VICTOR – A new Cyber-infrastructure for Volcanology

Forecasting the impact of active or future volcanic eruptions and correctly interpreting the remnants of past eruptions requires access to models of eruptive processes. The volcano modeling community recognizes a need for more equitable access to robust, verified, validated, and easy-to-use models. To answer this need, we are building VICTOR (Volcanology Infrastructure for Collaboration, Tools, and Resources), a new cyberinfrastructure for the volcano modeling community. VICTOR is connected with national efforts including CONVERSE and SZ4D’s Modelling Collaboratory for Subduction (MCS). To ensure continuity of service for our community, during the transition to VICTOR, the existing Vhub.org platform is still available inside a separately supported new ghub.org.We formed a collaboration with a non-profit organization (2i2c, part of Code for Science and Society) that manages VICTOR’s back end in the form of a JupyterHub placed in the cloud. We are now developing jupyter notebooks for the hub, that call existing volcano models such as the lava flow codes MOLASSES, IMEX_lava and pyFLOWGo, the tephra dispersal codes Tephra2 and HYSPLIT, and the mass flow code TITAN2D.VICTOR will not only provide access to the modeling tool themselves, but also to workflows that utilize these forward models for inversion, benchmarking, and uncertainty quantification. For example, we are developing a workflow to validate mass flow models using the Jaccard fit, model sensitivity, and model precision metrics, all related to Bayes’ theorem. Lastly, we taught a graduate, multi-institutional course on volcanic hazard modeling using VICTOR in Spring 2023 and are creating multilingual tutorials for the workflows.
The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)