The rationale of lava flow deviation is to prevent major damage, and, among the possible techniques, the opening
of the flow leve¤es has often been demonstrated to be suitable and reliable. The best way to open the leve¤es in the right
point, in order to obtain the required effect, is to produce an explosion in situ, and it is then necessary to map with
the highest precision the temperature field inside the leve¤es, in order to design a safe and successful intervention. The
leve¤es are formed by lava flows due to their non-Newtonian rheology, where the shear stress is lower than the yield
stress. The leve¤es then cool and solidify due to heat loss into the atmosphere. In this work we present analytical
solutions of the steady-state heat conduction problem in a leve¤e using the method of conformal mapping for simple geometrical shapes of the levee cross-section (triangular or square). Numerical solutions are obtained with a finite element code for more complex, realistic geometries.Published241-251ope