GIS Modeling of Nyiragongo’s Lava Flow Inundation Probability And Mazuku : A Spatial Environment for a Successful Evacuation Plan for Goma City.

The densely populated city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo is highly vulnerable to volcanic hazards from the Nyiragongo volcano. However, these threats are not taken into account in land use and urban planning. In fact, a contingency plan for evacuating people in the event of a volcanic disaster cannot be successful if the evacuation environment is not known and properly simulated, as it may change over time. Based on the Mazuku distribution map and lava flow inundation probabilities, this study aimed to suggest the possible evacuation scenarios from the drown up models. The Q-LavHA tools were used to simulate the lava flow from 8 selected vents on the flank of Nyiragongo towards the city of Goma, using data from past eruptions in 1977, 2002 and 2022. Thus, based on certain volcanic hazard criteria related to the dataset analysis, the exposure to hazards was assessed. The result shows that more than half of the city of Goma is highly exposed to the volcanic hazards of Nyiragongo. Unfortunately, this is also where the majority of the population, the commercial centre and the main public and private institutions are located. Therefore, taking into account the level of exposure to mazuku and lava flows, a spatial evacuation environment that could support a successful evacuation was proposed. This environment is essential for a spatially explicit agent-based simulation study.