched timber buildings, despite their prevalence across South Pacific island nations and parts of Asia. The 2017/2018 explosive eruption of Manaro Voui, Ambae Island, Vanuatu, resulted in damage to traditional (thatched timber), non-traditional (masonry), and hybrid buildings from tephra falls in March/April and July 2018. Field and photographic surveys were conducted across three separate field studies with building characteristics and damage recorded for a total of 589 buildings. Buildings were classified using a damage state framework customised for this study. Overall, increasing tephra thicknesses were related to increasing severity of building damage, corroborating previous damage surveys and vulnerability estimates. Traditional buildings were found to be less resistant to tephra loading than non-traditional buildings, although there was variation in resistance within each building type. For example, some traditional buildings collapsed under ∼40 mm thickness while others sustained no damage when exposed to >200 mm. We attribute this to differences in the pre-eruption condition of the building and the implementation of mitigation strategies. Mitigation strategies included covering thatched roofs with tarpaulins, which helped shed tephra and consequently reduced loading, and providing an internal prop to the main roof beam, which aided structural resistance. As is typical of post-event building damage surveys, we had limited time and access to the exposed communities, and we note the limitations this had for our findings. Our results contribute to the limited empirical data available for tephra fall building damage and can be used to calibrate existing fragility functions, improving our evidence base for forecasting future impacts for similar construction types globally.
author2 Asian School of the Environment
author_facet Asian School of the Environment
Jenkins, Susanna F.
McSporran, Ame
Wilson, Thomas M.
Stewart, Carol
Leonard, Graham
Cevuard, Sandrine
Garaebiti, Esline
format Article
author Jenkins, Susanna F.
McSporran, Ame
Wilson, Thomas M.
Stewart, Carol
Leonard, Graham
Cevuard, Sandrine
Garaebiti, Esline
author_sort Jenkins, Susanna F.
title Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu
title_short Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu
title_full Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu
title_fullStr Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu
title_full_unstemmed Tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 Manaro Voui eruption, Vanuatu
title_sort tephra fall impacts to buildings: the 2017–2018 manaro voui eruption, vanuatu
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180618
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