The next global volcanic disaster is more likely to come from volcanoes that appear dormant and are barely monitored than from the likes of famous volcanoes such as Etna in Sicily or Yellowstone in the US.
Often overlooked, these “hidden” volcanoes erupt more often than most people realise. In regions like the Pacific, South America and Indonesia, an eruption from a volcano with no recorded history occurs every seven to ten years. And their effects can be unexpected and far-reaching.
You don’t have to look far back in history to find another example. In 1982, the little-known and unmonitored Mexican volcano El Chichón erupted explosively after lying dormant for centuries. This series of eruptions caught authorities off-guard: hot avalanches of rock, ash and gas flattened vast areas of jungle. Rivers were dammed, buildings destroyed, and ash fell as far as Guatemala.
More than 2,000 people died and 20,000 were displaced in Mexico’s worst volcanic disaster in modern times. But the catastrophe did not end in Mexico. The sulphur from the eruption formed reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, cooling the northern hemisphere and shifting the African monsoon southwards, causing extreme drought.
This alone would test the resilience and coping strategies of any region. But when it coincided with a vulnerable population that was already experiencing poverty and civil war, disaster was inevitable. The Ethiopian (and East African) famine of 1983-85 claimed the lives of an estimated 1 million people. This brought global attention to poverty with campaigns like Live Aid.
Few scientists, even within my field of Earth science, realise that a remote, little-known volcano played a part in this tragedy.
Despite these lessons, global investment in volcanology has not kept pace with the risks: fewer than half of active volcanoes are monitored, and scientific research still disproportionately focuses on the well-known few.
🌋 #HayliGubbi — a once-dormant shield volcano in Ethiopia’s Afar Rift — has exploded to life. Its ash plume soared to 45,000 ft, signaling a rare, high-energy event in a volcano with no known eruptions for millennia.Visualized: @NASAEarth🛰 #NASA🌍 #worldview https://t.co/Tg217OWotj pic.twitter.com/BBPyaUjAzzNovember 23, 2025
There are more published studies on one volcano (Mount Etna) than on all the 160 volcanoes of Indonesia, Philippines and Vanuatu combined. These are some of the most densely populated volcanic regions on Earth – and the least understood.
The largest eruptions don’t just affect the communities around them. They can temporarily cool the planet, disrupt monsoons and reduce harvests across entire regions. In the past, such shifts have contributed to famines, disease outbreaks and major social upheaval, yet scientists still lack a global system to anticipate or manage these future risks.
To help address this, my colleagues and I recently launched the Global Volcano Risk Alliance, a charity that focuses on anticipatory preparedness for high-impact eruptions. We work with scientists, policymakers and humanitarian organisations to highlight overlooked risks, strengthen monitoring capacity where it is most needed, and support communities before eruptions occur.
Acting early, rather than responding only after disaster strikes, stands the best chance of preventing the next hidden volcano from becoming a global crisis.
Why ‘quiet’ volcanoes aren’t safe
So why do volcanoes fail to receive attention proportionate to their risk? In part, it comes down to predictable human biases. Many people tend to assume that what has been quiet will remain quiet (normalcy bias). If a volcano has not erupted for generations, it is often instinctively considered safe.
The likelihood of an event tends to be judged by how easily examples come to mind (this mental shortcut is known as availability heuristic). Well-known volcanoes or eruptions, such as the Icelandic ash cloud from 2010, are familiar and can feel threatening, while remote volcanoes with no recent eruptions rarely register at all.
These biases create a dangerous pattern: we only invest most heavily after a disaster has already happened (response bias). El Chichón, for instance, was only monitored after the 1982 catastrophe. However, three-quarters of large eruptions (like El Chichón and bigger) come from volcanoes that have been quiet for at least 100 years and, as a result, receive the least attention.
Volcano preparedness needs to be proactive rather than reactive. When volcanoes are monitored, when communities know how to respond, and when communication and coordination between scientists and authorities is effective, thousands of lives can be saved.
Disasters have been averted in these ways in 1991 (at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines), in 2019 (at Mount Merapi in Indonesia) and in 2021 (at La Soufrière on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent).
To close these gaps, the world needs to shift attention towards undermonitored volcanoes in regions such as Latin America, south-east Asia, Africa and the Pacific – places where millions of people live close to volcanoes that have little or no historical record. This is where the greatest risks lie, and where even modest investments in monitoring, early warning and community preparedness could save the most lives.
This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.