GADRIACTIONS
Summer and Winter 2021
Volume 15— Number 1th

5 Global Summit of GADRIEngaging Sciences with Actionst

st

31 August to 1 September 2021

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Dear Members of GADRI,

Contents

Compliments of the season!

Despite the obstacles thrown at each one of us, we have braved ourselves to move forward and do thebest we can under the circumstances. The situation even dared us to explore new ways, things wethought as impossible and put them into implementation. One amazing example is the 5th Global Summitof GADRI held last August. The results were amazing.
We thank all members of GADRI and our partners for continuing their tremendous work on disaster risk
reduction, prevention and mitigation. The COVID-19 pandemic is an eye opener for all of us reminding us
about the unknown risks and the importance of preparedness and risk communication shared among
stakeholders and our communities. COVID-19 has also shown us how the decision makers andgovernments were leaning towards the science community for evidence-based science research andpolicies. Risk communication and sharing evidence-based science with decision-making was widely
expressed during the 5th Global Summit of GADRI too. When you work collectively together, there isnothing that we cannot accomplish. We therefore, count on your continued support and collaboration.
We would like to share with you how GADRI moved forward in 2021.
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GADRI Board of Directors continued to have quarterly meetings to review and discuss the activities
and direction of GADRI.
5th Global Summit of GADRI : Engaging Sciences in Action – held virtually and intercontinentally from31st August and 1st September 2021. This could not have been accomplished if not for the
extraordinary support and coordination received from our members and partners in North and SouthAmerica, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Oceania and Asia and all other partners especially the UNDRR.
We all came together to make this event a success.
GADRI Newsletters – we published the Spring 2021 version.
Contributions to the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) held in Glasgow,
Scotland from 31st October to 12 November 2021. GADRI shared its contribution through UK
Research Institute (UKRI).
GADRI was invited by UKRI to participate in the finale event of UKRI COP26 meeting on 15 th
December 2021. The Chair, Prof. Paul Kovacs of GADRI Board of Directors, Prof. Mahua Mukherjee,
member of the Board of Directors, IIT, Roorkee, India, and Prof. Andrew Collines, ormer Chair of
GADRI Board of Directors and member of GADRI, DDN, Northumbria University, represented GADRI
at the finale event.
The Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan provided a research grant
to GADRI to carry out a collaborative research project on the “GADRI Collection of World Disaster
Databases”.
Under the Disaster and Risk Research: GADRI Book Series, two books were published – Proceedingsof the 3rd Global Summit of GADRI; and the Ecosystems-Based Disaster and Climate Resilience. You
may wish to visit the site to obtain further information - https://www.springer.com/series/16177• 5th Global Summitof GADRI• Opening

Ceremony• Plenary Session I• America covering

North and SouthAmerica• Plenary Session II• Asia and Oceania• Europe with Africa

and the MiddleEast• Final Regional

Wrap-up• Closing Ceremony• New Members of

GADRI

GADRI Board of Directors is taking steps to form five working groups to work on the five major
objectives of GADRIGADRI met with the Tohoku University, International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS),Japan to discuss about the next World Bosai Forum

None of these activities could have been accomplished without your active and generous support.
We wish you all a very happy and safe holiday season. Wish you a Happy Christmas and a Happy New
Year!
Yours sincerely,
Hirokazu Tatano and;Wilma, Ayuna, and Matsuura

PS: A sincere apology for the delay in publishing this version of GADRI Actions. We have worked hardon the videos to capture the discussions of the 5th Global Summit of GADRI: Engaging Sciences with
Action held in August 2021. We hope you will enjoy reading the stories and reminiscing on our amazing
and incredible conference with which we went around the world in 28 plus hours.
Photos: All photos of presenters and PPTs are screen shorts from zoom meeting of the 5th Global Summit of GADRI.
GADRI Actions is designed, formatted and edited by Hirokazu Tatano and Wilma James. All copyrights reserved by GADRI Secretariat.
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5th Global Summit of GADRI: Engaging Sciences with Action
31st August to 1st September 2021
Virtual and Intercontinental Conference(22:00 hours 31st August to 0:00 hours 1st September 2021 JST)The Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI) https://gadri.net/ organised the 5th Global Summit of GADRI under
the sub-theme of Engaging Sciences with Action virtually andregionally from 31st August to 1st September 2021. http://gadri.net/
summit/Risk Knowledge, Monitoring and Capacity-Development Branch,
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR);
COVID-19 and other hazards – Science into Action was deliveredby Prof. Virginia Murray, Head, Global Disaster Risk Reduction,
Public Health England (PHE), UK; and the Lessons of COVID-19
for Systemic Risk Governance: Recycling Sustainability and
Resilience was delivered by Prof. Ortwin Renn, Scientific Director,
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Germany.
The session was chaired by Prof. Kaoru Takara, Professor and
Dean, Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies (GSAIS)
in Human Survivability (Shishu-Kan), Kyoto University.

The 5th Global Summit of GADRI aimed at stock taking of progress
and achievements in DRR research from its members toward thetargets of the Science and Technology Roadmap to implement thegoals and priorities of the Sendai Framework. The programmecommunicated academic science across scientific disciplines topolicy makers and practitioners. It is an important aspect for
academics to be aware how science can directly contribute tonational and local disasters, for example, the current global
pandemic COVID-19, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. Suchsituations prompt scientists’ interventions, expertise, experienceand the opportunity to share them with emergency managers incrisis situations.

The Opening Ceremony and the Plenary Session I was logged in
by about 334 people from around the world.
The regional sessions took place soon after the opening plenary.

This year’s Global Summit of GADRI was organised withcooperation with its regional alliances.
The outcomes andrecommendations of the summit will be fed into the forthcoming,
UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in the UK
in November 2021; and the UNDRR Global Platform for DRR in
Bali, Indonesia in May 2022. The recommendation from thesummit to the COP26 will be facilitated through the UK Researchand Innovation (UKRI).
The 5th Global Summit of GADRI was opened by Prof. Paul
Kovacs, Chair, Board of Directors of GADRI and followed by avideo message from Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of
the Secretary-General for DRR, UNDRR, Switzerland; and thegreetings from the Secretary-General of GADRI, Prof. Hirokazu
Tatano.

•Americas covering North and South America was on Current
Situation of Science Collaborations in Hazards DRR.

•

The second Plenary Session on How to Engage Science in theDecision-Making Process within National Governance andRelate Science into Action?

•

Asia and Oceania regional session covered the topic on
Engaging Sciences with Action: Voices from Asia and Oceania•

Europe with Africa and the Middle-East was on Exploring
solutions to Bridge the Gaps for Implementation of Science in
Action.

•There was parallel sessions on Networking with Institutes andan e-poster session.

The summit closed with a final wrap-up session for the regionalsession the closing ceremony.
An amazing number of 640 participants from 77 economies
registered for the conference; and nearly 568 members from 73
economies logged in via zoom meeting to attend the 28+-hour long
conference.

The first Plenary Session on the topic of Systemic Risk andCurrent Action was covered by Ms. Loretta Hieber Girardet, Chief,
Background:

Subsequent sessions include:

During the first global summit, initiated by the Disaster Prevention
Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Uji Campus, Kyoto
Japan from 24 to 25 November 2011, during the same year atriple disaster – Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
devastated Japan in March 2011. The First Global Summit whichbrought together 52 research institutes involved in disaster risk
reduction and management from around the world, proposed theestablishment of an international forum of disaster researchfostered by DPRI, Kyoto University. This proposal was further
endorsed by the Second Global Summit that took place at DPRI,
Kyoto University from 19-20 March 2015 soon after the UN World
Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, participated by 83
institutes, and established the Global Alliance of Disaster
Research Institutes (GADRI) to support the Sendai Frameworkfor Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 agenda.

The Third Global Summit of GADRI under the theme of
Expanding the Platform for Bridging Science and Policy
Making from 19 to 21 March 2017, Kyoto, Japan with 102
institutes and 251 participants from around the world. One of
the major outcomes of this was the establishment of theDisaster and Risk Research: GADRI Book Series with Springer
Nature.
The Fourth Global Summit of GADRI under the theme of
Increasing the Effectiveness and Relevance of our Institutes
was organised in March 2019 at DPRI, Kyoto University,
Japan. It was attended by 107 institutes and 246 participants.
This session of the summit contributed to the contextualisationof the Science and Technology Roadmap.
Its
recommendations were submitted the UNDRR Global Platformfor DRR in May 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.

3

Hour 1

22:00 JST 31st August 2021
Opening Ceremony

The 5th Global Summit of GADRI was opened by Prof. Paul
Kovacs, Chair, Board of Directors of GADRI and followed bya video message from Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for DRR, UNDRR,
Switzerland; and the greetings from the Secretary-Generalof GADRI, Prof. Hirokazu Tatano.

Opening Ceremony Chair:Prof. Kaoru Takara, Dean,
Graduate School of Advanced
Integrated Studies (GSAIS) in
Human Survivability (Shishu-Kan),
Kyoto University, Kyoto Japan

Prof. Paul Kovacs, Chair, GADRI Board of Directors; and Executive Director, and Adjunct Research Professor, Economics,
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Western University, Canada (Toronto, Canada—08:00 am)

Prof.
Paul
Kovacscommenced his greetings byexpressing his appreciation to
all organisers of the 5th Global
Summit of GADRI especiallytheDisasterPrevention
Research Institute (DPRI),
Kyoto University and the
Kyoto University for hosting the GADRI Secretariat and support
rendered for its activities. After greeting the participants, he
expressed his enthusiasm to participate in the unique event of
the 5th Global Summit of GADRI which had over 640 registrants
from nearly 77 economies. The theme Engaging Sciences with
Action could not have been discussed in a better time. The
conference is bringing together some of the world’s leaders in
the disaster science community to speak over a period of 26 to
27 hours and literally go all around the world to bring the best
and the brightest together to share thoughts, ideas, and on how
to make the world better and to discuss about better engagementin science in action for DRR.

and share their views. People who are not able to travel due to
conflict of schedules or budgetary constraints are able toparticipate especially young scientists and people fromdeveloping countries.
He stressed that it is quite remarkable to note how the researchcommunity and disaster scientists have been able to cometogether to put on this event possible. The event not only brings
all together but also help to advance societies’ knowledge andunderstanding of science so that better decisions are made on
the hazards that are confronting us. GADRI as a community is
helping to better understand, and support knowledge and action
so that societies can be better prepared going forward. This
event is part of that process. It is part of GADRI’s mandate too.
How can we work across institutions? Each one is doing
amazing work individually. As institutions, and through theAlliance, it has brought together institutions to play a greater role
by working collectively to advance how science support action.
The role of the alliance brought together many institutions fromaround the world and it is very exciting for events like this tosupport collaboration, publications, research, and support inmany other ways to play the biggest role.

Holding the 5th Global Summit of GADRI under the current
constrained situation has its own merits. For example, there are
more institutions, and people participating in the conference.
More prominent speakers are able participate in the conference

On behalf of the Global Alliance of Disaster ResearchInstitutions, Prof. Kovacs welcomed everyone to the 5 th Global
Summit of GADRI.

Video Message by Ms. Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for DRR, UNDRR, Switzerland
Ms. Mami Mizutori congratulated
andthanked
GADRI
for
th
organizing the 5 Global Summitof GADRI which will take stock of
research
progress
andachievements in disaster risk
reduction. She stated that as weareincreasingly
observing,disaster risk is interconnected and the impact of a hazard may
cascade across sectoral and geographical boundaries and haveseen this with COVID-19, as a public health crisis quickly turned
into a socio-economic crisis.

contribution to DRR, particularly as the world seeks the expert
opinions of academics and scientists to navigate the global
pandemic and find solutions.
GADRI and its regional alliances are also coordinating efforts tobring results and recommendations from the 5th Global Summit of
GADRI to inform the UN Climate Change Conference of theParties (COP26) in November this year, as well as to contribute to
the Global Platform for DRR in May next year in Bali Indonesia.
Ms. Mizutori also took the opportunity to thank Professor Eiichi
Nakakita, Director of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute(DPRI), Kyoto University; and the Kyoto University for hosting the
GADRI’s Secretariat at the DPRI, Uji Campus, Kyoto University,
Japan.

Under the theme “Engaging Sciences with Action”, thisconference is a unique opportunity to elevate science’s
4

Prof. Hirokazu Tatano, Secretary-General, GADRI; and Professor, Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto
University, Japan

In his presentation on the objective, structure and the expected
outcomes of the 5th Global
Summitof
GADRI,
Prof.
Hirokazu
Tatanoshared information on withthe unprecedented impactof the pandemic havebrought flexibility to explore
other interesting ways tohold a global conference of
this magnitude and how he is amazed with the result. He
explained how the members of the GADRI Board of Directors andthe Advisory Board came together to support the GADRISecretariat to organise the 5th Global Summit of GADRI, and how
they volunteered to host the continental sessions at theirrespective institutes and today, the summit was possible due totheir untiring and active support and intervention.

Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. A few of theinstitutes responded to this request, and it is an exercise that will
be carried out until the end of March 2022.
GADRI intends to share its outcomes and recommendations fromthe 5th Global Summit of GADRI with the UN Climate Change
Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, November 2021,
facilitated by the UKRI, and the 7th Session of Global Platform forDisaster Risk Reduction in Bali, May 2022. Prof. Tatano reiterated
that the scientific contributions from the members of GADRI
towards disaster risk reduction, climate change mitigation andadaptation, and current and post-COVID-19 pandemic are needed
to influence policy making and practice associated withinternational frameworks such as the Paris Agreement on Climate
Change and the Sendai Framework Agenda.
He detailed the programme planned for the 26-27 hours of thesummit, and encouraged everyone to participate to the extent
possible, and actively engage in the discussion sessions. Also, heintroduced the Networking with Institutes session, a new session
to encourage collaboration among GADRI members, and the eposter session. Networking session encourages collaboration withinstitutes that have necessary seeds for research collaborationand institutes which are in need of research collaboration. E-poster
session is also a another portal to summarise researchachievements by institutes and encourage all participants to login
to these sessions as well.

He explained that in order to manage the time zones, theconference will be held in three different continents:•

Americas covering North and South America - Multidisciplinary
Modeling Progress and the Role of Community Engagement in
Resilience Planning•

Asia and Oceania – Engaging Sciences with Action – voicesfrom Asia and Oceania•

Europe with Africa and the Middle-East - Exploring solutions to
Bridge the Gaps for Implementation of Science in Action

He continued to state that the main purpose of the conference is
how to engage sciences with action? The continental hosts havelooked at this issue in different angles and cast wider net to bringin an impressive number of 93 excellent speakers in different fieldsof specialization. The conference uniquely provides an opportunity
to young scientists especially in developing countries whootherwise may not be able to participate in person at the Global
Summit of GADRI due to various constraints. The online
conference paved the way for especially for them to engage indiscussion andshare their research interests with GADRI
members and other global stakeholders.
One of the major outcomes of the 4th Global Summit of GADRI
held in Kyoto in March 2019 was agreement to intensively
contribute to the S&T Roadmap action plan. The members agreed
to share voluntary evaluation reports of activities andachievements during the biennial Global Summits of GADRI.
Based on this agreement, prior to the 5th Global Summit of GADRI,
all members were requested to provide their institute report ofactivities and achievements towards the targets of the Science andTechnology Roadmap to implement the goals and priorities of the5Plenary Session I: Systemic Risk and Current Action
Ms. Loretta Hieber Girardet, Chief, Risk Knowledge, Monitoring and Capacity-Development Branch, United
Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) (from Paris, France 14:20 hrs.)

In her presentation, she discussed in detail on two, current major
global concerns, the Covid-19 pandemic and the worsening
effects of climate change. She stressed how very little is known
about the composition of risk, the origins, the interconnections.
COVID-19, and also climate related disasters are the
manifestations of systemic risk realized. Within that context, it
really goes without saying that the value of the work of theresearch community for Disaster Risk Reduction isimmeasurable. It is a known fact that risk is unequivocallyincreasing. Hazards are growing in intensity, frequency, andunpredictability.

need to strengthen the engagement of scientists who are
working on Disaster Risk Reduction with other sectors suchas health, understanding that multisectoral approach is
critical for achieving the goals of reducing multi hazard risk.

•need to bridge the gap within the scientific disciplines,
especially the DRR and climate change domains. One of thepriorities for UNDRR is to promote comprehensive disasterand climate risk management, and this really does require asound scientific basis.

•

In particular, need to provide further meaning to climate
projections and long-term risk assessments to be able totranslate these into comprehensive disaster and climate
policy planning and implementation.

In addition, Ms. Girardet added that certain degree of change offocus or perception is also required, for example:•

She also drew attention to the IPCC assessment reports 6 which
was published in August 2021, and which needs to be seen as a
wakeup call for all of us. It summarized the physical sciencebasis, the cutting edge understanding of the physical aspects ofclimate change and it is worthwhile to reflect on the findings andunderstand what they mean for disaster risk.

to become more comfortable with uncertainty. This goes forboth research and policy makers. This does not meansystemic uncertainty. It means the acceptance of that there
are unquantifiable things about the world and the need tolearn how to take these into account when planning fordisaster risk reduction interventions.

She further stated that justice, and equity matters. When disasterdamage reports estimate the total loses in billions of dollars, it isusually of the physical assets and it does not address the needs
and, interests of capacities of the people who are on the front lineof disaster risk. It necessary to take the losses of people who are
voiceless in the equation. They are often the ones who have theleast chance to participate in these processes.

Further, there has never been a time in history when a moreurgent call was issued for accelerating action to reduce disaster
risk, especially climate related disasters and tackling risk is noteasy. Systemic risk and how these conditions come together tomake a devastating scenario such as COVID-19 possible, ismuch harder to understand than to measure, quantify, andcommunicate. Some people say it was impossible to haveforeseeing the risk of an event like the COVID-19 pandemic. But
it was predicted in the 2019 UNDRR published the Global
Assessment report, which noted - all diseases such as cholera
and plague have returned and new ones have emerged. Another
Ebola epidemic or a new influenza pandemic are likely andalmost certain. The only unknowns are when and where they or a
new lethal threat will emerge.

The scope and scale of what is left to know about the way risk isconstructed and managed is astronomical. Our knowledge of non- probabilistic hazard alone is dangerously incomplete, and to
say nothing of exposure, vulnerability and the emergent
properties arising from their commingled. Attaining the goal ofthis entitlement to reduce risk is a very challenging proposition.
She concluded with the words that UNDRR considers GADRI a
direct partner who works across all efforts made to help countries
better understand and manage disaster risk reduction andreiterated the that the research, science and technology
community plays a unique and pivotal role in helping the world tounderstand more honestly, and better. She invited all members
to actively engage in STAG networks to support informationexchange and collaboration as partners in the scientificendeavors to reduce risk in a way that truly leaves no one
behind.

She stated that it is quite important to improve the use ofscience, data and risk knowledge to transform those systems
that both build and manage these situations. One very criticalingredient, achieving this transformation is the strengthening of
the relationship between science and policy making.
Wrapping up, she pointed out:••

The need to strengthen collaboration between national
disaster management agencies and science, including
ensuring that the scientific community is an integral part ofnational DRR platform.

6A few examples of the Q&A session:

Q: We are very much encouraged to hear you say that GADRI asa direct partner of UNDRR. Definitely, we want to work closely
together with UNDRR too. WE will continue to organise this kindmeetings, collect research achievements and contribution
towards accomplishing the target and goals set out by the Sendai
Framework. We have many good results and ongoing initiatives
too. However, it is not easy for us to share this kind of evidencebased science with other stakeholders in the world directly. Do
you have any suggestion for us how to share valuable
information and opinion with other stakeholders in the world, how
could we proceed in that direction?

were finding very challenging. It was unclear how to act on thatand they were showing some frustration in contrast to perhaps
the other three action priorities that were relatively
straightforward. What was required? What was recommended,
what was wanted, and how to get the science to do that was justgetting the data or whatever. But the fourth one was seen as far
more complicated and less clear - what the path forward was. So
it was quite intriguing some of the work done by GADRI to
understand and work directly with people going forward.
Anyway, I'm just intervening. Thank you so much for your workand for your time today, Further, commitment from the membersof the Global Alliance are here to help.

A: Well, thank you very much and I hope that we can maybe
continue the conversation afterwards about very concretemeasures. But one thing I've just mentioned is that we are reallyenhancing our work through our Science and Technology
Advisory Group at the regional level.

