The second AVCOR workshop has a special focus on the Virunga (North Kivu, DR of Congo) and to gather East African Rift (EAR) experts from various disciplines to review the state of knowledge about active volcanism and continental rifting, as well as the use of modern modeling approaches and observational techniques such as remote sensing, radar interferometry, GPS, geochemistry to be mention but a few.

The workshop involves many scientists from Europe, America, Africa, and Asia with intention of deeply engaging with different science disciplines such as geology, volcanology, geodesy, geodynamics, seismology and geography respectively.

The 3 days workshop was organized by Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)/European Center for Geodynamics and Seismology (ECGS) Luxembourg, Goma Volcano logical Observatory (GVO) from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Energy, Water & Sanitation Authority (EWSA) on behalf of the Government of Rwanda and the host of the second AVCOR workshop.

The workshop has a turn up of 150 participants from different countries, aiming to know more about the Kivu rift area, as one of the densely populated areas of Africa facing large social-economic development challenges. The scientific data gathered from the workshop will be strongly used to detect and minimize the challenges raising the global risk at a high level.

The scientists involved in the workshop are more committed in the assessment of the potential impacts of geohazards like devastating volcanic eruptions, moderate destructive earthquakes, recurrent landslides, mudflows, and stratified lake with dissolved gas with aim of environmental protection.

The workshop will provide more knowledge on how to create awareness and preparedness on the threats that may disrupt the entire population, infrastructures and investments of the States and private sector that edges industrial projects like gas extraction from Lake Kivu, geothermal, hydropower and oil exploration.

AVCOR workshop will contribute to determine how all geohazard parameters need to be integrated for supporting a global approach for an integrated development at a sub-continental scale. This will improve on the technical knowhow on hazard assessment and decision making during volcanic crisis.