ICUR 2016
I presented my research at this conference.
My presentation at the ICUR 2016
I summarized some parts of this conference.
Keynote lecture 1 "Local level implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030" by Ms. Paola Albrito, Head of the UNISDR Regional Office for Europe.
(Left) Ms. Paola Albrito
She first mentioned about the loss from the natural disasters such as the 2014 Serbia Flood which caused more than USD 2 billion.
The 15-year agenda, Sendai Framework, shifts from dealing with current risk to prevent new risks. Hyogo Framework for Action focused on reducing the current risk.
As 70% of the infrastructure in the next 15 years will be increased in the future. We have to share the vision of "How people are going to be resilience when they are taking a decision" to all stakeholders. Private sectors will be a key role player as they are the main one in developing new infrastructure around the world. That will be the key asset in our society. However, financial investment is not much considered to be included in the risk issue, despite its importance.
Some important points she highlighted include
- People-centred preventive approach to DRR
- Primary responsibility of states for DRR
- Shared responsibility of states for DRR with stakeholders
- Scope, including slow-onset, man-made and bio-hazards
Countries and cities need to know where the risks are in order to see the volume of the economics loss. Then, they can prepare for the DRR.
Some examples in the Europe were mentioned such as the 2012 UK heavy rain, which caused a lot of times more than the 2007 UK Flood.
For the risk zoning, the new construction should not take place.
In Europe, the cities resilient campaign has been promoted.
Making Cities Resilient Campaign (Albrito, 2016)
Many mega-, medium-, and small cities or municipalities have joined this campaign. The campaign has rerun till 2020. Private sectors are extremely interested in this campaign.
Also, Portugal is one of the key group of the working groups for the local level implementation at the local level in Europe.
Keynote lecture 2 "The Game Changes: New Developments and Trends in Urban Risk and Disaster Management" by Prof. David Alexander (Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, UCL, UK)
He gave a great talk mentioned many issues. I like his presentation on the leadership in DRR. His slides are available at http://www.slideshare.net/dealexander.
Prof. David Alexander
Keynote lecture 3 "Urbanism and Hazards Extremes" by Carolina Distinguished Professor Susan L. Cutter (Director of the Hazards & Vulnerability Research Institute, the University of South Carolina, USA)
Prof. Susan L. Cutter
Her talk was mainly about answering significant questions
Q1 "What makes events extreme?"
Q2 "Does an extreme event always create an extreme impact or can extreme impacts have produced from non-extreme event?"
For the first question, there are 3 ways to explain 'extreme' event.
1. Statistics: i.e., seeing the tail of the probability distribution of 95th percentile event.
2. Financial loss.
3. Extreme consequences such as human loss.
For the second question, she gave some cases to answer it.
One of them was the extreme event of the Oct 9, 2015 South Carolina extreme precipitation event.
- Spatial variability: land cover/land use, proximity, topography
- Social vulnerability
- Temporal variation
- Cascading failures
Thus, this case shows that it is an extreme event for the certain area, not the entire country.
Thank you so much, Asst.Prof. Paula Teves Costa (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal) and the organizing committees, for making this successful conference.