Q: question in the chat box on Himalayan mountains and issues
around mountains and resilience

A: The question about combating disasters in the Himalayan
region. It's interesting because one of the areas of work that
we're starting to look at a little bit more than we've done in thepast, is mountains and issues around mountains and resilience.
Not specific to the Himalayan region. But more generally, trying
to shine a light more on the specific resilience issues inmountainous areas and part of this is through some connections
the Swiss government has made with us and some of theresearch institutes that they are funding. So we are planning to
produce in the course of this year, two different papers on looking
at specific DRR issues in mountains. And not surprisingly, it will
be very much linked to climate change. So watch that space. We
will hopefully be able to incorporate some of this into our global
platform as well, maybe through a side event. It is considered to
be an area that we haven't focused enough, perhaps not enough.

The aim here is to really develop program of work at the regional
level that will be shared through probably in an annual forum ofsome sort. Additionally, I would really invite all of you and I'm
happy to share it with you to take a look at the Global Research
Agenda that we have pulled together with IFC and IRTR, whichreally spells out what we see as very critical areas of the scientificendeavour that should be taken forward. What we're reallylooking for in our partners is who can commit to areas of workthat have been laid out in that scientific agenda to move forward.
I won't go through all of them now, but that's exactly how we see
collaboration taking forward that not necessarily us doing thework. That you being inspired by the agenda that has been
identified and looking at what specific areas you and yourpartners could take forward. So those are two very concrete
ways I believe that we can enhance that collaboration.

Q—comment from Chair of the Board of Directors of GADRI:
The work that you and the team are doing are incredibly exciting
and on behalf of GADRI, we look forward to supporting it going
forward. You may not be aware, but those of us who were in
Sendai, many of us at the end of the meeting, went directly to
Kyoto for a meeting of the Global Alliance of Disaster ResearchInstitutes. The very next day we announced our commitment tosupport UNDRR. It is at core of what we are doing in theinstitutes. It is just building on the comments.
Within the research community, the 200 plus DRR members
account for an enormous share of the disaster research that istaking place in the world. With the remarkable work that you andthe team are doing, you have always been a resource with a verysmall team and contrasted with the resources available to theinstitutes within GADRI. We have a remarkable capacity ofpeople and ideas to be there and help you. On a personal side
when we hosted some meetings funded by the Japanese
government in Tokyo, about inviting countries committed to
implementing the Sendai Framework, what science would help
them, they were finding in particular, with the building back betteror the 4th Priority for Action, the science support from that they7

Hour 2st

— 23:00 JST 31 August 2021

COVID-19 and other hazards – Science into Action by Prof. Virginia Murray, Head, Global Disaster Risk Reduction, Public
Health England (PHE), UK (14:00 hrs.)
reviews show how important it is to keep learning the whole
way through the whole of the pandemic in order not to lose thatknowledge and also to learn how to try and minimize harm in
the future.
Finally, with COVID-19, it has shown the importance toaddress cascading complex hazards risks. The UNDRR and
ISC review on Hazard Definition and Classification Review
aims to provide a common set of hazard definitions frommonitoring and reviewing implementation which calls for a data
revolution, rigorous accountability mechanisms and renewed
global partnerships.

In her greetings, Prof. Virginia Murray said that it is such a
privilege and honour to be part of the GADRI family; that the
GADRI family has been inspirational and the engagement fromthe incredible work that happened after the Sendai Frameworkwith the first conference in Kyoto immediately afterwards wasmemorable.

On the UN Research Roadmap for the COVID-19 Recovery
report, Prof. Murray stated that What she thought was soimportant was the very strong message about what we mightneed to do to deal with the 70 odd million people pushed intopoverty issues, about prison over overcrowding, the domestic
violence, or school closures, let alone the good health andwellbeing impacts. They've called for many things that weneed to do, but one of them that I particularly like is science forscience. The idea that we need to improve our data
infrastructure, that we need to have implementation sciencetaking science to inform policy and practice. That we needknowledge mobilization and we need rapid learning systems. It
is absolutely essential. With COVID-19 we need to do more of
really good science and make it much more accessible to all.

Prof. Murray’s presentation on COVID-19 and other hazards
and science interactions, focused on some of the work they
have been doing to date, and with statistics, updated on theactivities that have been going on in a complicated year. While
there are many globally funded research projects on COVID19, there has also been an incredible number of peer-reviewed
publications that have been produced across the world. Pulling
this data together, the policy and practice makers are provided
the best evidence on the current COVID-19 situation.
The COVID-19 was an entirely a new disease. The impact
upon the world has led to a year or so without precedent for
the World Health Organization. Everything from managing very
worrying cases, to healthcare, to prevention, to try and deal
with the personal protective equipment to getting the samples,the supplies, the training, the engagement, the analysis, thevaccines and the issues about travel and other preventative
measures that have been key issues to all.

She also drew attention to the paper that was recently
published with the International Science Council - call for
Knowledge Exchange centres in Disaster Risk Reduction.
Why? Because we need better informed decision making. We
need to reduce disaster risk. We need to contribute tosustainability and we need to enhance resilience.

On 30th August 2021, the WHO stated that more than fivebillion vaccine doses have been administered globally, andthey continue to call for vaccination. WHO had a timeline fromthe 31st of December 2019 when COVID-19 was reported
under the International Health Regulations and by 12th ofJanuary 2020, they were already publishing comprehensive
guidance on topics related to the management of an outbreakor a new disease.
Most importantly, there was an important science meeting
which took place on the 11th to 12th of February 2020 andscience was at the heart of all responses. At the meeting, theycalled for A Coordinated Global Research Roadmap which had
many topics in it. She shared some of the principles powering
this research, which is coordinating research committed to fairand equitable access and facilitating future research actions.
COVID-19 has resulted in a whole series of reviews and someof the reviews of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA)
has been absolutely critical to this purpose. These GHSA

8

In concluding, Prof. Murray drew attention to a few of therecently published reviews:•

2015 landmark agreements
Framework is key to science

of

which

the

Sendai•

COVID-19 has been a wake-up call to the world•

What has happened is the agreement upon A CoordinatedGlobal Research Roadmap: something that has driven toclarity and what research needs to be done; and reduce
the research duplications or gaps by filling this together.

•

Linking to this is how WHO may move forward with the
WHO Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management
Framework as a more holistic approach•

As part of that, covering all hazards, the Hazard Definition
and Classification Review by UNDRR and ISC is apathway to the future

She stated that by working together with disaster related
statistics, we will be able to be much clearer knowing what weneed to manage if we are to do this by proper measurement
and possibly, to see whether the Knowledge Exchange Centres
may work for the future to help us to deliver this better.

A few examples of the Q&A session:

Q: Thank you for your outstanding leadership and in particular tointegrate health into the broader conversation about hazards.
Your leadership is been so valued and so well done. Virginia, areyou sensing that the UN agencies and national governments are
sincere in their commitment to build science and use science isthe foundation for action forward? Are you finding evidence that
we're making progress on that front?

A: So let me start with the COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy. We
were very much aware of it. It has been something that is a realconcern. But I think because we had done so many clinical trials
to assess our vaccination program and we in the UK have beenvery much aware that vaccination saves lives, I wanted to sharewith you how many lives we think we have saved and how many
infections from the data that only came out last week. This hashelped to deliver less hesitancy, but also there are things likenightclubs, young want to go to. At the end of September they
will have to produce a certificate of vaccination, we think before
they can get into a nightclub, and that has been rather
encouraging. The numbers have gone up, but of course it is only
trying to help people to be safer and to try and reduce harm thathas been so critical to us.

A: We very fortunately in the UK have our scientific advisorygroup and emergencies, which is led by our government chief
scientific advisor and we have been working really closely withthis group sitting inside Public Health England. Everything frombehavioral science to genomics to making sure that whether our
guidance will actually be implemented and whether it is going to
be a relevance to all. Our view is that science is really critical toinform policy and practice. We are not the decision makers. We
are merely the providers of knowledge and it is up to the decision
makers to make their choices which are way beyond us. But theopportunity to engage, we feel it is really important to engage
science with leadership. There are tremendous calls for much
more engagement. But it has to be the will of the politicians that
actually science can help. And the more we talked to them, themore we hear that they feel science has a real relevance. And I
think that is very important.

Q: What about the natural and human made hazards?
A: Natural hazards are the ones that everybody has associatedso much with and work that we have been doing. But I think theprivilege of working on the hazards engagement that we have
had shown that it is really important that all hazards are reallysomething that occurred because you are there. What we need totry and do is to make sure that people are much more aware ofthese hazards and that we improve our early warning as a whole.
That is why Sendai Framework’s Global Target G will be so
relevant. But equally I think that natural and human madehazards are something that we are very critical and we areconcerned about delivering. And we hope that our hazard
information, our hazard definition and classification will help toreflect so much of that.

Q: how did the UK handled the issue of COVID-19 vaccine
hesitancy? Can you respond to them?

9Hour 3

— 23:40 JST 31st August 2021

Lessons of COVID-19 for Systemic Risk Governance: Recycling Sustainability and Resilience by Prof. Ortwin
Renn, Scientific Director, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Potsdam, Germany (15:40 hrs.)emphasize placed on these kinds of interactions. If strong focus ison the risk agents and able to use tools like probabilistic risk
analysis, then the focus is more on the risks absorbing system,
which will actually suffer from the risk agents, and then move onstronger tools which are called vulnerability or resilience analysis.
There are challenges that come along with it. Although very often
there are the kind of qualitative information, it may not be the realquantitative models to represent the reality.
On turning to the tipping points, Prof. Renn informed that there is an
inadequacy of trial-and-error learning notes. Because if there is atipping point, prior to that there is always positive feedback. It was
obvious with the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 where people
were really rewarded for doing the wrong thing. Once the system
collapsed, it was too late. Therefore, it is not realistic to learn byerror. The difficulty with that is, it is necessary to anticipate the error,
which makes it very difficult. As a matter of fact, to do good politics
is essentially difficult as it requires to something before people could
feel it. That is also part of global warming and other crisis – people
need to see before they could act. Once seen or experienced withnegative impacts, then everyone starts to act. There are crosssectoral, and cross boundary cascading effects. It makes it very
difficult to contain it, even in governance or even in understanding
into one domain. Even with a stochastic relationship between
causes and effects, it makes it difficult to deal with that. There arevery often non-linear functional relationships, often with tipping
points and learning by trial and error is not a good idea.

After thanking the previous speakers and the 5 th Global Summit of
GADRI organizer, Prof. Ortwin Renn continued to enlighten theaudience on lessons from covid-19 and other disasters
experienced over the last two or three years and the number ofdisasters specifically increasing in intensity which have become amatter of global concern.
He focused on kinds of systemic risks and on systems thinking in
risk. First is the need to look into the breakdown of systems
functionality. It is not just looking at losses which are bad enoughbut look at the collapse of the systematic function of society. Thiswas evident with the COVID-19 crisis, when the health system did
not work anymore or was overstressed and its functionality
crashed, sometimes rejuvenated but very often it was at least at
the edge of being dysfunctional.
The second which is very clear with covid and it is also true withother natural and technological disasters, is that they are infecting
other systems. With covid it is clear as it is a health threat, and it
extended into economics, education, social, physical and otherindividual spheres. Maybe the health impacts were only secondary
to some of the social impacts that have been witnessed.

On risk management strategies, Prof. Renn stressed on the need tofocus more on resilience and risk absorbing systems as there aremany interactions between agents or it will not be able tounderstand all the risk agents that will have an impact on thesystem. There is a need to think about how to make the system
more resilient, more robust, even be able to absorb surprise events.
For example, to focus on a variety of unlikely stress scenarios
although there may not be one actually occurs but the system could
be made more resilient against these surprises.

The third fact is not new, but it is important in terms of systemic
view is that there are all kind of risk cascades within and between
systems. These kinds of cascades are basically an issue in which
no one thing originates in one domain. But then, maybe it comesout from a natural disaster like a tsunami which becomes atechnological disaster when it hits, for example, a nuclear power
station and it becomes a social disaster, and not to mention
anything about the problems in terms of power relationships or interms of preparedness for dealing with these kinds of disasters.

Focus on combinations of risk agents and corresponding risk
cascades are necessary too. The good thing is that there are only
seven agents, and it is possible to make permutations of all theseagents and to see how they would affect the specific system. Then
there is the need to include the societal developments and assess
this before because that is a strong interaction. Lastly, he concluded
that is also an inclusion issue, it is necessary to include the people
that are affected. He also mentioned that it is a point echoed by two
previous speakers. It is very important that those who are affectedby risks are also part of the risk governance. Otherwise, all of theseissues that are just mentioned will not be really dealt with in a
prudent and a very
effective way.

The fourth aspect is that very often these modern disasters are
related to wicked problems where there are epistemic
uncertainties. In a lot of aspects, the specific cause effects are
unknown. Not only they are very complex systems, but also
normative ambiguity that things are not quite clear and how theyshould be dealt with, and where to have some kind of a prudent
judgment, for example, between saving human lives in an epidemic
and having a vital economic life. Often both of that is somehow in
conflict with each other and it is necessary to make prudent
judgments.
And lastly, the governance of these systems requires an approach.
If it is called systemic, which is integrated and targeted oriented,
and that it needs policy packages that go beyond just the domain inwhich the original hazard has occurred. There are other risk agentsand vectors too.
All these things interact and then they basically add to the overallrisk or to the overall damage in the end. What is important is the10

A few examples of the Q&A session:
Q: My confusion is that systemic risk -is it a kind of anothersource of risk, or is it a kind of perspective of risk? That means do you think that all risk should be considered from theperspective of systemic risk? Or is it a particular situation or
particular hazards that triggered that risk?

motivation to act, we will be losing risk game. In that sense, I'm
extremely glad that you said it. I would like to combine it with two
points to that end about the risk absorbing system.
Now if you don't know exactly what the risk agent will be that
attacks you, you have different possibilities and basically 3

A: A very important question, and it is not easy to answer
because you know our imagination can help us to put any risk intoa systemic context. However, I think pragmatically, it is good tohave some questions. For example, if I have a car accident, yes,
you could think about it as systemic risk. Basically it's much betterto think about it as a conventional risk, so you can contain it. It's
one car running against a tree or knocks another car, its kinetic
energy and damage, and that's basically may be an economic
problem too. But it's not that the whole health system will beoverwhelmed or so on, because those are, facts that, we know
about. We know the probability and the occurrence over one
year, so we can plan for it. I don't think that's a systemic risk.

•

one is you can do a technical resilience, which means putting
more diversity, more redundant, thicker walls, more levies into
your system. Even if it comes worse than expected, we still
have some functional means.

•

The second one is organizational and the organizational
means is that we need to have a good, flexible, adaptive
management style. That's very different from the conventionalrisk where you need routines. But we have good routines you
can deal with that. If you have something that you don't know
yet, then you need flexibility. You need to be able to learn fromone second to the other without getting confused. And that is
not easy to do for organization. Definitely not. But it is notnecessary, and we have seen very good examples where thisadaptive management have actually saved millions of lives.

•

And thirdly, it is behavior and that people are getting better
prepared. For example, Prof. Norio Okada, has establishedcommunity universities, disaster universities in small
communities where people learn from each other about how tobe better prepared for something that they have notexperienced yet but that could be a real problem. What wehave experience is not that difficult to learn, but to have notexperienced yet, is extremely difficult. These kinds ofcommunity universities are a way to give people theopportunity to, get themselves in a learning mode for thesekinds of disasters.

Also, a lot of toxic material where we know exactly the effects ofsomething where I think that's conventional.
The good thing is, at least for most of the OECD countries is alittle different than for other countries. These conventions havebeen fairly well managed over the last 20 years. If you could lookat the figures of risk reductions in terms of car accidents, in termsof occupational health and safety, in terms of major technological
explosions, accidents and so on, we see a dramatic decrease inrisk as totally different from what the systemic risk here now. Also
different from the natural risks, that, of course are strongly
affected by human action. In that sense, the conventional risks
that are can be easily contained where we have a governanceagency that can deal with it and doesn't have to deal with otherneighboring agencies. We are pretty successful there. The
governance tools use basically, for post-disaster risk assessment
plus cost benefit analysis, using the measures, plus maybe
whatever we have developed for this. It seems to work. But if you
look at systemic risks that have this cascading effects over very
different domains, these kinds of tools are not sufficient. They're
not bad, but they're not sufficient. That is where I would say thesystemic risk and we need to place much more attention to them.

All three things are very important in terms of the risk of duringsystem, the technical, the organizational, and of behavior.
Q: Perhaps this question is already covered some in one of thosequestions answered earlier already. Questions is starting with theslides on conventional risk aspect. As we learn from you andothers, we have to know in courses and assess the risk and thenthe impact, the consequences, and device the strategy
accordingly. I guess you are implying that for the systemic risk,
there is a conventional risk perspective which is no longer applied.
Hence my question of, can we still meaningfully make attempt toassessing systemic risks? Or should we just skip it and it is justnot meaningful anymore? Instead, start building up thatgovernance capacity. But I guess you have to somehow
benchmark the positive building. What should be target? I guess
you talked about some of those point already in a technical ororganizational behavior.

Q: from the social science perspective if I can come back to thisissue of narratives which you mentioned in the context, just that it
is not only about identifying systemic risk per say, but also about
the opportunity then to look more deeply into the origins of thefears and perhaps visions that are expressed by these kinds ofnarratives, in both conventional media and social media, that give
us some clue as to where we should be thinking about risk before
we are in the midst.
A: That is a very important to point specifically, because trial anderror is not a good learning method. We need very goodnarratives that help us to orient ourselves without feeling whatwent wrong? For example, I cook something and you put yourfingers on the stove and you get burnt, you don't do that again. If
you put CO2 in the air nothing happens. In that sense, yes weneed a narrative that helps people to combine things they do withpotential impacts that are a part of the mental model in which they
feel they have either responsibility or feel that the consequences
are something that they don't want to endure. I mean, that is very,
very clear and science needs to be placed within these kinds ofnarratives. We can talk about models, we could talk about themeasurements, but unless we have a good idea of integratingthem into narratives that give people orientation but also

A: I think that is a very pertinent question. I do not have theanswer to this. What I would like to stress is that conventional risk
management and their tools is not oblivious. We still need them. I
think we need something more too. We have to add something.
When I said we need adaptive management, we still needroutines. When we need something like whatever a system abovethat it says, this routine is now good and we can take it. But thisroutine is not good or we have to combine A routine with B
routine, we have not done that yet. That is a way we can do it.
Continued in the next page…….

11

A few examples of the Q&A session:
I think that we can see COVID-19 is a wonderful example of this.
Where in the beginning it was basically an infection control andnobody cared about what happens with the kids. What happened
to domestic violence? What happened to the economy? Of
course, that we do not care about the infection of whatsoever.
That is the other extreme. I think what we need a kind ofinteracting system where we can say, how can we develop a
flexible approach in which all our routines need to be combined?
Because the routines are still good. But if you apply them, youknow like a mechanical clock, then they do more harm than they
do good.

normally affected.
The second one is transdisciplinary. It means that if you do ahazard management and governance, it is very important toinclude those who will be either suffering or will have some kind ofacting power exists. In a society in which lots of people acting inwhatever way, it is very important to know first, their perceptions,but secondly also their intentions. And if you get them into theplanning process, that is the best way to make sure that things
are running in a good, flexible but also in a very effective manner.
The third thing is that taking into account the kind of major
insights from complexity science which basically says do not lookfor causes, look for analogies. If you look for causes, yes, that isvery good, and as a scientist that is right to do that, but it isalways partial if you look in very complex system. If you look into
analogies, you will find that you see that specific structures seemto reshape or to repeat themselves in very different contexts. And
that is a very powerful learning tool in order to make sure thateven if you do not understand all the calls of connections, you can
see the larger picture and that can be also in going the wrong
direction. And we know that, but it is very often very helpful inwhich we can see that this kind of pattern recognition for more
complex structures by analogy, can have major impacts in termsof a good learning method.

Q: I want to discuss about the strategy and role of the science
community to address the systemic risk. We have been
discussing about very similar target field in sustainability sciences
or climate change. How can we transform our framework toaddress this kind of systemic risk?
A: That is again is a very important question. Again, there are acouple of hints. I do not have a recipe for this, so a couple ofhints.
First is interdisciplinarity. When I can see is that very often andagain, the COVID crisis we had all the virologist sitting together
and doing social engineering, did not work very well because it
was not their expertise. We need to make sure that experts fromdifferent fields come together because different fields are

Hour 3— 0:40 JST 1st September 2021

GADRI Activities
Voluntary Reports of Achievements contributing to thetargets of S&T Roadmap for implementation of the goals andpriorities of the Sendai Framework.by Dr. Subhajyoti
Samaddar, DPRI, Kyoto University, Japanthe risk in exposure and vulnerability. Priority Action 2strengthening disaster risk governance: . Most of them stated that
there is a gap between in the risk and the countermeasures, andthe knowledge. On Priority Area 3 – Investing in Disaster Risk
Reduction and Resilience- the research appeared to befocusing more on capacity building, developing knowledge andinformation dissemination, enhanced knowledge, social andeconomic resiliency and capacity building for the disaster
resilience. On Priority Area 4 – Enhancing disaster preparednessfor effective response and build back better – although a large
number of institutes focussed in this area, there is still a need tobe more proactive in BBB and it should be country specific forexample which is working for Japan may not work for
Bangladesh.

