A pilot GIS database of active faults of Mt. Etna (Sicily): A tool for integrated hazard evaluation Giovanni Barreca a , Alessandro Bonforte b, ⁎, Marco Neri b a Università degli Studi di Catania, Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche ed Ambientali, Sez. Scienze della Terra, Italy b Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Catania, Osservatorio Etneo, Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 18 November 2011 Accepted 19 August 2012 Available online 29 August 2012 Keywords: GIS-based system Hazard assessment Volcano-tectonics Flank dynamics Georeferenced arc-features Active fault database A pilot GIS-based system has been implemented for the assessment and analysis of hazard related to active faults affecting the eastern and southern flanks of Mt. Etna. The system structure was developed in ArcGis® environment and consists of different thematic datasets that include spatially-referenced arc-features and as- sociated database. Arc-type features, georeferenced into WGS84 Ellipsoid UTM zone 33 Projection, represent the five main fault systems that develop in the analysed region. The backbone of the GIS-based system is con- stituted by the large amount of information which was collected from the literature and then stored and properly geocoded in a digital database. This consists of thirty five alpha-numeric fields which include all fault parameters available from literature such us location, kinematics, landform, slip rate, etc. Although the system has been implemented according to the most common procedures used by GIS develop- er, the architecture and content of the database represent a pilot backbone for digital storing of fault param- eters, providing a powerful tool in modelling hazard related to the active tectonics of Mt. Etna. The database collects, organises and shares all scientific currently available information about the active faults of the volcano. Furthermore, thanks to the strong effort spent on defining the fields of the database, the structure proposed in this paper is open to the collection of further data coming from future improvements in the knowledge of the fault systems. By layering additional user-specific geographic information and managing the proposed database (topological querying) a great diversity of hazard and vulnerability maps can be pro- duced by the user. This is a proposal of a backbone for a comprehensive geographical database of fault systems, universally applicable to other sites. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction: the GIS tool in natural hazard Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are computer-based sys- tems used to store, manipulate and display geographic information. They are designed to “support the capture, management, manipulation, analysis, modelling and display of spatially referenced data for the solu- tion of complex planning and management problems” (Aranoff, 1989). The manipulation of data ranges from the simple overlay of differ- ent thematic maps for the identification of areas with specific required conditions to the more sophisticated use of mathematical operators or integrated numerical models for the prediction of the dy- namics of natural phenomena. GIS technology, when applied to land use planning and natural resource management and protection, is a tool that can support scientific research and decision making (Burrough, 1989). The role of GIS in natural hazard assessment was highlighted in several papers concerning the use of GIS tools for the study and analysis of geological (Salvi et al., 1999), seismological (Ganas and Papoulia, 2000), and volcanological data (Kauahikaua et al., 1995; Pareschi et al., 2000; Pareschi, 2002). The eastern and southern slopes of Mt. Etna volcano, that host about thirty municipalities for a total of about half a million inhabi- tants, were frequently invaded in the past by historical lava flows erupted from the NE-Rift and S-Rift, highlighting the exposure of these areas to such events (Behncke et al., 2005; Crisci et al., 2010). Moreover, the same portion of the Mt. Etna edifice is affected by a fairly continuous and roughly seawards sliding, occasionally acceler- ated during shallow magma intrusions in the central-upper part of the volcano (Acocella et al., 2003; Neri et al., 2004, 2009; Walter et al., 2005). In this paper, we present a pilot study using a GIS developed in ArcGis® framework, specifically designed for managing the hazard re- lated to the large-scale flank instability of Mt. Etna. The core of the developed GIS-system consists of spatially referenced arc-features (polylines representing the digital geo-referenced representation of fault segments and tectonic lineaments) collected in a digital map of ac- tive faults of the eastern and southern flanks of Mt. Etna. Each segment is linked to a spatial database which includes the main geo-structural and instrumental fault parameters. Hazard assessment can be obtained Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 251 (2013) 170–186 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Etneo, Piazza Roma n°2, 95123 Catania, Italy. Tel.: +39 0957165800. E-mail address: alessandro.bonforte@ct.ingv.it (A. Bonforte). 0377-0273/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2012.08.013 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvolgeores