Volcano observatories have adapted to provide numerous communication strategies and policies to disseminate information about volcanic behaviour and potential hazards to stakeholders. These tools differ between countries but typically include: call-down lists, warning systems, bulletins, social media, stakeholder meetings and plans, and personal communication between the decision-makers. These can be described as either information provision or knowledge sharing, depending on whether they allow for one-way (uni-valent)or two-way (multi-valent) communication. These tools can be general, event, or time driven and are usually implemented under policies devised at either national or local levels. It is widely accepted that the effective use, value, and deployment of information across science-policy interfaces of this kind depend on three criteria: i) the scientific credibility of the information or knowledge, ii) its relevance to the needs of stakeholders, and iii) the legitimacy of the information or knowledge,the processes that produced it, and the outcomes of decisions based upon it. In this interactive participatory session, we invite contributions to explore the capacity of communication tools to enhance the relevance, legitimacy, and credibility of knowledge sharing and decision-making across the science, policy,and user domains using translation and two-way communication. The conveners will host a ‘campfire’ discussion that enables participants to create content themselves through discussions and mini presentations (of varying formats), and a Q&A. This provides the opportunity for participants to learn from their peers, share experiences, and build new connections that may result in guidance on the varying tools available to assist stakeholders and policy globally.

Core connection with societal risk mitigation: This session explores the interaction of volcanic science and societal risk mitigation by focusing on how different stakeholders communicate across different policies and user groups. This session focuses not just on ‘multi-valent’ two-way session communication in terms of volcanic practices, but also by the nature of the session set up. Using a ‘Campfire’ style, this session will be facilitated by the conveners to enable the participants to create content themselves through discussions and mini presentations (using PowerPoint, or posters, or other tools), and a Q&A. It is hoped this session will attract a wide diversity of stakeholder attendees to really focus on multiple perspectives of risk mitigation.