Following the recommendations of the 4th Global Summit of
GADRI held in 2019, the GADRI Secretariat collected voluntary
reports of achievements by members of GADRI. The
questionnaire survey consisted of three questions: to describe
their projects and research; to identify impactful interlinkages andopportunities for strengthening these pathways and engaging
science with action; and to identify the research gaps. The
reported outcomes were based on a very limited number ofsurvey reports. Most of the focus was on the understanding risk;
with a major portion on build back better and disaster recovery
and preparedness.

It was agreed to continue
the exercise to collectachievement reports until
March 2022.

On Priority Area 1 - Understanding of risk: knowledge andunderstanding the risk was most critical for research institutes.
There was emphasis on understanding the risk from theassessment and prediction of the knowledge. Most of them weremoving towards from understanding the hazards to understanding
Results of the Questionnaire Survey by Dr. Genta Nakano,
DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan

commitments to DRR. Section 2: contributions to Sendai
Framework, especially focusing on target E component. Section 3:
contributions to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Section
4: COVID-19 related research and action.

GARDI Secretariat embarked a survey Questionnaire Survey tocollect contributions to Sendai Framework, Climate Change
Adaptation, and Covid-19. The survey results were analysed by
Dr. Genta Nakano, DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan. 34 member
institutes of GADRI responded to the questionnaire survey.

Section 1: on general information of each institute which belongs
to GADRI - looked at the number of professors and students in the
34 institutes that responded. The results from 34 institutes werequite impressive and showed collectively how GADRI institutes
are contributing towards the disaster risk reduction related
research and education.

The questionnaire survey structure had four sections - Section 1:
general information of each institute including financial
12Section 2 - contribution towards Sendai Framework focusing on
target E - 20 institutes out of 31 responded - these institutes are
involved in the national or federal platforms on disaster risk
reduction studies or production
to apply scientific researchoutcomes. According to theresults, most of the GADRI
institutes are contributing to the
topics of education, capacity
building or disaster simulation
modelling.

Section 4 - COVID-19 related research and actions. Seven
institutes responded that they are involved either in national andfederal platforms for response to COVID-19. It included thedevelopment of vaccines, medicines or medical devices fordiagnosis and treatment or development of ICT tools, policy
making, economic risk analysis, epidemiological surveys.
Eventhoughtheresponses were from avery limited number 34
institutes, it showed
that
the
GADRI
members are active inresearch,
educationand contributing to
DRR, climate change,
and COVID-19 related
issues through national/federal platform and the internationalorganizations to make a significant investment for DRR.

On Target E - Sendai
Framework: 15 institutes out of
31 responded that they contribute to the UN related International
Scientific Committees on DRR in collaboration to UN-related
international reports on DRR.
Section 3 - Climate change mitigation and adaptation; this was
responded by 18 institutes and they are involved either in nationaland federal platforms for climate change mitigation and adaptationin order to utilize the scientific research outcomes. Mostly on
disaster risk management and climate change adaptation anddecisions issues.

Considering the low number of responses, it was recommended
by the Chair of the Board of Directors of GADRI to extend thedeadline until end of September 2021.

Disaster and Risk Research: GADRI Book Series, Dr. Sameh
Kantoush, DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan

indicators and students as well. It
was proposed to share research
results in the area of disaster risk
reductions through publications,
reports, data and other research
outputs to improve future ofscientificandtechnologicalguidance with clearly identifiabledirections and roadmaps for research for DRR and disaster
resilience community. So, under the book series, three books
were published: The Proceedings of the 3rd Global Summit of
GADRI held in 2017; Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience; andthe Ecosystem-based Disaster and Climate Resilience: Integrationof Blue-Green Infrastructure.

Dr. Sameh Kantoush, DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan introduced
the Disaster and Risk Research: GADRI Book Series, and shared
the current status of the books in the pipeline for publication under
the series. The idea of the GADRI book series was initiatedduring the Third Global Summit of GADRI. It paved a unique
opportunity to evaluate policies, research activities including mostimportant research and identify research gaps in disaster risk
reduction.
The main purpose of the book series is to disseminate and toenhanceknowledge,
collaborative
opportunities
andcommunications among researchers, practitioners, policymakers,
Book on Ecosystem-based Disaster and Climate Resilience:
Integration of Blue-Green Infrastructure introduced by Prof.
Mahua Mukherjee from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),
Roorkee, India

to the target set by the SDG's, climate agreements, Sendai
Framework and the new urban agenda proposed by Habitat III. 58
experts from 11 countries with multi-disciplinary backgrounds
have shared their experiences to enrich the content of the book.
The book has 23 chapters organized in three parts - policy
analysis, policy framing and recognition of nature- based
solutions. Second part is on the science investigation technology
and planning intervention. And the third part is on case studies.

Prof. Mahua Mukherjee
introduced the book on
Ecosystem-based Disasterand Climate Resilience
recently published under
the Disaster and Risk
Research: GADRI Book
Series by Springer Nature.
This book has responded

Highlight of this book is its importance for policy and planning forblue-green infrastructure, science investigation, research analysis,design and implementation planning, how important they are fornature solution and importance of co-design and co-delivery in theparticipatory mode.

Book on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience introduced
by Dr. Muneta Yokomatsu, DPRI, Kyoto University, Kyoto,Japanbrought together about
60
participants
anddebated on the need tounderstandresilience.
The book focuses on thedisaster risk reduction
from a multidisciplinary
resilience perspective. It
includes discussions of
how diverse topics connected with goals identified by the Sendai
Framework; and address resilience to various natural hazards
including flood, wind, earthquake, volcano, landslide, and Natech.

Dr. Yokomatsu introduced the book on Disaster Risk Reduction
and Resilience which actually was the first book to be published in2020 under the GADRI Book Series.
Dr. Muneta Yokomatsu spent a year at IIASA, Austria to work on
the book with Dr. Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler, Advancing Systems
Analysis Program, IIASA, Austria. This book dates back to the firstsummit in 2017 where a workshop on DRR and resilience washeld and was chaired by Prof. Charles Scawthorn. The workshop
13

Hour 4

— 01:10 JST 1st September 2021

Americas Time Zone Session covering North and South America
Current Situation of Science Collaborations in Hazards DRR
09:10 hrs 31st August 2021 Colorado, USA
The regional session on Americas covering North and SouthAmerica was on Current Situation of Science Collaborations inHazards DRR. The session was opened by Dr. Guirong Grace
Yan, Director, Center for Hazard Mitigation and Community Resilience, Missouri University of Science and Technology.

The Americas session was coordinated by Prof. John van deLindt, Dr. Guirong (Grace) Yan, Dr. Jamie Kruse, Prof. Lori Peek,and Prof. Paul Kovacs and brought in 25 experts in various disciplines from all over the region to do a 10–15-minute presentationand engage in discussion with the audience for 30-80 minutes.

Keynote speech on Multidisciplinary Modeling Progress and theRole of Community Engagement in Resilience Planning was delivered by Prof. John W. van de Lindt, Colorado State University &Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning. USA; andBoard Member, GADRI Board of Directors.

The Americas time zone session was covered within six hours andabout 377 participants from all over the world logged in via zoom
meeting.

The following four topics for panel discussion sessions were selected by the North American Alliance of Hazards and Disaster
Research Institutes (NAAHDRI). The four sessions were divided totwo parallel sessions, i.e. I and III and II and IV.
I Enabling Resilience: Preventing Disasters in Hazard-Prone Areas•

What goal do we want to achieve? The goal is to enable
resilience by preventing natural hazards from becoming
disasters

II Reducing Barriers for Scientists and Engineers to Enhance Resilience
How to achieve
approaches?

•

the

goal

by

developing

innovative

III Innovative Approaches in Disaster Resilience•

Dr. Guirong (Grace) Yan,
Director, Center for Hazard
Mitigation and Community
Resilience,
Missouri
University of Science andTechnology, USA

How to reduce barriers in implementing the developed
approaches?

IV Equitable Resilience: Addressing Social Justice in Disasters•

How to upgrade “resilience” into “equitable resilience” inorder to reduce hazard impacts on marginalized
populations?

Prof. John van de Lindt, Dr. John
W. van de Lindt is the Harold H.
Short Endowed Chair Professor,
Colorado State University &Centerfor
Risk-Based
Community Resilience Planning.
USA; and Member, GADRIBoard of Directors

Prof. Paul Kovacs, Chair,GADRI Board of Directors;
and Executive Director, andAdjunct Research Professor,
Economics,
InstituteforCatastrophic Loss Reduction,
Western University, Canada

Prof. Jamie Brown Kruse,
Director of Center for Natural
Hazards
Research,
Department of Economics,
East Carolina University,
USA

Prof. Lori Peek, Director ofthe
NaturalHazards
Center,InstituteofBehavioral
Science,
University of Colorado,
Boulder, USA

14

Multidisciplinary Modelling Progress and the Role of Community Engagement in Resilience Planning wasdelivered by Prof. John W. van de Lindt, Colorado State University & Center for Risk-Based Community
Resilience Planning. USA; and Board Member, GADRI Board of Directors
Prof. John van de Lindt’s
keynote speech was about
multidisciplinary modelingprogress, in particular,
what the role of community
engagement in resilience,planning and with the roleof that engagement is in
the modelling; and what the role of the modeling is in theengagement, and it can become very hard or impossible toseparate them to execute proper resilience planning.

requires that measurement aspect or measuring community
resilience. There are five areas of community - stability;
population economics, social services, physical services, andgovernance.
With regard to population, typically there's empirically derived
models that provide a basis for household dislocation.
Economics, as mentioned, the CGE modeling is a state-of- theart or state of the science. It is available at the county level.
These models can be validated at least on an annual basis.
Social services covers the healthcare systems hospitals, clinics,
long-term care facilities dialysis centers, any elder care facilities,
anything that part of the health care system and the key is tomodeling and understanding as much of these are the vulnerable
populations, including the school systems. Once it is done, thenit provides the ability to measure and to measure the quantity.

Prof. Van de Lindt highlighted that the Presidential Policy
Directive defined resilience is the ability to prepare for and adapt
to changing conditions and to withstand and recover rapidly from
disruptions. The key take-away words are to “prepare for” – thatis planning to adapt to changing conditions including climatechange and global warming amongst other things and also towithstand. This brings the thoughts of robustness and then to
rapid recovery from disruptions. Events and hazards and evendisasters will occur and it requires planning and hardening of
infrastructure in order to recover rapidly.

Physical services are a little bit easier to model and to measure,and that is because it uses the measurement in the design ofengineered systems. The true inner or cross dependencies,
going across these networks is progressing. But there are gaps
and the standardization of how to do that. Because even withmassive computers, computer speed is limited when there are
hundreds of thousands of nodes and edges and trying to link allof these. Governance, count on things like 10 years of leadershipfor example - how long a mayor or city manager has served or
the City Council rate turnover, local governments and budget todebt ratio, building ratings, bond ratings, etc.

The 2019 consensus study report was issued by US National
Academies of Science Engineering, and Medicine calling for a
new type of research. That was to address the dynamic state ofcommunities and look at the changes in risk and resilience
overtime. But the key was linking information from all sorts ofdisparate databases and looking at community resilience,priorities and link the research, the data with risk informed orresilience informed decision making. The key is for researchers
to work either at the seams or if these overlaps, and of course,
ideally to model resilience, they have to work where all of thisoverlap.

He stated that in order to model community resiliencecomprehensively, hazards are needed, whether they are
individual, multiple or competing hazards, or it is a long-term
resilience assessment such as climate, climate change, thephysical infrastructure that is of interest, and then social andeconomic systems as well as optimization strategies.
Optimization at the most important is to be able to compare two
or more policy options or mitigation options, but not necessarily apure optimization.

How to measure, model and improve community resilience? The
key is to be able to measure it in order to model it and to end inorder to improve it. It requires measuring things that cannot benecessarily seen; to integrate these physics and process-basedmodels, many from the engineering community amongst others,with empirical data driven models and then combine thesecomponents. Referring back to report of 2019, he emphasizedthat is really what has to come together as all the disparate
models and datasets. If it is possible to model something that
represents something close to reality, then it provides the chance
to look at alternative actions and ideas and explore these toimprove community resilience to future events.

Translation of good research to good practice requires
stakeholder engagement, to listen to what is needed bycommunities, enable useful and usable tools and then provide
visualization to explore outcomes effectively. Improving resilienceat the community level requires the ability to compare the policy
options using costs and including direct and indirect losses.
In concluding, he stressed that resilience analysis requires
modeling from before, during, and after a hazard event, such asa flood or hurricane or a tornado, physical and non-physicalsystems both. The practical application of theoretical resilience
concepts to facilitate actionable strategies requires partnerships,
communication, and useful and usable tools. And there arechallenges, but with engagement and partnerships, they aredefinitely solvable. Those challenges are ensuring broad enoughapplicability of tools like the IN-CORE web app, or other tools
available and then modeling common policy options effectively aswell as enabling effective resilience metrics that can bemeasured and are meaningful to communities. What is not
optimal from an engineering and a scientific standpoint is notnecessarily what is optimal for a community. Therefore, that is
the reason for these partnerships to engage, listen, and iterate.

After giving credits to his colleagues at his Center, he referred towork that is included in the 2019 report which is a highlight of thework they have done under NIST funding and which discusses
the stages of resilience in 5 stages. He gave a descriptions of the
5 stages. The key is to remember that resilience, community
resilience in particular, is a process, and not a point in time.
It is important to have the economic modelling and analysis
included. Especially during the last 18 months due to COVID-19
the economic impacts are seen. The idea is that from an event, it
is possible to simulate the event. It allows to look at losses in
production for example, firms, wages, jobs in the local economic
sector, such things that would normally be a gross domestic
product, but just for the community. The whole purpose is toimprove, to know community resilience is improving. That
15

Parallel session I: Enabling Resilience : Preventing Disasters in Hazard-Prone Areas
Parallel Session I on Enabling Resilience: Preventing Disasters in
Hazard-Prone Areas brought in conversations and insights fromresearchers from the field.

Prof. Liesel Ritchie, Associate
Director of the Center for Coastal
Studies, Department of Sociology,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute andState University, USA

The session was chaired by Prof.
Jamie Brown Kruse, Director ofCenter for Natural Hazards Research,
Department of Economics, East
Carolina University, USA; andTowards joint earthquake-tsunami hazard assessment for
urban and evacuation planning: pilot study in the port cityof San Antonio, Chile by Prof. Rodrigo Cienfuegos,
CIGIDEN, Chile

He concluded by highlighting future challenges for Chile, in
specific areas where there is a high probability to experience alarge earthquake and tsunami within the next 50 years. He
stressed the importance to prepare as the first wave could
reach the urban areas in less than 10 minutes. While
preparing for the worst scenario, evacuation planning is really
important. Cascading impacts that could happen in the port
area are also very complex and Prof. Cienfuegos stated theneed to work a lot with the communities for awareness for selfevacuation and to be better prepared.

Prof. Rodrigo Cienfuegos kicked off
the session and introduced preliminary
results of assessments on earthquake,tsunami and other potential hazards
and risks done in the Port City, San
Antonio in Central Chile. Chile ishighly exposed to many natural hazards from different origins
in particular to number of disasters connected with theearthquakes and tsunami, which have been fairly constant interms of frequency not to mention anything of the climatechange related hazards and disaster such as flooding andstorms are also increasing. Prof. Rodrigo Cienfuegos statedthat they have been connecting different dimensions ofresearch from geophysical, climate change, territorial planningeducation, complex systems, risk assessment, and on
economic impact. Chile is reaching 3,000 years since the lastmega-earthquake. They are working with different researchers
from different universities in Chile including with local
governments to connect with the skills and be able to computeand to determine the risk at specific locations and from there
to engage in discussion with the communities.

Hour 4—22:00 JST 1st September 2021

Tsunami Early Warning in Chile: Rebuilding the System
based on Science by Prof. Patricio Catalan, Universidad
Técnica Federico Santa Maria, Chilethoroughly as possible. Through research and eleven years in
between several tsunamis, he stated that there is a large
variability of tsunami intensity metrics among events withdifferent behaviours for single events. The second step is torefine the assessment with state-of-the-art modeling, andcloser to real-time approach to use during the first evacuation.

Prof. Patricio Catalan discussed thework they have been over the last few
years towards better understanding oftsunamis and how to transfer thatscientific knowledge into applied
tools, techniques, and methodologies
that can be used by communities at large. Chile is said to be
one of the most tsunami-prone countries in the world together
with Japan and Indonesia.

In summary, since 2016, an improved system is currently inoperation which is based on the Japanese databaseapproach.
Indesigningthemodular system, it
has allowed them toimproveonthesystem and expand
the capabilities by
incorporating state-of-the-art technology.

Learning from past mistakes, and based on science, theresearchers are working to develop systems that can be very
useful.
Through numerical and accurate modeling done within the
restriction of time , the first step is to address the early warning
system that could be done within 10 minutes or less and touse an approximated approach to prompt evacuation as

16

Parallel session I: Enabling Resilience : Preventing Disasters in Hazard-Prone Areas
Integrated Modeling and Decision Support to Foster Effective
Resilience Policy by Prof. Jamie Brown Kruse, East Carolina
University, USA

not the insurers can write
insurance in the region
and whether or not they
are sustainable over timewith severe losses aspart of it. It forms an innergame theoretical model,
and the outer game iswhere the government
will take into consideration what is happening between homeowners’
insurance, mitigation and trying to identify the policies that works
best. The outputs that are potential for the government is to say
whether to implement property acquisition, and in vulnerable areas
retrofit grants for homeowners. Is it necessary to regulate insurance
in terms of the capacity constraints, the capacity requirements of
how much money must have been on hand? Or can they use theirmoney in a different way? It is expected the insurers and thehomeowners to respond to these policy choices, and then look at
the outcomes for in terms of the government, the homeowners, andthe insurers and the reinsurance industry.

Prof. Jamie Kruse discussed on two major research themes. One of
the research themes is the open-source resilience modeling platform
called IN-CORE, and the other project is of over 15 years ofcollaborative research that has been conducted with Dr. RachelDavidson at the University of Delaware and other colleagues.
The first part was knowledge creation and the second part is theimplementation of the knowledge; and continuing to advance, andimprove knowledge associated with community resilience within
thrusts. As Prof. John van de Lindt described, computationalmodeling, data science, there has to be validated and verified toensure that when these models are created and handed over todecisionmakers, they are fairly confident in the process. The pieces
include infrastructure, hazards, long-term resilience assessment andthen of course the physical systems, economic systems, social
systems. All that come together to determine whether or not acommunity can recover quickly from an event or has placed it in
itself in a position so that the event is not as devastating as it could
have been.

She shared an example of a win-win solution and it is an example
for that particular region in which it is possible to affect a reduction in
the average annual loss, reduce the chance of extraordinary losses
for the government from the government's perspective, and havepreserved a viable insurance industry and constrained insolvency.
At the same time, it has reduced the average annual expenditures
for hazard for hurricane risk and also reduced the chance of a large
loss through implementing retrofit and acquisition programs. She
concluded stating that the importance of insurance is that when one
start looking at recovery, the insurance pay-outs are an extremely
important and usually a very quick source of money after an event.
The implications for an excellent and viable insurance industry alongwith government support of the other services is very important torecovery.

The second phase of Prof. Kruse’s presentation discussed about aslightly different computational modeling framework that has beendeveloped with a different set of researchers with the first study
done 17 years ago. The idea behind is a similar process but central
pieces of the project are what do individuals do voluntarily? What
are the behavioral aspects and what is the importance of insurance
that goes along with other mitigation features?
Prof. Kruse introduced a particular modeling framework, which
captures the interaction between homeowners that voluntarily
mitigate and retrofit and purchase insurance that interact with aprofit driven insurance industry. In other words, it looks at whether orHour 4— 01:10 JST 1st September 2021

Enabling Resilience Through Social Impact Assessment by
Prof. Liesel Ritchie, Virginia Tech, USA

resource communities and focused on their cultural, social andeconomic situations are based on the harvest and use of renewable
natural resources. The pipeline and tanker traffic are a great
concern, or at least it was to the folks in the Gitga’at community ofHartley Bay. The primary question was what are the potential socialand psychological impact of the project on the village of Hartley Bay
and the Gitga’at First Nation at large?

