Les Lahars et les laves torrentielles historiques aux Antilles françaises : un risque hydro-volcano-géomorphologique majeur

Substantiated by original scientific reports, the inventory of historic lahars in the French West Indies was conducted in order to constitute a geo-referenced database: the BDFAHL (French Antilles Historical Lahar). This database lists the localization of flows, their characteristics and their possible impact. With more than 170 identified debris flows or lahars, this inventory takes into account the diversity of laharic processes and proposes a typology of flows according to three criteria: the context, the origin and the sediment concentration. Moreover, despite gaps in the continuity of magmatic eruptions of the Montagne Pelée, the database also provides evidence of the occurrence and the threat of this hazard. Finally, the inventory distinguishes the "major or principal volcanic" streams, in which concentrates the majority of the laharic activity occurs because their torrential catchment area is below the top of the volcano, from the "secondary volcanic" streams that are less dangerous because they essentially drain the base of the volcanic cone and the accumulation glacis. Following a similar methodology, this inventory should be extended to the rest of the archipelago to form the BDLAHL (Lesser Antilles Historical Lahar). This would provide an opportunity to identify the major volcanic streams of the region and to identify other possible features which do not occur on any of the other French volcanoes previously studied