Eruption surveillance and monitoring at Cumbre Vieja, La Palma (Spain)

Abstract

This article is an edited and summarized transcription of the informative talk given by Carmen López, Director of the National Geophysical Observatory National Geographic Institute (IGN) at the Ateneo de Valencia on April 7, 2022, four months after the end of the eruption. It contains a description of the collaborative experience, carried out by a large number of experts belonging to a long list of entities, during the surveillance and monitoring of the eruption of Cumbre Vieja, on the island of La Palma, in 2021. The techniques applied to anticipate the eruptive phenomenon used on this occasion are also briefly reviewed. On the one hand, the experience has been terrible, given the enormous damage suffered in crops, housing and infrastructure and the deep economic and social damage produced. But, on the other hand, it has been a very positive experience in terms of coordination and collaboration of agencies and organizations at all levels, in terms of the response of the population and it has been a human experience from which we have all learned a lot of things.