Dr. Liesel Ritchie shared a very
interestingpresentationonEnabling
Resilience
Through
Social Impact Assessment – asmaller scale project she has beenworking with her colleague. Dr.
Ritchie and used two examples ofSocial Impact Assessment (SIA) and her presentation focused onenergy development projects. With regard to her presentation title,
enabling resilience through social impact assessment, Dr. Ritchie
stated that her presentation title essentially takes an inventory basedon empirical evidence to identify the strengths, limitations,
opportunities and threats to a community in the context of theenergy development activities. Doing so, it connects it to resilience.
Both of the groups have been in hazardous prone areas because oftechnological hazards associated with energy development.

The Mikisew Cree First Nation is in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta andNorthern Alberta, the focus was at the cumulative impacts of energy
development, and in particular the potential impacts of the proposed
Teck Frontier Project. The question is very similar to those that thefolks with the Gitga’at had for us. What are the cumulativesociocultural and psychological impacts of oil sands development on
the Mikisew Cree First Nation? Thinking about cumulative social
effects, they are the successive and incremental combined effects
over time and it is considered in the context of cumulative impacts ofdisasters, particularly in disaster prone areas. They found systemic
issues in both communities.

The Gitga’at First Nation is in Hartley Bay, BC, Canada wasthreatened by potential impacts of the Enbridge Northern Gateway
pipeline project (ENGP) that was proposed back in 2010. With First
Nations, one of the theories used was the ecological symbolic theory
that situated the work in terms of the communities being renewable

The influences of the social impact assessment - the ENGP project
was halted as a consequence of combination of broader efforts andseveral other teams that looked at the social and environmental
impacts of the project as well as the global markets at that time andgeneral public outcry.

17

The approval of the Teck Frontier Project was contingent upon
numerous stipulations – first, creating a buffer zone around the
project development area. The industry was required to provide
funds to support cultural revitalization and community wellbeing.
The Mikisew Cree population now have the right to refuse and theright to consent to any additional development activities in theregion. As part of that particular project, the village has a new water
system paid for by industry that is associated with the cumulative
effects of toxic contamination from over the years.

provide contributions to resilience building. To enable resilience,
they were able to offer ways to promote gain spirals in terms of thedifferent forms of capital that they have, ranging from human capital,
to social capital to their natural capital versus loss spirals. In thesesame forms of capital in thecommunities, the model has
been successful in supporting
community efforts by providing
contextual
evidenceandempirical
data
tosupportdecisionmakingandnegotiations.

In conclusion, Dr. Ritchie shared the outcomes of the project - they
were able to help the communities take stock of their capabilities
and capacities; they were able to inform resistance efforts andParallel session III: Reducing Barriers for Scientists and Engineers to Enhance Resilience
This session was chaired by Prof. Rachel Davidson, Universityof Delaware, Disaster Research Center, USA.

Barriers to Increasing Resilience: Ideological Blinders,
Science, and Money by Prof. Walter Gillis Peacock,
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning,
Texas A&M; and Program Director, Humans, Disasters, andthe Built Environment (HDBE), Engineering Directorate,
National Science Foundation

process. While there is much competition in science, science
inherently is a collective process. It depends upon our reviews ofeach other's work, our ability to work with it, and our ability toassess those things. In some areas of science, it is seen thatdata and instrument sharing as being ubiquitous and in otherareas of science, in particular, in the hazards of water disasterareas, that culture is not there completely there.

Prof. Walter Peacock shared his
own perspective and viewpoints asalong-time
hazard/disaster
researcher with 40+ years ofexperience.
His
presentation
discussed about ideological blinders
inhibiting or the ability to adopt to science with respect toresilience and science.

In closing, Prof. Peacock, pointed out that much more science
policy for stakeholders and communities need long-term
systematic data collection on monitoring. It is implemented to acertain extent, for example in environmental areas are beginningto do it effectively in some areas in terms of ecosystem
operational performance. But we also need in terms ofinfrastructure and the built environment, for land use changes,
and for policy implementation and change. Those kinds of data
are necessary if the large, urban centers are the elephant in theroom that are resulting inthese changes, until we
can effectively model thenature of these processes
through these kinds ofdata, we are going to be introubleinterms
addressing this analysis.

His presentation focused on ideologies and ideological blinders
and the general constellation of ideas and values that oftentimes
shape the perspective of the world and money. He alsomentioned that ideology is also viewed with emotional
components as well and it can easy to sway people in terms ofthe nature of those ideologies.
Therefore, some of theideologies are potential barriers.
In the terms of science, many barriers are experienced inscience. One of the notions is general characterization ofscience as an individual group project versus a collective
Bridging the Gap between Research and Operations:
Engaging
Practitioners
in
ResearchtoEnsureOperationalization by Dr. Sean Griffin, CEO, DisasterTechnologies, Inc.

stabilize, protect the environment, build resilient communities
and decision-support technologies for practitioners andresearchers in disaster risk management.
They work with a number of academic institutions and work on
evacuation support models. He shared detailed examples of thepredictions and support provided to various hurricane hit areas,such as Puerto Rico after hurricane Irma and Maria; and otherareas with various hurricanes. He also shared examples of how
they are able to predict and act accordingly by using pasthurricane data and modelling.

Dr. Sean Griffin presented an overview of the company foundedby him, to build a technology specifically to accelerate thedecision support technologies for situation awareness,
operational
coordination,andplanning
before,during, and after
disasters focusing
preparedness,
mitigation,
response,and
Recovery.
The

goal

is

He explained how they work at Disaster Tech: they co-design
with users; bring in academia and industry to inform; looking at
what the practitioners need to understand and what are the main
points; what technologies and tools are needed to be built.
Using data and curation science at the foundation of everything
they do, they enable storytelling with data, surfacing inequality,
teaching risk literacy and preparing for the unknown.

to18

Parallel session III: Reducing Barriers for Scientists and Engineers to Enhance Resilience

Building Coastal Resilience in Virginia ~ Connecting
Research to Need by Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips, USN(Ret), Special Assistant to the Governor for Coastal
Adaptation and Protection at Office of the Governor, State of
Virginia, USA

The take away point in her talk is the need of a wide variety ofinterdisciplinary academic presence in the room when theconversations are happening, so that they can best identify whatis the real problem and what could solutions that research could
help to evolve into and find out what comes over time. Certainly,
a very different perspective, but it is getting ahead of that natural
disaster and trying to prepare themselves in advance. She
shared in detail the masterplan for the Commonwealth of Virginia– Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan 2021. Rear Admiral
Ann C. Phillips concluded stating the need for interdisciplinary
work, the need for interdisciplinary participation at the highest
level and really being present in the room as these discussions
are taking place and evolving that into a process that willwithstand the test of time and political will and more broadly thechallenges to society.

She shared a completely
different perspective as theSpecial Assistant to theGovernor in a coastal Stateon the East Coast who has
not had the big disaster, atleast not recently, and does
not have this big instigating,catalyzing,
coalescing,challenge to catalyze response but is at great risk, extremely
vulnerable with a tremendous amount of coastal infrastructure.
Certainly, they have been hit in the colonial pipeline crisis mostrecently. But looking at how to start to adapt to protect a state,that is facing a lot of challenges, and the need to get moving in
the time of so many other crises and challenges. In the context
of this process, she explained a part of what they are trying to doby creating the first cut at a masterplan for the Commonwealth of
Virginia, coastal state masterplan, to pull together considerable
academic capacity within the Commonwealth, and to work more
directly on the needs and the research, and they are coveringand identifying how best to do it in a way that it is going to add
value.

Performance-Based Engineering Approach to Design forCommunity Resilience by Prof. Gregory Deierlein, John A.
Blume Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Stanford University

Returning to the framework, he stressed as researcher, what
they are trying to do is to build the puzzle pieces because eachpiece is multidisciplinary. Every researcher and different
engineering groups work on a different piece of the puzzle but as
mentioned in his presentation, trying from the front end to start,
to build into the puzzle ways to look at policy interventions, howthat can change the inventory, urban growth and improving parts
along the way. and then when we get to the to the right side of
the framework, it is looking at the damage and starting tosimulate recovery and look at the other implications.

In contrast to the prior presenters
Prof. Gregory Deierlein talked about
the solution and in the solution, hetalked about what is called
performance-basedengineering
approach for community resilience.
To set the context, what is
performance-based engineering, it
is from the standpoint of several
environmental engineers’ respond to designing and managing
the construction of buildings and infrastructure on which they
focused for years to make those facilities safe. The methods,
building codes and other standards tend to be prescriptive
maybe soon as a basis and it also a little unclear on theoutcome. when it is said that a facility or building is going to besafe under an earthquake or survive a hurricane, how safe is it?
Performance-based engineering is a way that look more
explicitly at the performance and allows engineers, natural
hazard engineers to connect with others in the community, social
scientist, economic planners and so forth.

19

Hour 6

— 04:00 JST 1st September 2021

Parallel session II: Innovative Approaches in Disaster Resilience (Description and abstracts-Summit Handbook)
This session aims to examine physical and spatial representationsof Disaster Resilience with various interactions between socioeconomic, technological, and environmental factors. Suchdisciplinary convergence across spatial science, computer science,and engineering science enables us to capture more complexityand facilitate systematic thinking across encountered Disaster
Resilience plans.

Resilience in Recovery - Build Back Better by Prof. Paul
Kovacs, Chair, GADRI Board of Directors; and Founder andExecutive Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss
Reduction at Western University, Canada

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction identified
scope to build back better as a priority for action, but experiencefinds that realizing this objective is challenging.
He shared a success story on a community, High River, Alberta.
The community had a devastating flood in 2013. The picture
shows the flooding and a picture of the community mayor and hiswife The mayor said “theywent through hell in 2013 but
we had a build it back bettermentality”. Now he is talking
about his community being
the most well protected
community in Canada forflood risk. With a positivemindset in recovery thenthere is an opportunities fortransformative improvement.

Prof. Kovacs presentation on resilience in recovery present statedthat there is an opportunity to achieve transformative improvement
in disaster resilience. Experience finds strong political and public
support to build back better when recovering from a major loss.
Introduction of current resilience knowledge when older structures
are replaced by new buildings can significantly improve resilience.
Small increases in cost can greatly enhance resilience.
Pre-disaster planning is critical to realizing resilience in recovery.
There is a sense of urgency when recovery begins. Achievementof resilience objectives in recovery requires early and consistentmessages about the importance of building back better. Predisaster recovery planning serves to minimize the risk of delay inrecovery as improvements are anticipated.

Bending the Curve: Stories of Resilience Success by Prof.
Ian Giammanco, Sr. Director, Product Design and a Lead
Research Meteorologist, IBHS Research Center, Richburg,
South Carolina (Video message as he was away on Hurricane
Ida recovery team)success across coastal Alabama in implementing the InsuranceInstitute for Business & Home Safety’s (IBHS) FORTIFIED
building standards into local residential building codes and its
biggest test from Hurricane Sally (2020). Building codes areoften the most visible way in which our built-environment canadapt to extreme weather but improving the performance of thematerials that our home’s and businesses are constructed of is
another avenue for change. This presentation will also cover theasphalt shingle market changes that have took place for the
better over the past two years since IBHS developed andreleased its first asphalt shingle hail impact test ratings.

He shared stories on resilience success stories one of which
included the story about the hurricane Ivan which made landfall
in 2004 and which lead to one of the biggest unknown
windstorm resilience stories in the United States.
In his abstract he stated that it has become commonplace now
to hear the stories after a natural disaster of destruction,
displacement and the disruption that so often happens.
However, across the United States we have begun to see more
and more success stories ofresilience in action and theability to bend down acommunity’s risk curve.
This presentation will focus
on resilience successes in
the face of hurricanes andsevere convective storms.
First, it will cover the

He shared an example on roots of a resilience success story on
fortified construction on the research project for hailstone
resilience. Their research was on a two-inch laboratory hail
impact which is equivalent to a two-inch natural hail stone in thereal world.
He provided information on how a single
manufacturer’s response and had active and positive changes
in the market place. It provided consumers with different
options to mitigate hail. He stated that it is another way tofoster resilience and ultimately bend down the loss curves thatcome with severe thunder storms.

20

Hour 7

— 05:00 JST 1st September 2021

Parallel session II: Innovative Approaches in Disaster Resilience(Following description are abstracts-Summit Handbook)
Probabilistic Analysis and Metamodeling of Hurricane
Coastal Hazards by Dr. Norberto C. Nadal-Caraballo, U.S.
Army Engineer R&D Center (ERDC)

framework.
The PCHA is a comprehensive statistical and probabilistic
framework for characterization of regional storm climatology, high-fidelity numerical modelling, metamodeling, and joint probability
analysis of atmospheric forcing and primary storm responses,
including associated aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. A
major advancement of the PCHA framework is the capability tosimulate up to millions of hurricanes and their corresponding
coastal responses through the application of Gaussian process
metamodeling (GPM). GPM is a cutting-edge machine-learningtechnology developed to emulate atmospheric and hydrodynamic
numerical models to accurately and efficiently predict storm
surge, waves, rainfall, riverine discharge, and sea level rise for
efficient and robust quantification of coastal hazards.

In the abstract presented by Dr. Nadal-Caraballo stated that thecoastal hazards such as storm surge, waves, currents, wind, andrainfall associated with hurricanes and other extreme storms candisrupt national economies, devastate coastal communities, andthreaten the lives of millions of people. These risks havehighlighted the need for accurate methods to quantify coastal
storm hazards to support stochastic engineering design, coastal
risk assessment, mitigation of coastal damages, and facilitation
climate change adaptation and resilience. The Coastal Hazards
System (CHS) is a national-scale effort for quantifying coastal
hazards along all United States coastlines. The foundation of the
CHS is its Probabilistic Coastal Hazard Analysis (PCHA)

Measuring, Mapping, and Communicating Flood Risk in TX
by Prof. Samuel D. Brody, Regents Professor and holder of
the George P. Mitchell ’40 Chair in Sustainable Coasts,
Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science,
Texas A&M University, Galveston Campus

multiple local communities across Texas. This project will produce
maps and other visuals that paint a more complete picture offlood risk by integrating multiple data sources and models. These
data include advanced hydraulic models, insurance- and aidbased flood pay-outs, crowd sourced data, socioeconomic
characteristics, and survey responses. Maps will also be sharedwith local stakeholders to obtain feedback on how to refine our
products and make them most effective in helping localities
prepare, mitigate, and recover from flood events. The implicationsof this study in the context of the new Institute for a Disaster
Resilient Texas will also be discussed.

The adverse impacts of repetitive flood disasters in Texas has
sparked renewed interest in how to use scientifically derived data
and associated analyses to inform more resilient decisions. This
presentation will set forth a framework for converting scientificknowledge to policy actions to promote flood resiliency. Special
attention will be paid to a four-year project that is developing
novel ways to identify and communicate flood risk and impact inDesign against Tornadoes to Enhance Tornado Resilience by
Dr. Grace Yan, Director, Center for Hazard Mitigation andCommunity Resilience, Missouri University of Science andTechnology

requires in-depth understanding of tornadic wind effects. To findtornadic wind effects, what type of tornadoes should we look at?
Tornadoes have different flow structures, single-celled singlevortex, double-celled single-vortex and multiple vortices; Even fora single tornado incident, the flow structure varies with time andlocation. Based on which type of tornado should the wind effects
be used to modify the coefficients in the pressure calculation
equation in ASCE7-16? Which type of tornadoes induce more
unfavourable wind loading? Dr. Yan shared their research findings
to answer these questions.

In the abstract, Dr. Yan stated tornedoes
have induced
substantial structural damage, injuries and deaths in the USA.
They occur in Mainland America, mainly “Tornado Alley” andSoutheast of the USA, and contribute $10B annually to thenation’s loss portfolio. The devastation from recent tornadoes left
no doubt as to the vulnerability of the central and south-eastern
USA to tornadoes, and prompted an urgent need in developing
and enforcing a tornado-resistant design for normal buildings. This

21

Hour 8

— 06:00 JST 1st September 2021

Parallel session II: Innovative Approaches in Disaster Resilience(Following descriptions are abstracts from the Summit Handbook)

Recent Studies on the Resilience of Structural Systems
Affected by Stationary and Nonstationary Wind Hazards by
Prof. Luca Caracoglia, Associate Professor, Department ofCivil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University,
Boston, Massachusetts

and tornadoes). The talk will examine several methodologies forpredicting structural response and damage, by accounting formodelling uncertainty and load estimation “errors”, e.g. in a windtunnel test. The investigated methods are both analytical,
exploiting stochastic calculus, and numerical Monte-Carlosampling. The ultimate research goal is the systematic assessmentof wind-related damage over time in the context of risk analysis
and structural resilience.

The presentation discussed recent study activities examining the
response of tall buildings and tower structures against windhazards. These structures are sensitive to fluid-structureinteraction and susceptible to damage induced by wind loads. The
common feature of the research is the quantification of uncertain
wind loads, associated with both stationary synoptic winds (e.g.,hurricanes) and localized, nonstationary events (e.g., downbursts

Adaption of Emerging Technologies for Infrastructure
Resilience by Prof. Kenichi Soga, Donald H. McLaughlin
Professor and Chancellor’s Professor, University of California,
Berkeleyprocesses. The quantification of system resilience is a challenge
for both stakeholders and service providers in the civil engineering
industry. However, describing the contributions in a way that brings
the provider and consumer together is critical to the widespread
adoption of emerging technologies developed for improving
infrastructure resilience. This talk discusses a methodology thatsystematically explores how emerging technologies can contributeto systems resilience.

Technologies are currently being developed for enhancing theresilience of the built environment, and particularly for establishingresilient features across different types of infrastructure. For
example, recent advances in sensor systems offer intriguing
possibilities to radically alter the methods of infrastructure conditionassessment. Rich data obtained from such systems can act as acatalyst for new design, construction, operation and maintenance

Emerging Technologies for Infrastructure Resilience:
Realizing the Opportunity by Prof. Mahmoud Reda Taha,
Distinguished Professor & Chair – Department of Civil
Construction and Environmental Engineering, UNM Resilience
Institute, The University of New Mexicoand there is an obvious need for implementing methods to improve
infrastructure
resilience.
Furthermore,
resiliencestudiesdemonstrate the need to deploy innovative materials, utilize smart
methods in construction technology, and deploy sensor networks tomonitor infrastructure systems. Emerging technologies are thus
expected to contribute to improving infrastructure resiliencecapacities, namely absorptive, adaptive, and restorative capacities.
He provided an in-depth conspectus on the opportunity emerging
technologies offer to remarkably improve infrastructure resilienceand discussed how to envision different technologies cancontribute to the well-known characteristic elements (known as
4Rs) of infrastructure resilience: redundancy, robustness, rapidity,
and resourcefulness. He also discuss current research efforts toenable systematic assessment of emerging technologies to pave
the way for incorporating those technologies in future
infrastructure.

Emerging technologies have become a part of our daily life and,thus, part of the engineering community work that impacts future
infrastructure. A plethora of disruptive emerging technologies havebeen invented in the last two decades, and some inventions aremaking their way into the field. A few examples that civil engineers
increasingly observe in their everyday jobs are smart and selfhealing materials, sensing technologies, unmanned aerial systems,
3D printing, big data analytical methods, artificial intelligence, andmachine learning. At the same time, infrastructure resilience has
become a common theme in government and industry discussions

22

Parallel session IV: Equitable Resilience: Addressing Social Justice in Disasters

Chair of the Session: Prof. Kim Klockow
McClain, Research Scientist and theSocietal
Applications
Coordinator,
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale
Meteorological Studies (CIMMS), USA

Resilience is a Team Sport by Dr. Jaleesa Tate, State
Hazard Mitigation Officer (SHMO) and Branch Manager,
Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA)

comes to climate related issues as other climate related issues
take precedent over equity. Climate change issues need
immediate solutions and equity sometimes takes a back seat.

