In 2018, several volcanic eruptions around the world gained the attention of traditional and social media, providing tangible evidences of the influence of formal and informal communication on the actual impact of volcanic crises. As a result, the attention of scientific community to communication was further increased, and led to the stunning number of communication-related workshops and sessions organised before, during and after the Cities on volcanoes 10 meeting. Conveners focused on different aspects of scientific communication, resulting in a multifaceted picture of the many ways in which knowledge about volcanoes is produced and transferred across different stakeholders.
Given this strong, communal effort to address all aspects of communication, the conference was the perfect venue to revive and strengthen the working group on communication that was formed a few years ago within the IAVCEI Commission for Volcanic Hazards and Risks. The workshops conveners had an informal meeting, where the activities and prospects of the group were presented and discussed.
The opportunity to propose a new, independent Commission on communication was discussed but discarded at this time, given the ongoing attempt to reduce the number of IAVCEI Commissions. To improve the group visibility, it was proposed to introduce an an explicit reference to communication in the title or the subtitle of the Commission hosting the group.
The working group needs a virtual home, a place where opinions and information can be easily shared. As a first approximation, it was agreed to use the Facebook page of the Commission on volcanic hazards and risks. All those interested are welcome to join the page and provide their comments. Meanwhile, we’ll explore other options granting the possibility to archive, organise and search the materials that we are going to share.