Dr. Jaleesa Tate focused her
presentation on the current
work that is carried out onequity and resilience in thestate of Maryland and thefederal programs that theyadminister. She stated that
resilience is actually a teamsport. It is not in the hands ofsustainability professionals, or climate adaptation professionals
to drive home the importance of resilience and ensure thatpeople are implementing and carrying out the initiatives to help
the communities. It is up to the individuals, the citizens as wellas government, private corporations and everybody else. All
are affected by risks to climate change impacts and everyone
should equally assume responsibility as everybody plays a partin the process. In terms of equity and the relationship toresilience especially, equity is not prioritised in the work. Butthat is not always the case. Over the past several months, it isreally pushed in as a priority at the federal levels in the US.
There is a multitude of reasons why equity isn’t prioritised.
Equity is a complex issue, and in lot of instances, for the actual
decisionmakers, equity is an afterthought. It is not thought
about in that decision making process especially when it

On hazard mitigation planning and risk assessment, she statedthat one way to make sure that it is equitable, is to ensure thatthe plans are no put up on a shelf but it is a continuing effort
and making sure that it not making it appear as a one-size-fitsall. For certain communities continually living or experiencing
disasters such as continuous flood disasters, these disasters
have become a way of life for the community members, andthey do not perceive the need to address the issue as they
have come to terms to live with the situation. These are type ofdata that researchers need to be looking for so that they could
identify ways to eliminate such risks for the community
members.

in some cases help improve that recovery as well as thinking
about the services on the resources before and after the way
damage and disruption might have laid out for particularorganization. Other aspects of non-physical impacts that wereexperienced and then what are the process support recovery
and processed and they may be able to see ways to interveneor provide some policy solution.

The Role of Social Inequality in Measuring and Modeling
Community Resilience by Prof. Maria Dillard, Associate
Lead Technical Investigator, National Construction Safety
Team (NCST)
Prof.
Maria
Dillardpresented on the current
work where they aredeveloping new ways ofmeasuring and modelling
different
andcomplexconcepts
includingresilience and community
resilience. Her presentation
covered various aspects of her work. On Measuring unequal
recovery, she presented an example after hurricane Maria
where they worked on a project focused on recovery efforts
provided to some schools and hospitals and trying tounderstand the underlying characteristics and conditions
associated with recovery and different pieces of recovery. They
wanted to understand which communities are experiencing
slower recovery trajectories overall and what were theconditions; the locations, and what are the things that that could

23

Parallel session IV: Equitable Resilience: Addressing Social Justice in Disasters
Doomed before the disruption? The inequitable
amplification of complex event impacts on historicallyunderrepresented group operated small businesses by Dr.
Jennifer F. Helgeson, Applied Economics Office of theEngineering
Laboratory(EL),
National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST)

businesses are affected and there is
the widespread unprecedented
closures of stores and businesses.
Many of the private businessownerships
arefacingnonemployment and especially womenfacing revenue loss as a result of
unemployment. Low-wage workers are more likely to lose theirjobs due to many of the closures and these business closures
probably are permanent. As far as business goes, there is justlimited access to capitalize, access to skill development, andaccess to formal business networks. With the data gathered forhazards and covid, it is much clearer that much work is needed
to ensure that better preparation is needed to move forward to
help the owners of small businesses.

Dr. Jennifer Helgeson focused on one
project that they have been working
on small businesses, demographic
hazards, the pandemic and thennatural hazard.
She discussed the effects of covid and the effects of chronicsocio-economic stresses it caused. Many medium to small
Designing a Thoughtful Social Science Presence in a
Weather Laboratory: Raising Local Voices by Prof. Kim
Klockow McClain, Research Scientist and the Societal
Applications Coordinator, Cooperative Institute for
Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS)

issues of experience and thingsin the risk communication cyclethat need to think about andunderstandthepopulation
dynamics. That day more people
ended up dying in the floodingthat resulted from the rainfall thanfrom the tornado itself, and mostof those people were Spanish speaking. They are trying to thinkand design with users in population needs in mind, and collectdata after tornados. She stated that they almost never actually
get any insight into how people received information, what they
were thinking, and how they behaved. For example, did they
respond or did not respond, what did they have access to interms of the depth of capacities? With the study, they intend to
tailor risk communication strategies and practices to thosemeans.

Prof. Kim Klockow presented on the perspective of the weather
forecast community and researchers that are developing
forecast technology, finding space for doing interdisciplinary
work and working across different groups. She started on thecall for an integration of inclusion of social scientists and people
recognition of population needs in weather related events
especially on post-tornado event studies. She concluded with an
example of a mass evacuation ahead of the two-mile tornado
heading into Oklahoma City done in 2013 where when thinking
about region, also within a specific place, there are a variety ofdifferent kinds of populations living there with different
communication needs and in risks and exposures. There are
Public housing recovery and participation as indicators ofsocial justice in disasters by Dr. Sara Hamideh, AssistantProfessor, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences,
Sustainability Division, Stony Brook University

fundamentally, as a result of the mechanisms in the policies andinstitutions that both create and amplify worse outcomes forresidents of public housing which issues are called mechanismsof vulnerability. There are also inadequate options for public
housing and for rehousing. The efforts
after a disaster, there
wasnonational,
predefined, long-term
policieson
what
needed to be done forre-housing
displacedpublichousing
residents.

Dr. Sara Hamideh focused on public
housing in terms of both as public
housing size and structures and as
people. Sharing two examples, she
encouraged the audience though
about outcomes especially on
inequitable outcomes for public
housing not necessarily as a result of
the individuals of the residents of the public housing, but more
Urban flood vulnerability according to migrant status:
Lessons from Beira, Mozambique by Dr. Kelly Anderson,
Researcher, University of Maryland

noted that quality defining suggests, that migrants tends to behome owners, migrants tends to be renters, they tend to think
about income, home ownerships, and use of public
transportation, but evidence of potential conflicts was not visible.
Thinking about either supporting equity and narrowing in on
migrants specifically as policy beneficiaries, practitioners andacademics walk kind of a fine line. On the one hand throughthese findings suggest a problem with
migrants and it is not supported by
the data. For future research, sheplans to examine differences between
recent and long-term migrations andthe definition of migrant.

Dr. Kelly Anderson’s presentation wason a chapter of her recent dissertation
exploring implications of rural to urban
migration as an adaptation to changing
environmental conditions based on acomparative case study on field work
conducted in 2017 in Mozambique. She shared examples of her
research work and discussed how migrants experiencevulnerabilities based on environment, economic conditions andother challenges to live. In her research on quality findings, she24Hour 9— 07:00 JST 1st September 2021
Plenary Session II:

How to Engage Science in the Decision-Making Process within National Governance and Relate Science into Action?

The second Plenary Session on How to Engage Science in•

Non-regret climate change adaptation with a paradigmshift of the water-related disasters delivered by Prof. Eiichi
Nakakita, Director, Disaster Prevention Research Institute(DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan; and•Finally a video message by Ms.
Emilia Saiz Carrancedo, SecretaryGeneral, United Cities and Local
Governments (UCLG), Spain

the Decision-Making Process within National Governanceand Relate Science into Action? – was covered by four
keynote speakers.
••

Mobilizing science for disaster risk reduction anddevelopment safety - a decade quest of IRDR deliveredby Prof. Qunli Han, Executive Director, International
Programme Office of Integrated Research on Disaster
Risk (IRDR-IPO), China

This session was chaired by Prof.
Charles
Scawthorn,
Visiting
Researcher, Univ. California at Berkeley
and Principal of SPA Risk LLC.

Disaster Risk Reduction in Small Nations delivered by Dr.
Selwyn Mahon, American University of the Caribbean
School of Medicine, Sint Maartens

Prof. Qunli Han, Executive Director, Integrated Research on
Disaster Risk (IRDR), China (Abstract of the presentation)risk as well as their respective underlying drivers, but also on newmodels, scientific definitions and assessments, data standards
and tools, and DRR policy recommendations for development.
Clearly, these would not be possible without continued effort of
IRDR in institutional capacity building. Further to its ScientificCommittee, IRDR has 13 IRDR National Committees, 17International Centres of Excellence and a Young Scientists
Programme that is participated by over 160 young professionals
from some 40 countries. This setting has enabled the connectionof IRDR with different risk governance levels. It is anticipated that
IRDR will continue under the overall new global DRR researchframework of ISC, UNDRR and IRDR, with a notion that, if
development is meant to be sustainable, it must be safe at thesame time.

Prof. Qunli Han gave a detailed description of
the Institute of the Integrated Research on
Disaster Risk (IRDR) which was establishedin 2010. Ins his abstract of the presented, he
noted that IRDR has been actively engaged
with researchers from a broad range ofdomains and disciplines to address thecomplex challenges of disaster risk. IRDR Compilation 20102020, published in June 2021, demonstrates through 89 concrete
cases, that the program has advanced toward most of its initialresearch objectives and cross-cutting themes set by the Science
Plan of ICSU of 2008. Advancement is especially on theunderstanding the characteristics of hazards, vulnerability and

Dr. Selwyn E. Mahon, Medical Director of the Caribbean
Center for Disaster Medicine based in St Maarten at the AUC
School of Medicine, St. Maarten (Abstract of the presentation)

Many small countries depend on international support during
disasters. Sadly, most of this international funding goes towarddisaster response and recovery work with very little going towards
prevention and risk reduction. Disaster risk reduction isdependent on information. It should be data-driven. Small
countries often need help with developing data infrastructures,historical and analytical capacities. Local research is necessary
but less than 1% of the citations in PubMed addressed disasters
in developing countries yet 85% of disasters and 95% of disasterrelated deaths occur in the developing world. The majority ofdisaster-related research articles are generated and funded bywealthy countries. Increased collaboration and support to small
nations are needed by these wealthy countries that also assist
with disasters to increase local research and improve data
infrastructure capacity building.

Small nations are uniquely susceptible to disasters.
While all countries are exposed to a variety ofhazards, small nations’ limited resources,
increased frequency of disasters, and geographic
isolation makes them more vulnerable andincreases the potential of hazards to become
disasters. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is important to all nations
but specifically necessary in small nations. Disaster Risk
Reduction (DRR) is everything we do to reduce the damage
caused by hazards through an ethic of prevention. Massive
sudden-impact disasters can destroy communities instantly, whileslow-onset disasters such as droughts and pandemics can erode
them socio-economically month-by-month, year-by-year. Without
disaster risk reduction many small nations will experience steadydecline and recurrent impediments to growth.

25

Hour 10

— 08:00 JST 1st September 2021

Prof. Eiichi Nakakita, Director, Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan (Abstract of thepresentation)risk. There are uncertainties in predictions of climate change andits impacts. However, for ‘no-regret adaptation”, we should apply
the precautionary principle, and the lack of scientific evidence orinformation should not be reasons for inaction. Action without delay
is imperative. While bottom-up approaches based on local realities
are essential, at national level, it is also necessary to enhancecooperation among relevant government agencies and promotecollaboration with both academic and DRR communities.

In recent years, climate related disasters havebecome more severe. Immediate implementation ofadaptation measures is warranted. While scientificresearch is underway for the better assessment ofclimate change and its impact, which could be used
for formulation of adaptation measures, we must
pay attention to the change in and speed of climate
Dr. Emilia Saiz Carrancedo, Secretary-General, United Cities
and Local Governments (UCLG), Spain
In her message, Dr. Emilia Saiz
Carrancedo elaborated how theUnited Cities of Local Government(UCLG), a worldwide organization of
cities,towns,
local,
regional
governments and their associations,has integrated disaster hazard risk
reduction in their agenda for decades and recognised it as a very
critical issue for local governments around the world which suffersfrom hazards every day of the year, and the importance to get thecommunities ready to face whatever is there to come.
With increasing hazards, man-made or not, there is a need toenhance the relationship between research institutions, theacademia, and policy-making institutions.
As the largest network of local and regional governments, Dr.
Carrancedo stated that the world, cities, towns, territories, they arenever going to be the same after the current corona virus
pandermic. There will be a need to change the way in dealing withother emergencies as well as the climate emergency.
At UCLG, this means, dealing with things in a different manner andactually adapting local service provisions, getting ready for new
type of services, defining a new way to interact with communities,
and defining a new means to face the emergencies. That issomething that all can do as a spheres of government, with thewhole of government and the whole of society.
She stressed that the academia and the research institutions
should play a very important role in this regard. They should help
the societies define the type of actions that they need to undertake;they should also help the societies to know what is working andwhat is not. They should also talk with the societies about the
choices to be made in the local city development; and try toanalyse what is most efficient, what is most universal, and what isgoing to help to cover the needs of everyone, leaving no one andno place behind.
New technologies, new measures cannot enhance the differencesthat already exist and aggravate the consequences of disasters inthe societies. This remains a major challenge but UCLG with amembership 250,000 members, has made it very clear around the
local and regional governments, that they want to make sure thatwhatever measures they take, they are measures that are not only
efficient but they are relevant for all and everybody as well as forthe future generations. A change in the perspective and a
relationship with nature play a very big role in the topic that brings

Hour 11al of us together today.
It is also necessary to reinforce collaboration with research
institutions and to enhance dialogue among communities and all
stakeholders. She stated that these are the actions the society
need in a world that is facing the unknown, in a more rapid mannerthan ever before. It is time to assess very strong basis, the biases
and principles, and make sure that we do not cross the red lines indeveloping a mechanism for resilience and for disaster risk
reduction. Unfortunately, over the summer, once again, it wasapparent how vulnerable each one of us are no matter where weare in the world, and how our system of production andconsumption are really harming the environment and the planet welive in. The time is now and there is no more time to waste. Neither
there is a plan B and no way to ensure humanities response andtaking responsibility for what we have done. But we can put ourscience, our knowledge, our capacity, in transformation of ouractions. To do this, the local and regional governments are very
critical. She stated that they think that the global agendas thathave been defined together, are very useful tools in the multilateralcontext and stressed the importance and value of the localisation of
the Sendai Framework Agenda for 2030.
She requested from the science community to work together withthem, to make people, the international community, the decisionmaking agendas at all levels, realise, that local service provisions
will be a very critical part of the localisation of the global agendas;
and also, the sustainability of measures that put in place forreliability, and of the way that communities are going to embracesome of the difficult choices that are put in place.
It is a very important to trigger for new solutions, and to inspire for
new partnership, to help build a humanity that is based onsolidarity, be on a new relationship with the planet, and be an
accountable government no matter where in the world, based onjustice and equality.
She continued to state that at UCLG, they believe that they havethe answers for many of the challenges that they are facing andthat they will face in the future. And, that is the quality, proximity
and localization. They are developing a pact for the future forpeople, planet and government. She reiterated that they count on
the help from the science community, academia and the research
institutions, particularly around disaster risk reduction, that they will
help and be partners for them in this critical situation. She said thatthey can always count on the United Cities and the Local
Governments to carry forward their messages in local and regional
governments around the world.

— 08:30 –9:30 hrs 1st Sept 2021 JST— Break26

Hour 12

— 09:30 JST 1st September 2021
Asia and Oceania Time Zone Session
Engaging Sciences with Action : Voices from Asia and Oceania

The session on Asia and Oceania, brought in diverse voices andperspectives of engaging sciences with action for effective DRR
in the region.

I
Regional Alliances: Improving collaboration to support global
stakeholders on DRR and DRM

This session started with four keynote speeches of the pioneers,
stalwarts, and personalities of the region involved in engaging
sciences with action. They shared their respective nations’ efforts
to contribute to DRR and the implementation of the goals andpriorities of the Sendai Framework and highlight key issues,mechanisms, processes, and future directions for engaging
science with action in the most disaster-prone region.

•

•

•

Science for Resilience, Haruo Hayashi, National ResearchInstitute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience
An introduction of the first national comprehensive disasterrisk survey project of China, Yang Saini, Beijing Normal
University
Using science to support decision-makers to reduce risk fromnatural hazards events: some examples from Aotearoa New
Zealand, Gill Jolly, GNS Science

The session was chaired by Prof. Toshio Koike, Executive
Director, International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk
Management (ICHARM) under the auspices of UNESCO, Japan;
and Member of the GADRI Board of Directors.

What should we do to encourage youth to engage ineducation?

•

Progresses and challenges of DRR policies•

Potentials of Scientific knowledge for DRR policies

III

Contributions to Climate Change Adaptation•

To create a roadmap for Universities and Research Centresin support of the climate change research agenda•

To list measurable contributions of the Asia and Oceania
Region towards the COP26.

IV

Implementation of Sciences in Action•

Implementation Science in DRR

The session was closed with a final wrap-up session chaired Prof.
Maki by each group chair with the session achievements andrecommendations.
The Asia and Oceania time zone session was covered within six
hours and was attended by nearly 140 participants from aroundthe world.

The four-panel sessions on the following topics were held inparallel in two parts.

Prof. Yang Saini, Beijing Normal
University, China•

The panel discussion session brought in 32 experts in various
fields of specialisation to present their arguments and to engage
in discussion with the audience.

Engaging Science with actions: A case for EEW in India, M. L.
Sharma, SAADRI Programme Adviser

Chair of the Plenary Session: Prof. Toshio
Koike, Executive Director, International
Centre for Water Hazard and Risk
Management (ICHARM) under the auspicesof UNESCO, Japan; and Member, GADRIBoard of Directors

Introducing current and existing alliances; and Introducing
Viewpoints: Suggestions for Improvement –II
Target E - Disaster Risk Governance and Contribution for
Policy Making

The session was opened by four keynote speeches.
••

Dr. Gill Jolly, Natural Hazards andRisk Theme Leader, GNS Science ,New ZealandProf. M. L. Sharma, Departmentof Earthquake Engineering, IIT
Roorkee, India
27

Prof. Haruo Hayashi, National
Research Institute for Earth
Science and Disaster Resilience(NIED), Japan

Chair Asia & Oceania Wrap-up
Session: Prof. Norio Maki,
Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitutes (DPRI), Kyoto
University, Japan

Science for Resilience, Integrated Research for Disaster Risk (IRDR), Japan National Committee by Prof. Haruo Hayashi, National
Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED), Tsukuba, Japan
Prof. Haruo Hayashi’s presentation on the Science for Resilience
discussed a recent initiative by the Japan National Committee
which is “Establishing IRDR as an International Center of
Excellence – Coherence among DRR, CCA and SD by Online
Synthesis System (OSS)-Sustainability and Resilience (SR) and
Facilitators”.

site and work with stakeholders to understand the problem. At
the same time, provide a new or global perspective for solving
the problems they have. This experience will be at the online
synthesis system or as feedback to the OSS as a very valuable
tool for problem solving on site. By having this kind of reciprocal
work or activities between OSS and facilitators, the online
synthesis system will continue to grow by itself, and at the sametime facilitators will be improving their ongoing capacities.

It is the basic structure of the Integrated Research on Disaster
Risk (IRDR), a research scientific program sponsored by the ISC- International Science Council and UNDRR started in 2008 andwill end 2021. The governance structure included 13 national
committees and one regional committee. IRDR-Japan is one of
the first national committees of its 13 national committee body.
IRDR-Japan started activities since 2012 right after the Tohoku
earthquake and continued its activities to support the Sendai
Framework to implement its goals and targets.

In 2021, they started to implement the idea of the online
synthesis system and the mobilization facilitator in a stablemanner The proposed idea is to have an International Center of
Excellence (I-CoE) under the IRDR program. So far they havecollected 17 starting Taipei. In June 2021, they summarized firstphase of the 10-years of IRDR at the International Conference,and proposed new research agenda for 2030 and beyond. In the
new proposed framework, Japan was proposed as an I-CoE andto be coherent among disaster risk reduction, climate change
adaptation and sustainable development by OSS – SR sustainability and resilience - and facilitators.

One of its major outcomes was the Global Resilience Forum in2017 with output of “The Tokyo Statement 2017” proposing anational consensus for periodic synthesis reports on the state of

He concluded his presentation with the introduction of the Japan
I-COE, operated by the Japan Hub Disaster Resilience Partners– J-Hub - which is an organization consisting of 15 institutions
engaged in DRR, climate change adaptation and sustainable
development, and articulate these themes to deliver a safety andsecurity to society.
The J-I-CoE, focuses on two programs. Firsts program is dealing
with existential risk for Japan in the first half of this century.
Around 2035, it is expected that a devastating disaster, theNankai Trough Earthquake and tsunami which may be
accompanied by Tokyo metropolitan earthquake, will engulf
Japan. Preceding those big events, there will probably be aseries of inland earthquakes in Western part of Japan. All ofthese damaging aspects will create a need for a very severe long-term recovery.
The second program looks at the severe effects of extreme
weather due to climate change. Japan is now in a population
decline phase with a very aging society; as well as a very low
independence for energy and food. It has become a necessity to
be resilient to survive or going through this kind of big events. At
the same time, it is not just going through the severe disasters,
but also to maintain a sustainable development. Therefore, these
programs prompt the science and technology to be mobilized in
an integrated fashion to find solutions to the two big andimminent real problems.

science and technology for disaster risk reduction.
Based on the proposal, they were accepted by IRDR andincluded as a research group programme as the Sendai
Framework National Synthesis Reporting (Japan NC).
The implementation of the Tokyo Statement 2017, continued
discussions to include a system and ways to be implement
national synthesis reports effectively.
In 2019, a report was submitted to the Science Council of Japan
reporting on the work carried out under the Tokyo Statement
2017. The report, “Building a Sustainable Global Society byStrengthening Disaster Resilience: Developing an “Online
Synthesis System (OSS)” and fostering “Facilitators” to realize
consilience”, discussed that in order to be sustainable, it isfundamental to strengthen DRR in the basic premise. To promotethat idea, it was decided to promote the online synthesis system,
which is a web-based knowledge integration system. Applyingthat the knowledge obtained through online synthesis system tothe field by mobilizing a “facilitator” and translate those global
knowledge to local solutions. This recommendation has been
published both in Japanese and English and is available atReliefWeb.
Through the function of the online synthesis system,
stakeholders are able to share various kinds of information
relevant to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation,and sustainable developments. Once they are integrated and fed
into the online synthesis system, the facilitator will come to the28A few examples from the Q&A session:

Q: The framework itself looks very interesting and also systemitself is now already available. Prof. Hayashi, is it possible for you
to share your visions or directions for the country's other thanJapan? Maybe within Japan, we may utilize, but outside ofJapan? I know some of the examples already existing, but inwhat way we can expand this framework into the other countries?
in what way they can access to utilize this framework in their own
countries? Can you explain for that?

A: First of all we have some example existing examples this idea
has been utilized right now. The first example is in Philippines
directed by Prof. Koike, the Chair of this entire session. He has
been using the OSS in the form of DIAS which has beendeveloped for over a decade at the University of Tokyo, under his
direction. This helped very effectively. And another example wehave right now is in Myanmar. Right now the political situation isvery difficult. But as an accomplishment, they had a very
successful case by mobilizing duo facilitators, one local
facilitators and one international facilitators. The two facilitators
really worked closely and well. they designed the problems.
From local facilitators the problem have been described quite welland from international facilitators available technology andknowledge have been transplanted to this local issues. These
two core persons, lead the entire project. Although these are very
early achievements, and we hope these small successes willcontinue grow bigger and bigger. We are also planning topromote this idea in Taipei and do hope the US will pick up thistoo.

Q: (Prof. Wei-Sen Li) – As Prof. Hayashi mentioned my name,first of all I showed my strong support to online synthesis and to
facilitate it. I think that is a great idea. My comment is, I think,
online synthesis will be a good platform to engage both the public
and private sector. There has been there long-lasting issues indisaster risk management. Prof. Hayashi, what's your vision toenroll public/private sector together in the online synthesis andwhat kind of facility that they should be qualified to help tofacilitate knowledge between the public and private sector?

A: The good relationship with private sector will not come up fromnothing. You need to have a lead time to develop a collaborative
relationship between science technology sector and then private,
and apply it with the practitioner side. We have been, at IRDR,
trying to promote such kind of a private/public relationship muchstronger for the sake of business continuity management of theprivate sectors. We pick up the local problems they need to have
solutions and then we use that as a target of research. Thenprovide the feedback to them. And it was like a framework of codesign and co- production and keep on doing this kind of work
will be the very important step for the OSS and facilitated to be
used by them. That that's my basic understanding.

Q: I have a question on the kind of utilization of big data sets inyour work. Recently someone from General Motors wrote me and29

said General Motors has big datasets of almost all the new carsthat is selling around the world. These cars obviously have some
sensors or transmitters in them that allow them to figure out
where the car is and where it has moved it. It seems to me that if
these big datasets exist in the private sector and they're trying tofind applications for them. They also exist in in the in the UnitedStates in privately owned utilities of all their connections of theircustomers and houses. How can this resource be then integrated
into the work that you're thinking about? Because it just seems
like I think for me I mean, in California now with all the fires thatevery house built in California or every house should have asensor in it relating to some sort of fire heat sensor. But wehaven't reached that area yet, but it's something where the public
and private sector can come together. I mean, certainly LIDAR
lights are now getting cheap enough that almost any municipality
could buy them. For example, uh, yes.

A: This is kind of my thinking. A public sector institution can
provide the basic data and information products. We could put
them together or integrate in a relatively easy way. I'm just talking
about relatively, in comparison with the integrating data among
private and public sectors. We're having a very big problem. Even
integrating public site data. We've been spending almost 30
years doing so. But it is relatively easier than integrating thosewith private sectors. The key to integrate private/ public sector
together will be that integration could be beneficial for the private
sectors. For example, General Motors, do have a very big data.
And they spend lots of money for their own purposes and thatthey have the rights to be secretive or classified among them. So
that it is impossible for us to get those barriers down and ask
them to share with us. What we can do is, we can provide thepublic data and then combine those with their private data, big
dataset and create some new added values. They may enjoy a
joining public data and private data together. This is the first step.

Now if they have added value by combining that public sector
information with their own private datasets, they may have to pay
some cost to get the benefits. Those costs will be accumulated
from various individual private companies. We will pool thosemoney as a way to sustain this public/private mechanism eventhough this looks like a one-way approach. As a second step, we
hope those private sectors, they have the information they could
share with the other private companies or public sectors. Most of
those will be disseminated through their own website so that we
could ask them to share those website, or publicly shareable
information to provide to this public/private association sector ormechanism. This is the second step. And then we could havesome kind of private sector information to be shared by a muchwider audience, which is the public and private partnership typething. We hope this kind of reciprocal or mutual benefit
mechanism will keep on going to expand the area of sharing.
That's kind of an idea that I'm right now working as a small scalein this region of the world.

An introduction of the first national comprehensive disaster risk survey project of China by Prof. Yang Saini, Beijing Normal
University, China
Prof. Yang Saini from the Beijing Normal University introduced adomestic project, “the First National Comprehensive Disaster Risk
Survey of China” which is one of the largest national scale risk
assessment projects. With a few examples, she discussed how
the nation has engaged science in to action.

The project also includes risk factor surveys covering risk
assessments and the risk zoning. The Risk Factor Survey covers
hazard exposure, vulnerability and capacity. This will feature risk
assessment and zoning for single and multi- hazards and willcontinue with prevention measures.

Although in China, there exist many tools for risk assessments but
they lack the authority to risk information. The first example
shared was on small project on people-oriented resiliencebuilding. The project looked at different early warning standards.
They collected data on heat related sicknesses and noticed, thatinstead of the infants or the elderly being affected by the severe
heat which is currently a major hazard, it was rather the young
male or the adult males who have been severely impacted by theevent. It highlighted the need to have different early warning
systems and prompted discussion on the different warming
thresholds for individual, community and country level. There is aneed for more scientific evidence to develop tolerable early
warning systems that can be used by different stakeholders.

The exposure part of the project is required to survey the housing
in China (there are more than four billion houses), population, andthe infrastructure for transportation. Public service infrastructuresuch as water pipelines, environment and other natural resources
are included as well. As it is a national project, the project should
cover all of China.
The implementation and organization of project with such amagnitude is without challenges. It started from the central
government and moved on to province, city, prefecture, town andvillage. The organization includes at least nine ministries in China
and involves many local responsibilities and multi stakeholder
participation.
Coordination is required for multi sectors and integration ofdifferent activities in different implementation schedules,
softwares, database, coordination for stakeholders and thesynchronization is quite challenging.

Another project looked at the road early warning systems. The
project collected data from the ministries of transport and road
network center and analyzed traffic created hazard disaster data.
In China too, in recent years there are increasing extreme events
led by climate change and at the same time there is rapid
development of urban and also country road networks triggering a
number of hazard related accidents despite the initialized early
warning system for road transportation. Many institutions are
calling for investment in resilience. At the same time, there are thequestions on how to balance investments in high standard
construction or to invest in service system.

If the whole project is viewed as a scheme, it will needs thehazard investigation, exposing assessment, hazard assessment,
exposure assessment, risk assessment, zoning, and it goes on.
How could one synchronize everything?
There is a detailed technical guidance for each work. In addition,
they set-up detailed lists for data sharing. She stressed that this is
the first project in China, where an official channel is set-up fordata sharing among different ministries including hazards
ministries and ministries associated with exposures withstakeholder groups. The data software system operates in a fourlayer database system – country, province, city, and prefecturelevels.

Upon performing quantitative analysis on the cost benefit ratio of
early warning systems, it was clear that there is a very high return
ratio for investment in service. When talking about resiliencebuilding and engaging science into action, this type of quantitative
scientific evidence are needed to promote fundamental new
concepts.

When the system was established, it was noticed as a feasible
methodology for risk informed development. Taking theopportunity, the methodology was disseminated and promoted at
different levels of governments and public.

In 2018, the central government of China has introduced nine
national mega projects for disaster risk reduction: 1. Disaster Risk
Assessment and Peril Investigation, 2. Ecological Protection andRecovery Services, 3. Coastal Protection and Recovery, 4.
Seismic Reinforcement for Infrastructure, 5. Flood Prevention 6.
Geological Hazard Prevention and Relocation; 7. Construction of
Emergency Response Centers, 8. Early Warning System. 9.
Disaster Prevention Control Techniques and Equipment
Modernization.

In addition, training programs and online training courses werecarried out as a national project to help people understand what isrisk and what is a hazard and what kind of information is available
for various kind of risks and how to use the information. The
project aims to cover investigating 112 counties by September
2022 and plans to update the Technical Assessment Guidance
handbook. The outcome products will be opened to the publicgiving opportunities for collaborations.

Prof. Saini gave brief on the project, Disaster Risk Assessment
and Peril Investigation. The aim of the project is to assess the riskfor entire China and to come with a comprehensive risk
assessment and exposures for such as housing, infrastructure,system resources. In addition, the risk assessment project
outcomes should be applicable in planning, and in different
governance activities. For example, the geological hazards team,they have set-up three-petrol call routines for geological hazard,i.e., pre-season patrol, in-season patrol, and after-season patrol.
Is it a reasonable and optimizing way to get information? The
project will look into such cases as well and the national disasterrisk assessment and peril investigation project will try to improve
regular DRR routines.

30

A few examples from the Q&A session:

Q: It is a huge national project and I think you and your team aredoing really great job. I have a simple question. I believe this kindof assessment needs time to update. What is your plan for
updating - after five years or after 0 years?

meteorological ministries and administration. So is it possible that
we give different standards for different target population? Sayfor example, for schools for primary school for middle school?
Should we still use? This is a 38 or 37 or should we lower a little
bit, see if the outdoor temperature is about 36 then should we
reduce the outdoor activities and for the general public probably
will still use the same standards 35 or 6 or 37 no matter?

A: - We already talked about it. This is the first national risk
assessment. Right now, it is like throwing a stone into the lake
and we need to see the ripples. Of course, the reason we want to
set up this four-level software and database system is forpotential updating. Right now, the plan is that we will have thistype as a national census project probably every five to 10 years.
But more important is when we have this four-level softwaresystem and database system, this will be installed in the centrallevel, as well as at provincial level. With this database, theprovincial government actually has the capacity to update thisdatabase as they wish. Then of course this type of projectrequires a lot of resource funding and human resources.
Therefore, we have given the provincial level, the different levelof governments, some kind of freedom. So that when they havethe capacity, when they have the resources, they can update
their database.

But for the outdoor workers, should they use the same
threshold? These are something that we can send different early
warning information to different occupations or to different
population groups, for example, like for senior people - can we
provide them early warning when the temperature is 35, so this is
one approach.
The second question. Frankly speaking, during the past two
years I have traveled a lot of different places in China. In
Shanghai, one of the most developed area, they have a lot ofgood universities, research institutes, and many famous
professors. We can for this national plan, define only the baseline
work so that it is made easier for every region that has thecapacity to fulfill even for the Western, the underdeveloped area.
As for the baseline framework we only consider it like the higher
intensity exposure and vulnerability. So with this three elements
we can, and especially with the help of our software system,
even in the most underdeveloped area, will be able to finish theirrisk assessment. But for more developed area we actuallyprovide them with some freedom to choose the methodology
they prefer. They can have scenario analysis. They can havemore quantitative approach. They can have expected losses.
They can have a return period. They can have exceedance
curve. This is just purely based on their data quality and big data
accessibility.

Q - You mentioned about the need for a tailored early warning
systems, and I think that is very important and critical, particularly
to make an impact. So I was just wondering, you know, how doyou really tailor these? Through these different audiences thatyou have the different stakeholders that particularly those thatare the most vulnerable. That's one question. The other one isthat, in terms of this big project that you have for risk assessmentin the whole country, what kind of standardized risk assessment
methodology are you looking into adopting? This has been oneof the challenges in the region. China is such a big country, so
it's important that you have that standardized methodology. But
when you're looking at a region as a whole, or larger region,sdifferent countries, that's also one of the biggest challenges interms of comparing.

YS - For the first one the early warning system. We notice thatit's not necessary that we should give the same threshold. Right
now in China we will have the exact same threshold. Say forexample today is 37 Celsius degree, there we will start as heatwave early warning and the school should stop or say theoutdoor activities should be reduced. But based on our work, ourresearch, we are actually talking about this with the31Hour 13

— 10:30 JST 1st September 2021

Using science to support decision-makers to reduce risk from natural hazards events: some examples from Aotearoa New Zealand,
Gill Jolly, GNS Science, New ZealandPresentation on Using science to support decision-makers to
reduce risk from natural hazards events, Dr. Gill Jolly shared
examples from Aotearoa New Zealand and the work done during
the past ten years. The presentation covered how they have
responded to natural hazards and how the science has supported
the decision makers’ before, during, and after those events. She
also acknowledged the help of Dr. Gary Wilson to prepare thepresentation.

•

She stated that the main message from that event is that long-termscience really underpins the ability to be able to respond quickly
when need arises.

The outline of the talk provided context for disaster risk reduction in
Aotearoa, New Zealand. She shared three examples of science inaction in response, recovery and providing community
engagement.
•

Response - March 2021 earthquakes and tsunami.

•

Recovery - November
landslides, and•Community engagement: August 2012 Tongariro volcano
unrest and eruption.

2016

Kaikoura

earthquake

On the Kaikoura earthquake 2016, the Kaikoura earthquake
happened in November 2016. It was an earthquake overmagnitude 7.8. One of the key things was that more than 20 faults
ruptured at the same time in a kind of a domino effect, generated atsunami and produced thousands of landslides, including landslide
dams. A key part of the science advising and recovery phase waswhat is the likelihood of aftershock and levels of shaking. This is
fed into assessment of earthquake prone buildings and change oflegislation, particularly to speed up the retrofit of earthquake pronebuildings. Because the likelihood of a magnitude eight and above
are had increased significantly.

andShe explained the different timeframes of the Role of Science
Advice – long-term baseline science to understand dynamic planet,
to understand the geological and geophysical processes that drive
natural hazards and the risk, and then the vulnerability of
population and communities to those risks. The mid-term, andshort-term projects are created with a range of their stakeholders,
communities, government, both central and local governments,
even with Māori tribes and private enterprise. That feeds into policy
regulation for long-term risk reduction measures, such as long-termplanning and building code.

One of the important understanding that happened as a result of
this event was the close engagement across a large number ofagencies.
She shared reflections and lessons learned from the event.
•the complexity of the ruptures and this information is being
incorporated into the next generation of the national cycling asa model•

It is critical to be able to coordinate the science when such alarge area was impacted, As a result, they have set-up a
National Seismic Advisory Panel, which is being developed tobring the experts together and to share understanding before,
during and after an event.

•And that increased likelihood of a magnitude 8 earthquake
required rapid peer review over the space of a few days andpulled on international partners to be able to support that.

•

understanding the “big calls” that those decision makers needto do and how they need that advice and providing theuncertainty around that advice too.

Their science is also connected internally to other scientists, and tocommunities and active stakeholders and aims at doing excellent
and impactful science.
Moving on to examples of the science in action, she started with
the March 2021 earthquakes and the Kaikoura earthquake. The
March 2021 Earthquakes were examples of science and response.
One of the key things there was that the long-term baseline ofscience and social science lead to good public messaging. She
showed a poster version of the “long strong get gone” which is the
key messaging for emergency responses and scientists were verymuch at the forefront of the response. She explained the risk
assessments they had to do in terms of aftershock forecast
hazards in every area. They were also supported by the New
Zealand Defence Force.

Key lesson learned was how to embed new knowledge and theways to improve future practice.

She highlighted the following as lessons learned from that event:•

The importance of close engagement with the responding
agency, especially at a senior government level all the way up
to Minister and Prime Minister. And it also helps to know thepeople on the end of the phone to build trusts before the event
occurs.

•Good response, the communities that reacted to the “long orstrong, get gone” message and the importance of the social
science and community engagement to develop that and levelof understanding before the event occurs.

Health or safety of staff is paramount to the response situation.
Often staff will be going into fairly risky situations to collect data
importers, so having that long-term investment in hazard andrisk science enabled to rapidly do that risk assessment tosupport the management decisions.

32

The example of science in action with Tongariro eruptions in 2012,
Dr. Jolly stated, when they started to see some indications that the
volcano was becoming more active in July 2012, they engaged
with the risk managers for the National Park as Tongariro sits
within the national park of the Department of Conservation. Upon
their advise, they talked to the local communities in partnershipwith them.

In closing, she summarized the following:

Although they had a good relationship with the Department ofConservation, it was not the same with their local Māoricommunities. She stressed the importance of building relationships
with local communities, understanding different sources ofknowledge, listen and learn, being humble and showing that
humility goes a long way to building relationships even when one isin a highly stressed situation.

•

Aotearoa is vulnerable to a range of natural hazards and risks.

•

The National disaster Resilience Framework is based on
Sendai and•those decisions that require science to independently informedby long-term, medium-term, short term science, but at different
scales and understanding that is really important.

•

And then it's important to learn the lessons from each eventand then focus on continuous improvement for future events.

Reflections and lessons learned from that event, even simple
events, have complex networks and relationships.

A few examples from the Q&A session:

Q - in the context of community engagement and also focused verymuch on science into action, in that context, how much of the
traditional knowledge or the indigenous knowledge of thecommunities were integrated into the science action that was takenplace?

Q: You said that humility goes along goes a long way and that isquite impressive. The humility showed in this kind of the disastersituation is very important. How can we keep the discussion andreflect sense to our action?

A. Earlier in my career I worked in the West Indies on a small
island monitoring the volcano. All too often you see particularly
enthusiastic early career Western scientists coming in and reallyjust wanting to collect data and science. Often that had quite anadverse reaction from the local inhabitants of the island. It issomething, maybe that you learned with age partly, but it is maybe
something that we can help other early career makers, scientists tobe able to think about, the impacts on the local population.
Especially when they're in a particularly stressful situation and theymight have lost significant amounts in terms of property or in
livelihoods, or even life. So being able to put yourself in their shoes
and understand their situation that really does go a long way tounderstanding how the impact links to the work that you would liketo do and you need to do will have on those communities.

A - It is an area where we are very much developing. I think fromthat particular example, and I learned a lot from the Māoricommunities that live on the volcano. They talked about, how thesprings had changed, and how they could smell differences andhow they were making observations of hot springs and so on. Theirknowledge of the environment in which they live with, is reallysecond to none, and added to the depth and color of understandingor what the volcano is doing. On the other hand, another important
aspect is there cultural understanding of the volcano as anancestor. Hazard phenomena would normally be turned out either
on a hazard map or a risk map. But the way that the tribes, theMāori understood the longer the volcano was, it is as an ancestor.
It doesn't provide risk yet but you risk it if you choose as a humanto put yourself in that harm’s way. It is their ancestor that might behaving a bit of a grumble.
So understanding that cultural perspective is really an eye opening
for me. For them, the language of hazard and risk was not familiar
because they looked at the world in a completely different way. Andan equally valid way. So that's a learning as a western scientist to
hear from those communities. And if we arere wanting to bebuilding resilience in those communities, learning to speak thesame language, not literally well, literally, being able to understandand be able to speak more. But also understanding the narrativethat they have around the environment in which they live.

33

Engaging Science with actions: A case for EEW in India, Prof. M. L. Sharma, SAADRI Programme Adviser, India
In his presentation on Engaging Sciences with Actions,
Prof. Sharma shared examples of earthquake early warning system
in India and how they support the Sendai Framework.

important to promote cooperation between academic, scientific andresearch entities and networks and the private sector to develop
new products and services to help to reduce disaster risk. In
particular those that would assist developing countries and their
specific challenges. Based on many success stories of earthquake
early warning systems in most earthquake prone nations, hementioned that the science and knowledge used by thosecountries, should move such actions to countries and populations
that cannot use such technology to overcome the hazards they arefacing.

In the case of earthquakes, he stated, that they are unable to comeup with the models which can really predict the earthquakes
although they have very good prediction models for drought andfloods. While their ability to work on good seismic modellingdecreases, their exposures to earthquakes are increasing. In
addition, there are new risks and a steady rise in disaster related
losses with significant losses impacting the economy, health, andthe environmental.

Using an example of Private Public Partnership (PPP) of the global
earthquake model, he shared information on a collaborative projectby IIT Roorkee with Israel and two academic institutes. It is on thedevelopment of particularly warning system, which can give to theindividuals on their mobiles with information of the magnitude,
location, time left and actions to be taken to the dams, metro's,
nuclear power plants and lifts, and signals with maps to theadministrators, managers, police, doctors, emergency services anddisaster commissioners and public at large. In many other hazard
prone countries, such early warning systems are working
effectively. They should consider sharing the earthquake early
warning systems with countries that cannot afford to invest on such
instruments through funding, or by providing scientific assistance,
and also by trying to increase the willpower of the political systems.
The hazards and disasters do not recognize the politicalboundaries. Such instruments also should be placed in the global
frameworks.

He stressed on the need to have a different kind of solutions, atleast for the earthquakes and outlined the following challenges:•

large population prone towards earthquakes,•

less awareness and low construction quality•

very less instrumentation deployed in some of our sistercountries.

•

Lots of investment and high pace of development and•Huge loss of life and economic loss because of the earthquakes

With various examples, he showed how science is working in thefield as well as in public. One of the examples was on finding thereturn periods in the Himalayas and surrounding countries after adamaging earthquake. The return periods for the damaging
earthquakes, is going to be less than 10 years. The electronic
lifetime of the electronic equipment to be used for early warning
system is also not more than ten years. Given this, the earthquake
early warning system, perhaps in its whole lifetime, may give one
earthquake early warning.

He concluded his presentation with the following recommendations:

He also shared advantage examples of earthquake early warning
system and how the government of India is applying therecommendations of the Sendai Framework in the national disasterrisk management. In addition, the national Disaster Management
Authority has the following four components in place too:•dissemination system for earthquake early warning•

multi hazard risk mitigation of the infrastructure•technical assistance to improve disaster risk reduction andmanagement with emphasis on earthquake risk.

•

project management and monitoring unit.

•

Hazard for South Asia be reworked and risk mapped, and be
carried out on required scale•

the member countries being sensitized for disaster risk
reduction, and•SAADRI may
take proactive
steps as per the
Sendaiframework for
thosechallenges.

He also reiterated that to achieve the global and regional level, it is
A few examples from the Q&A session:
Q: A question on the mobile app. Australia uses mobile apps forbush fire warnings and for bush fire information. During our recent
landscape bushfires in Australia, the bush fires put out both thepower systems and also the Internet. We had no warning for threedays of what was happening in smoke filled environment. What
happens in your system if the earthquakes put out the Internet?

Q: How can your community in make maximum use of such kind of
early warning systems?

A: We are still in development stage of our earthquake early
warning system. For such a kind of situation without the Internet totransmit an earthquake early warning, or for floods, fires, etc. I
would suggest the example showed by the previous keynote
speaker. She shared an example of the public disaster postermessages, a disaster message to respond to disasters; and also
preparing communities to react to such messages prior to an event.

34

A: In science we are able to give the warning using such
instruments, but how the public will react on that is a different issue.
I have been working for the past two years in Uttarakhand State and
I am teaching and engaging the community on disaster risk
awareness, with evacuation exercises using the mobile apps andother signals that will be used as an early warning for a disaster.
The government also have chosen to go public with this kind of
exercises. If the public is not aware of the signals and the method toevacuation, there will be a very chaotic situation. There could also
be cases of false alarm. Therefore, the public has to be trained
through awareness campaigns.

Hour 14

— 11:30 JST 1st September 2021
Parallel Discussion Sessions

Parallel Discussion Sessions I: Regional Alliances : Improving collaboration to support global stakeholders of
DRR and DRM
Discussion Sessions I—1: Introducing Existing Alliances

Chaired by: Prof. Srikantha Herath and Prof. Kenji Kawaike

Prof. Srikantha Herath, Director,
Center for Transdisciplinary
Research, Sri Lanka and
Director, Envi Forecasting, co.
Australia.

Prof. Kenji Kawaike, River
DisasterPrevention
Systems, DPRI, Kyoto
University, Japan

Prof. Desmond Manatsa

Prof. Ian White
Prof. Akira Igarashi

Dr. Indrajit Pal

Following session summary was prepared and presented by Prof. Srikantha Herath:
There were 3 presentations on regional alliances and 2
presentations in panel discussion.
••

Presentation—1: SAADRI – presented by Dr. Herath•South Asia Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes constituteof 5 thematic areas addressed by 5 working groups.

•

Emphasis is placed on Promoting applied research for DRR
and Policy framework analysis and proposals in regional andlocal context to enhance DRR activities.

•

Presentation—3: Natural Disaster Research Council,
Prof. Akira Igarashi, DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan•

Comprehensive
introduction
to
NDRC activities
bothnational
and international•Many
opportunities tocollaborate
through existing
NDRC ongoingprograms

On going activities and planned activities were outlined andrequested wider participation of GADRI community in SAADI
actions
Presented a cloud based
Flood Early Warning systemthat can be adapted for
different cities/countries andcurrently
availablemechanism for participation
by interested parties••

Presentation—2:
African Alliance for Disaster Research Institutes (AADRI) :Opportunities and Challenges since Inception – by Prof
Desmond Manatsa, Bindura University of Science
Education, Zimbabwe••

Focus thematic areas for Africa are•

DRR; and Climate change adaptation•

Sustainable Development Challenges•

Funding•

Institutional framework under development•

COVID-19 hampering activities

35

Presentation—4: Improving Collaboration for DRR and
DRM in Small Island Developing States, Dr. Ian White, Ian
White, Emeritus Professor, Water Resources, Australian
National University, Australia•

Community based activities are the most important ones forsmall islands•

They need long term commitment and association on
decadal time frames rather than large scale funding.

•International organizations advocacy and support has provedtobeeffective

Hour 15•

— 12:30 JST 1st September 2021

Panel Presentation -2: Leveraging Academic Diplomacy
for Resilience and Addressing Cascading Risks, Dr.
Indrajit Pal, Assistant Professor and Chair, DPMM
Program, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand•

DPMM program of AIT has successfully developed anddelivered DRR programs not only in Asia but also in otherparts of the world•

It has successfully transformed many of its programs toonline courses to address challenges posed by COVID-19•

Outcomes of the Discussion Session:•

Two important areas emerged from the discussion•

How can the different regional initiatives collaborate, what
avenues are available?

•

We need to find overarching themes to connect different
programs to discuss findings to identify commonalities anddisparities and learn from each other.

•regional perspectives to be discussed together.

For example in SAADRI discussions there are these two focus
areas: (a) Improving knowledge to practice transformation tobenefit affected people and (b) Improving Polices for effective
DRR. We may discuss where policies were formulated toenhance or adopt successful practices or where good policies
led to improved practices. This type of topics can bring different

Hour 16

Has developed programs for both graduate students andpractitioners including empowering communities•

Early warning, Climate change adaptation and Infrastructure
safety were themes that were addressed by most groups.
Workshops under these topics can be another approach.

•Community engagement•

It may be worthwhile to explore how GADRI can support anddevelop a program to synthesize rich experiences of small
islands, the programs conducted by AIT etc., to develop
education and practice guidelines for engagement ofcommunities to create a long term effective dialogue between
research researchers and affected communities.

•

Endorsement of such a program by a UN organization would
make it effective.

— 13:30 JST 1st September 2021

Discussion Sessions I—2: What should we do to encourage youth to engage in education?
Chaired by: Prof. Gretchen Kalonji and Prof. Wei-Sen Li
Prof. Gretchen Kalonji, Dean,
Institute for Disaster Management
and Reconstruction , Sichuan
University, China

Prof. Wei-Sen Li, Secretary
General of National Science andTechnology Center for Disaster
Reduction (NCDR) Chinese Taipei

Panellist of the session:

Taipei

1. Introducing Viewpoints: Suggestions for Improvement, Antonia
Yulo Loyzaga, President, National Resilience Council (NRC),
Philippines

4. Alliance of youth and young professional in science,engineering, technology, and innovation for disaster risk
reduction (U-INSPIRE Alliance): enabling factors andprospects, Mizan Bisri, representing U-INSPIRE, Indonesia

2. Building DRR capacity for youth: Practical experience from
Asia, Bill Ho, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC),
Thailand5. Roles of the University of the South Pacific and partners in rebuilding the culture of resilience in Pacific Island Countries,
Viliamu Iese, Senior Lecturer – Disaster Risk Management at
the Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable
Development, at the University of the South Pacific (USP), Fiji

3. Transboundary and cross-generation disaster risk reduction
knowledge co-creation platform, Yi-Chung Liu, Associate
Researcher, International Collaboration, National Science andTechnology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR), Chinese

Dr. Antonia Yulo Loyzaga

Prof. Viliamu Iese
Dr. Bill Ho

Dr. Misan Bisri
36

Parallel Discussion Session I – 2: What should we do to encourage youth to engage in education?
Chaired by: Prof. Gretchen Kalonji and Prof. Wei-Sen Li
Following session summary was prepared and presented by Prof. Wei-Sen Li
I-2 What should we do to encourage youth to engage in education?

Greta Thunberg advocating for CCA.

Within Session 1.2, five panelists extensively delivered roadmap,
ideas, project outcomes, capacity building programs andnetworking for engaging, empowering and enabling the youth fornext generation education in disaster risk management (DRM).
All speakers are welcomed to cover the following three topics
during their talks.

•

To recognize youth group as a resource for DRM work, insteadof vulnerable group.

•

To make youth as an important source of DRM information for
local communities•

To deliver tailored youth/young adult learning approaches

1. How to build up platform for youth’s involvement with multistakeholders?

•

To introduce more mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction into
sectoral policy/development process

2. What are necessary elements to be include in new DRM
paradigms for the youth?

•

To welcome more regional/sub-regional collaboration andknowledge sharing on the subject

3. Where are the ideal approaches to attract the youth to initiate
the next mile of DRM?

•

To utilize platform like U-INSPIRE Alliance connecting regionaland global youth professionals to co-work and co-implement.

Following highlights a few of the recommendations:•

To invest more in youth DRM education.

•

To enroot “culture of protection”, DRM education should startearly at basic education and be carried out lifetime.

•

To include diversities of disciplines, languages, cultures andhazards for DRM education to the youth.

•

To meet dynamic social development, an enabling education
environment should be inclusive of possible social and physicalimpacts.

••

To build connection and collaboration between universities andnational platform to enable an environment for both researcher
and disaster manager.

To organize platforms to enable out-of-the-box thinking, openended dialogues among multi-stakeholders, cross-cutting
collaboration and public-private partnership with youth
generation and other stakeholders.

••To highlight creativity of the youth in IoT and social media toenhance risk communication.

To deliver capacity building program or curriculum throughdiverse and inclusive approaches and to address how scienceand technology can make broad-spectrum contributions to
disaster risk reduction and emergency management.

•

To motivate social enterprise as one engine to continuously
engage the youth in DRM.

•

The session 1.2 is a starting point to map out how GADRI canmake changes to DRM education and the topic should continue
to produce more fruitful outcomes.

•

To encourage young “voice” and “face” to speak out DRM like

Hour 17— 14:30 JST 1st September 2021

Hour 18— 15:30 JST 1st September 2021

37

5th Global Summit of GADRI:
31st August toGroup Photos Taken During the Opening

38

Engaging Sciences with Action
1st September 2021
and the Closing Ceremony

39

Panel Discussion Session II: Target E: Disaster Risk Governance and Contribution for Policy Making
Chaired by: Ms. Ritsuko Yamazaki-Honda

Ms. Ritsuko Yamazaki-Honda, National Research Institute for
Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED)

Following session summary was prepared and presented by Dr. Toshio Fujimi, DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan.
Objectives:•

Monitoring and evaluation

This session will discuss on disaster risk governance andcontribution for policy making in line with the Sendai Framework.
This session will be held in two parts.

•

Multi-language•

2-2: Potentials of scientific knowledge for DRR strategies

Progresses and challenges of DRR strategies--> Session 2-1•

Potentials of scientific knowledge for DRR strategies•

SENTINEL ASIA - Utilization Space Technology for DRR•

Dr. Makoto IKEDA, Senior researcher, the Asian Disaster
Reduction Center (ADRC)•

Potentials and challenges of randomized controlled trial forevidence-based DRR policies,•

Dr. Toshio FUJIMI, Associate professor, Disaster Prevention
Research Institute, Kyoto University•

Analysis of the GADRI Questionnaire Survey covering
contributions to Sendai Framework, Climate Change
Adaptation, and Covid-19•

Dr. Genta NAKANO, Assistant professor,
Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University--> Session 2-2
2-1 Progresses and challenges of DRR strategies:
Progress and Achievement of Sendai Framework Target E
in Asia Pacific Countries:•

Mr. Timothy WILCOX, Regional Office for Asia and Pacific,
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)•

Disaster Risk Reduction Strategies in Asia and the Pacific:
Implementation Challenges in Post-Covid19 Landscape•

Mr. Aslam PERWEIZ, Deputy Executive Director, Asian
Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)•

JICA’s Global Agenda for DRR & Development Support for
Local DRR Strategies/Plans,•

Mr. Hideaki MATSUMOTO, Director of Disaster Risk
Reduction Team 2, Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA)

Key questions 2-2: Potentials of scientific knowledge for
DRR strategies•

Key questions in 2-1: Progresses and challenges of DRR
strategies•

How have national and local governments adopted DRR
strategies so far in line with Sendai Framework?
••

How can scientific knowledge support national and local
governments to make and implement DRR strategies?
•

Satellite image just after disasters is helpful for making
DRR strategies•

Approach
integrating
both
human
system(evacuation drill) and natural system (hazard maps)•

Communications among residents, governments andresearchers

How can scientific knowledge provide evidence for effective
implementation of DRR policies?
•

Randomized control trial (RCT) is useful to select out
actually effective policies among seemingly effective
policy•Although strict RCT is difficult to be conducted in field,
modified versions of RCT can be feasible.

What are good practices of DRR strategies in national andlocal levels?
8 steps approach by JICA•

Case study in Philippine•••

Total 120 countries••

Extending application to other Asian countries

What are challenges for making and implementing DRR
strategies?
•

Multi-hazard and New risk landscape•Financing is very much important•

Involving
multi-stakeholders
corporation•

Risk assessment information is the first step to involve
multi-stake holders

withDisasterinter-sector

40

How can research institutions contribute to capacity
development of national and local governments andpractitioners in fields?
•

8 steps approach by JICA•

Evacuation drill study based on the integrated approachhuman and natural system•

Win-win relationshipcontribution

is important for sustainableTimothy Wilcox

Aslam PERWEIZ

Hideaki MATSUMOTO

Makoto IKEDA

Toshio FUJIMI

Genta NAKANO

41

Panel Discussion Session III: Contributions to Climate Change Adaption
Chaired by: Prof. Mahua Mukherjee and Prof. Kenji Tanaka

The following summary was prepared by Prof. Tetsuya Takemi, Prof. Kenji Tanaka, Prof. Mahua Mukherjee and Prof. Andrew Collins.

Panellist of Session III—1:
1. Science and Technology: a key instrumental for Sustainable
Climate Change Adaptation at the Community Level in
Thailand by Dr. Sutat Weesakul, Sutat Weesakul, Director,
Hydro-Informatics Institute, Ministry of Higher Education,
Science, Research and Innovation, Thailand
2. Some examples integrated research on climate-related
geohazard risks, impacts of climate change and planningpolicy by Dr. Choun-Sian LIM, Southeast Asia Disaster
Prevention Research Initiative, Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia, Malaysia
3. Adapting to climate change and variability: Research anddelivery of improved climate products and projections for India
by Dr. Vijay Kumar Soni,
Head (EMRC), Indian
Meteorological Department, India
4. Application of Earth Observation for DRR in the Hindu Kush
Himalayan Region by Dr. Mandira Singh Shrestha,
Programme Coordinator, Climate Services Initiative, ICIMOD,
Nepal
5. Assessing the impacts of extreme weather on local-scale
hazards in urban areas and complex terrains for climatechange adaptation by Prof. Tetsuya Takemi, DPRI, Kyoto
University, Japan

Session III—2:
1. Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction: Spacetechnology contribution by Dr. Shirish Ravan, Head, UNSPIDER, Asia and Pacific; Programme Officer, United Nations
Office for Outer Space Affairs, Austria
2. Analysis on Surface Heating Field by Using Different Methods
over the Tibetan Plateau by Prof. Weiqiang Ma, The Instituteof Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
China
3. A National Action Plan for Climate Change Adaptation in
Water and Energy Sectors by Dr. Ali Chavoshian, Director,
Regional Centre on Urban Water Management under the
auspices of UNESCO (RCUWM), Iran
4. Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation:
Bangladesh Context by Prof. Dewan Abddul Quadir on behalfof Prof. Towhida Rashid, Professor and Chairperson,
Department of Meteorology, Faculty of Earth andEnvironmental Sciences, Dhaka University, Bangladesh
5. Resilient infrastructure and nature-based solutions by Prof.
Mahua Mukherjee, CoEDMM, IIT, Roorkee, India

42

Panel Discussion Session III: Contributions to Climate Change Adaption
Chaired by: Prof. Mahua Mukherjee and Prof. Kenji Tanaka

Discussion Points:

2. Listing measurable contributions of the Asia and Oceania
Region towards the COP26:

1. Important milestones for roadmap for universities and research
centres in support of the climate change research agenda

Nepal:

2. Listing measurable contributions of the Asia and Oceania
Region towards the COP26•

Important milestones for roadmap for universities andresearch centres in support of the climate change research
agenda:•Need for enhance Observation network particularly in mountainareas for better data and information for climate modelling andvalidation•

The nature of risks are changing - there are more compoundrisks leading to cascading disasters - science and technology
and use of Earth Observation plays a critical role inunderstanding the risk

Nepal:••

Thailand:Individual and institutional capacity building at regional, national
to local level for informed decision making for enhancing
adaptive capacity for climate and disaster resilience
Strengthening partnerships and networks•

Sharing of Thailand’s experience on the application of Science,
Technology, and Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP)
concept for Climate Change Adaptation at the community level.
Focusing on Community Water Resource Management inparticular, the presentation is made via the good practice casestudy of “Ban Huay Pla Lod”, a hill tribe community in the upper
north of Thailand
Science, Technology, and Sufficiency Economy Philosophy as
tools to achieve Sustainable Development and Climate-resilient
adaptation•

Community Water Resource Management•

Rule of Law

The application of transdisciplinary approach in the adaptation•

Roadmap – the use of case study for Climate Change
Adaptation using SEP concept

Malaysia:

Thailand:•••Risk identification using science, to enhance capacity of local
modelling and understanding•

Risk communication from research for bridging policy and early
warning system•

Research in local customise including indigenous practise CCA& using best science available (vs costly infrastructure
mitigation based on climate scenarios), promoting low-regret
option CCA mitigation

India:CCCR-IITM has developed a state-of-the-art Earth System climate
model suitable for long-term climate studies in order to generatereliable future projections of the global and regional climate, andparticularly the Indian monsoon rainfall. High-resolution simulations(~ 35 km in longitude x 35 km in latitude) of 20 th century climatic
variations and future climate projections have been developed over
the South Asian region. These high-resolution simulations offer
new opportunities to better understand several key regional
scientific issues concerning climate change over South Asia - e.g.,
Monsoons, precipitation extremes, heat waves, droughts andfloods, changes in cyclonic weather systems, hydrological cycle
etc. Monthly outputs of simulated rainfall and surface airtemperature for the historical period (1951 - 2005) and 21st century
RCP4.5 scenario projection for the period 2006-2095 are presently
made available for downloads for researchers (http://
cccr.tropmet.res.in). The ensemble of high resolution regional
climate change projections until 2100 at 50 km spatial resolution
over South Asian region generated at CCCR, IITM by dynamical
downscaling of six CMIP5 global climate model outputs using the
ICTP regional climate model (RegCM4) are also disseminated toassist the science community in conducting studies of climatechange impacts at regional scales. Further, the observed long term
rainfall and temperature data are available over Indian region(https://imdpune.gov.in).

Malaysia:
We have a special program on Climatic Hazards, along with othertwo programs (Geological Hazards and Technological Hazards)
We also align our research to work transdisciplinary to SDGs andSendai Framework and work on local level DRR CCA andpromoting risk identification using technologies and community
India:
Dedicated educational programmes from school to university would
greatly advance awareness about climate change and its
implications. Such programs could encourage young minds tocontribute through individual and collective efforts that are crucial
for climate action. It is necessary to develop “useful to usable”
research and application agenda that can translate research to onground, effective decision tools for adapting to climatic change
Japan:The Ministry of Education (MEXT), the Ministry of Environment,
and other government organizations have been implementing
research funding to support basic and applied studies of climatechange prediction and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction
under climate change. Collaborations among academic institutes
and governmental (central and local) organizations are in progress
to implement climate change adaptation strategy and planning.

* Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR), Indian Institute ofTropical Meteorology (IITM) is autonomous institute under Ministryof Earth Sciences, India

43

Panel Discussion Session III: Contributions to Climate Change Adaption
Chaired by: Prof. Mahua Mukherjee and Prof. Kenji Tanaka
CONCLUSION—Session III—1: Important milestones forroadmap for universities and research centres in support ofthe climate change research agenda
•

•

•

•

CONCLUSION—Session
III2:
Listingmeasurable
contributions of the Asia and Oceania Region towards the
COP26

Need for enhance Observation network particularly inmountain areas for better data and information for climate
modelling and validation•

Integrated approach for DRR and CCA•

Data and knowledge sharing both at national-level andinternational-level, transboundary collaboration•

Evidence from observations – in-situ and remote-sensing
observations•

Weather and climate monitoring: DRR and CCA

Individual and institutional capacity building at regional,
national to local level for informed decision making forenhancing adaptive capacity for climate and disaster
resilience•

Third Pole: important weather & climate driver in AsiaOceania region•

Impact-based forecasting,information dissemination

Strengthening partnerships and networks•

Resilient infrastructure

The nature of risks are changing - there are morecompound risks leading to cascading disasters - scienceand technology and use of Earth Observation plays acritical role in understanding the risk

44

early

warning

and

rapid

Panel Discussion Session IV: Session 4 : Implementation of Science Implementation science overcoming conflicts over science
Chaired by: Dr. Subhajyoti Samaddar
The following summary was prepared by Dr. Subhajyoti Sumaddar, and Dr. Masamitsu Onishi DPRI, Kyoto University, Japan.
Implementation of Sciences in Action—How can we better
evaluate DRR researchers?

Conflict over science

DRR researchers are evaluated mainly by their academic
achievements as done in other academic disciplines. There areseveral ways to evaluate the performance, but the mostcommonly used scheme universally would be the number ofacademic peer-reviewed papers or the number of citations.
However, these methods of measuring the 'best' science are
outdated and even a hindrance to scientific progress as
researchers are brought to a severe competition to publish as
many papers as possible and the quality of the achievements are
yet to be difficult to fairly assess. In addition, disaster science isquite multidisciplinary in nature, ranging from human and social
to physical and engineering science, etc. Evaluation across thedifferent filed has been a challenge.

Panellists of the Session:•

Conflicts among scientists or within an individual scientist•

Over-reliance on science as a means for decision-making solution•

The merits and demerits of propaganda for implementation

5. Capacity Building of Multi-stakeholders for Disaster Risk
Reduction: Some Experiences from Malaysia by Dr. Minhaz
Farid Ahmed, Institute for Environment and Development(LESTARI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia

1. Roles of science and technology in enhancing disaster
resilience and sustainability by all by Prof. Toshio Koike,
Executive Director, International Centre for Water Hazard and
Risk Management (ICHARM) under the auspices of
UNESCO

6. Implementation science overcoming conflicts over science by
Dr. Masamitsu Onishi, Disaster Prevention Research Institute(DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan

2. How can science support decision-making in risk
assessment? by Dr. Gary Wilson, GNS Science, New
Zealand

7. Social Science Perspectives on Policy, Practice andAssimilation of Scientific Data by Prof. John Clammer, O.P.
Jindal Global University, India; Visiting Professor, DPRI,
Kyoto University, Japan

3. How can we better evaluate DRR research? by Prof. Yuichi
Ono, IRIDeS, Tohoku University, Japan
4. Challenges and Requirements towards Implementing DRR
Science in Public Sector Development: Experience from
Bangladesh, by Dr. Shibly Sadik, Center for Environmental
and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) , Bangladesh

Dr. Subhajyoti Samaddar

Prof. Toshio Koike

Dr. Gary Wilson

Prof. Yuichi Ono

Dr. Shibly Sadik

Dr, Minhaz Farid Ahmed

Prof. John Clammer

Dr. Masamitsu Onishi

Prof. Mohsen Ashtiany,
IIEES, IranProf. Mazlin Mokhtar,
LESTARI, UKM, Malaysia
45Panel Discussion Session IV: Session 4 : Implementation of Science for DRR Actions (S & T Roadmaps Realizing SFDRR)
Chaired by: Dr. Subhajyoti Samaddar

Two conflictive positions among scientists community•

Methodologists: The position that scientists should use
scientific methodology to identify phenomena of interest andprovide useful information for decision-making, but should not
be involved in the behavior of decision-makers.

•

Activists: The position that scientists should not only provide
information, but should also be involved in the actual field andactively participate in improving society.

Conflictive positions among scientists’ community••

Criticizes to Methodologists:•

No contribution to society, lacking the relevancy to the realsociety•

They do nothing but analysis, and lack the attitude ofseriously trying to be of use to society (despite receiving
salary)Criticizes to Activists•

With the authority of science as a backdrop, they try to
impose solutions derived only from within themethodological world in which they specialize.

•

Many papers based on field cases are lacking scientificfundamentals.

•

Reproducibility of success case of a field cannot be
guaranteed.

Over-reliance on science as a means for the goal – DRR –•Science and technology may develop independently of their
purpose, or without sufficient scrutinyoftheimplicationsof
theirdevelopment.

•

Criticize to high-resolution rain cloudradar and real-time forecast (250 m
mesh)→ Over-reliance on science•

Science andalmighty.

technology

is

not

•

Need communicative platforms to
make sense the information for
decision-makers.

The merits and demerits of propaganda•

Obviously, propaganda towards the needs of scientists’ commitment to implementation contributes to•

Scientists are conscripted for politically determined purposes.

•

Possible lack of diversity in academia, especially in the context
of disasters, attention needs to be paid to disasters that have
not yet occurred.

•

46

•

Too much emphasis on implementation as scientific outcome
may give scientists distorted incentive such as pushing attitude
towards communities.

•

Superficial performance indicators may have the opposite effect.

•

Need for maintain propaganda-free academic community

Transition of R&D Budget for DRR

Perspectives expected of implementation science•

Dealing systemic thing as science – even disaster risk is one of•

Implementation process is inevitably dynamic•

Dealing the dynamics of systems

Source: Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University and
Tokio Marine & Nichido Risk Consulting Co., Ltd. (2021)

The Government seems to allocate transient budgets after majordisasters occurred.
→ Locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

•

Norms of implementation dynamics•

How should professional scientists approach to the field?

•

Mechanism design to create the desired dynamism•

Sense-making•

Diversity in academics•

Long-term perspective and commitment•

We do not yet have a manifested scientific view of the above
subject.
→ Needs implementation science as a cognitive system foractivist scientists→ Appreciate and Evaluate scientists those who take on toughchallenges

47

Hour 19

— 16:00 JST 1st September 2021
Europe with Africa and the Middle-East

Exploring Solutions to Bridge the Gaps for Implementation of
Science in Action
The Europe, Africa and Middle East time zone session of theconference Explored Solutions to Bridge the Gaps for
Implementation of Science in Action. Moving a step forward fromthe previous sessions, and recognising that DRR is, allencompassing, very complex topic, there are a number of gapsthat the research community still need to tackle to bridge or
improve the connectivity between different components of DRR.
The session discussed the urgent need to implement ideas,
solutions and findings in disaster risk reduction (DRR).

Considering the upcoming COP26, this session, in particular,
focused the importance of connections between disaster risk
reduction and climate change adaptation and the integration
between disciplines and different societal spheres.

The session included two keynotes by two distinguished guests,
and followed by four discussion sessions.

Third session on the science policy gaps; scientific evidence isbecoming more and more important now more than before. The
session looked at the successes of different global agreements
such as the Sendai Framework; and how best science policy
actions are put into use in different parts of the of the world.

The second discussion panel was about bridging the knowledge
gaps. There are a lot of information and data in the researchcommunity and in institutions worldwide. Although the data iscollected, this is not put into action. This session focused on
useful ways to implement this data and information.

The session opened with two keynotes by Dr. Tom De Groeve,
Deputy Head of Unit, Disaster Risk Management Unit, European
Commission, Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC), Italy on Engaging
Sciences with Action: Results from the first five years of the
Sendai Framework; and Prof. Nico Elema, Director, PeriPeri U,
Stellenbosh University International, South Africa on Exploring
solutions to bridge the gaps for implementation of Science in
Action. Keynote session was chaired by Prof. Andrew Collins,
Northumbria University, UK.

The fourth discussion session was about bridging the generational
gap; a most unique and fascinating session – listening to thevoices of the young. The solutions to disaster risks and climatechange cannot be solved today, and probably not tomorrow. But
in the coming decades. Tor this reason, it is very important to hearfrom the young researchers and young activists their opinions andsuggestions.

Topics of the discussion sessions included:•

Bridging the Collaboration Gaps : Integrating DRR and CCA
for a Science in Action Agenda•

Bridging the knowledge Gaps: Exploring solutions forTransforming Data into Action•

Bridgingthe
Science-Policy
Gaps:
Contextualising
Governance to Explore Opportunities for Action•

Bridging the Generational Gap: Catalysing Science in Action
by Youth Engagement

This panel presentation and discussion brought in 16 specialists
including the Deputy Head, Adaptation Unit, European Directorate
General for Climate Action; a Member of Parliament, Scottish
Government, Shadow SNP Spokesperson for Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs.
The session was closed with a final wrap-up session.
Within the six hours, nearly 150 participants from around the world
attended the session.

The first discussion panel on bridging the collaboration gaps:
collaboration can be thought of in many dimensions andhorizontally and vertically and between different tops, etc.

Organising Committee Members of the Europe, Africa and the Middle East session. All three members are representatives of the Global
and European Science and Technology Advisory Group, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Prof.
JörgenSparf,
Associate
Professor in Sociology and a founding
member of the Risk and Crisis
Research Centre, Mid Sweden
University, Sweden

Dr. Tom De Groeve, Deputy Head ofUnit, Disaster Risk Management Unit,
European Commission, Joint ResearchCentre (EC-JRC), Italy

48

Prof. Andrew Collins; Disaster andDevelopment Network, Northumbria
University, UK

Dr. Tom De Groeve, Deputy Head, Disaster Risk Management Unit of the European Commission Joint Research Centre(EC JRC), Italy

Dr. Tom De Groeve opened his remarks by stating how the 5 th
Global Summit which was initially planned to be held at the EC
JRC, Milan, Italy and it had to be cancelled due the to corona virus
global pandemic.
With the pandemic, the global science
community and academia are brought together opulently to work
together as well as within the political sphere and to discuss whatis needed to bring science into action.

importance to reach out to the other communities and make sureknowledge is useful and used.
On open data, Dr. De Groeve mentioned their successful projecton the global human settlement layer, a long-term effort of theirgroup with many collaborators to bring data on settlements
through satellite data. This data has been opened from the startand has been used by many partners to derive messages and tolook at all kinds of aspects of disaster risk.

Based on the recently published IPCC report, the UN SecretaryGeneral called the world climate change situation a code-red forhumanity. There are more disasters for the future. In this context,
Dr. De Groeve emphasized on opportunity as a force of positivity
and the importance to think of the action and the impact that isnecessary to the situation. The 2015 Sendai Framework Agendachanged world and how it looked at disaster risk. During the past
five-six years, many positive things have taken place, for example,
in 2016, the Science and Technology Roadmap was drawn up to
support the Sendai Framework and put the priorities of thescientific world in order to achieve the goals of the Sendai
Framework. It is about multidisciplinary research, open data,
connecting with users, etc. making the science actionable.

Another example he cited was on risk informed risk suite. It isagain, open process with participation from many actors and also
the results are open data. Transforming science into services is
crucial and here he mentioned the Copernicus Emergency
Management service which is a flagship space application
program in the European Union where all the satellite data is open
as well as the after‑services on early warning and rapid mapping.
The data is always open to other communities. There are many
research projects that contribute to improving those services andthey are trying to work closely with organizations through research
projects and strive to always keep the system up to date. The
service element is important element to bring and make science
very actionable.

Focusing on Europe, Dr. De Groeve shared information on theEuropean Green Deal which is a flagship project for policy andwhich is trying to achieve climate goals, and attain a sustainable
society while balancing the needs of the environment, economy
and the people. He continued to stress how the EC JRC works
with the European overarching policies on communities, disasterrisk reduction and climate change adaption. As an outcome of the
Sendai Framework, the Disaster Risk Management Knowledge
Center was set up. It is the first knowledge center of theCommission that tries to bring together many stakeholders, many
director generals, many scientific units and partners into a
coherent group. It is a continuous dialogue to bring science where
it is needed and continued to explain how the Knowledge Centre
works connecting and improve risk knowledge, risk management
and transfer of knowledge to science policy interfaces, andpractitioners.

He finalized his speech with following messages. The politicalpolicy framework is there, ready to absorb science with many
opportunities. The coming 10 years are very crucial and much isneeded to be done. Everyone should go in the same direction
and should contribute as much as possible. The Horizon Europe
program, the research funding program in Europe, offers grants inthis approach to deliver science and to innovate. There are newelements focused on innovation on mission-oriented research,trying to achieve clear goals in the next 7 to 10 years which will
make a difference with the research. Open science policy is
crucial and is a new approach to partnerships.

He referred to the new revisions to the European Union Civil
Protection Mechanism legislature which added the establishmentof a knowledge network to share, learn and tackle the challenges.
Two new challenges specifically he focused was on understanding
risk management by setting resilience goals collectively among
Member States across all sectors; and to develop common
scenarios; scenarios as complex as the current COVID crisis as amulti-sectoral,
multi-threat
environment
where
betterpreparedness can be done. Along this context, he applauded
GADRI and other institutions for all the work that has been done
during the past years and continued to highlight the efforts by JRC
relating to better communicating and managing knowledge, tosharing data openly, to transform science into services which areconcrete, and to engage in mission-oriented research.
He continued to state that it is not only about knowledge
production, it is not only about doing a piece of research andleaving it as accomplished. The ultimate goal should be to how itneeds to be managed; emphasis is the need to be managed - todeliver it to the audience that can use it. He stressed out on the49

Hour 20

— 17:00 JST 1st September 2021

Dr. Nico Elema, Director, Periperi U, Stellenbosh University International, South Africa

Dr. Elema opened his remarks with anobservation he has made through all his
travels globally is that often people refer tothe continent, almost as a single country. It
is not the case. Africa is a massive,
massive continent. Considering the relative size of various
countries globally, it can very easily fit the United States in thewestern part of Africa; China within the central and southern part;
India within the eastern part of Africa and the whole of Europe isabout a third of the continent.

term community outreach. That is one of the spirits of Africa –community outreach, which is also strongly highlighted in the
Sendai Framework. The communities are involved from inceptionof activities to every step of the way. It is also important
strategically to engage communities. The Peri Peri partners with
the African Union, importantly, build capacities and alignthemselves with the Agenda 2063: the Africa We Want - theContinental vision and Focus, which aligns with the SDG's, andother global goals and work closely with the UNDP, and UNDRR
on integrated research for disaster risk, and its strategic labels. It
also engages and provides a voice for potential platforms. Their
academics have exposures and able to provide input to reports of
the Africa Science and Technology Advisory Group F Stag, theYouth Board, (AYAB) as well.

He shared their experiences, challenges and opportunities for the
African continent and how to move forward considering diverse
comparisons across the continent and the applicability of situations
on the work that is done on disaster risk in various parts of Africa
and the need to think of it as a homogeneous or on a regional
level.

It is necessary to recognize that climate change as a major factor
in the future and the need to focus how to build the capacity
around it, is a challenge. In addition, there are other challenges, forexample, poor risk governance, social and political instability on
the continent, economic and development fragility, fragile
environments, and now the COVID pandemic which had major
impacts. On a local level, many of the economies are very fragile
including the global economies, and the need to find ways tonavigate within these crisis spaces.

While the IPCC report came out code-red, it is time to accept thatthe climate change impact will continue to accelerate. In addition,
there is the movement of people due to terrorism and refugees andother causes; and of course the impact of COVID-19. It is more
severely felt and experienced within the African continent as wellas the inequality in terms of vaccinations. According to reports, justover 1% of the African population have been vaccinated.
Considering the vastness of the content, that is a challenge yet tobe overcome.

we all know that climate change and we need to adapt, you know,
within that, and it's really going to affect the African continent. It's,uh, it's well known that the African continent average temperature
has already increased by 1%. So I think it is a code red long ago
for the continent. Then we must, you know, address this withinalongside climate change action and see how we can respond.

Looking at the opportunities, Dr. Elema stressed that it lies within
the education sector and youth. Quoting Nelson Mandela, theformer President of South Africa “education is the most powerfulweapon which you can use to change the world.”, he said that theopportunities for Africa lies with the youth population. Almost 60%of the Africa's population is under the age of 25 and that is a
resource that will come to maturity within the next 10, 15, 20, 30
odd years and it is necessary to tap into that resource.

Research priorities, is another area of importance where theAfrican continent needs improvement. It is essential to raise thecapacities and capabilities of research including locally relevant
research within the continent, and to address these issues locallyand regionally. Then policy relevant research – while mostresearch does not contribute to informing national DRR and inclimate change policies and planning, there is a responsibility
within the research community as well to be aware and to alignthemselves and undertake research. And it need to translate thefindings into citizen and decisions makers language.

He outlined a few of the challenges facing the African continent.
Within the Periperi University network, there are 12 universities
across the continent. Utulising the power of networking by bringing
institutions together with their different capacities and resources,
they intend to employ the available capitals to challenge DRR andcapacity development. In addition, the institutions focus on various
aspects of the Sendai Framework, investing in DRR for resilience,
strengthening disaster risk governance, understanding disasterrisks but also enhancing disaster preparedness and build backbetter.

Scientists and researchers are aware of the fact that the policy
makers do not use their language. The awareness exists and it
need further work. The science community have to constantly
work to make science communication become very relevant.

From an African perspective, the capacity to network and to use
various dimensions of academic programmes available within
institutions, has helped these institutions to build their programs toacademic levels and be able to deliver training and short courses
through capacity development. Due to COVID, the daunting
prospect of online courses has become more feasible and a way ofcommunication. Now, many of the courses are translated to online
short courses. Perhaps, in the future, they may move to hybrid
courses to improve interaction and to integrate disaster risk
research as well.

There is research that speaks about productive interactions andnot just at the end part when the research outputs are produced,
but throughout the research process they need to involve
policymakers, and various stakeholders. At the end of the day, theuptake is a lot easier and a lot better. The answer lies not in
individual institutions,but through networks
and these institutions
bringing
theirstrengths
withininitiatives across thecontinent.

There still remains other challenges to build research capacities forthese institutions and for the need to maintain sustainable long-50

Hour 21

— 18:00 JST 1st September 2021

Discussion Panel Session I: Bridging the Collaboration Gaps : Integrating DRR and CCA for a Science in Action
AgendaChair: Prof. Andrew Collins, Leader, Disaster and Development Network, Northumbria University, UK

The session focussed on the collaboration gaps and specifically
dedicating the session to the integration between disaster risk
reduction and climate change adaptation. It will discuss bridging
the collaboration gaps, and integrating DRR and climate change
adaptation. Putting those two things together, DRR and climatechange adaptation can be seen as one example of wherecollaboration is clearly in demand and many would see these two
was part of the same agenda. But in what way can we seebringing together climate change adaptation, change citation anddisaster risk reduction?

Liviu Stirbat, Deputy Head, Adaptation Unit, European
Directorate General for Climate Action

4th objective of the EU strategy is to speed up adaptation. They
are also seeking to make adaptation more systemic, where thegaps exist. He shared information on their initiatives to increaseinternational resilience and preparedness, but also to scale up
finance and to foster exchanges on a global scale on adaptation
so that all are able to learn from each other.

Presentation by Dr. Liviu Stirbat highlighted
some of the important components on the
recently adopted EU strategy on adaptation
to climate change. He gave an overview of
the European Green Deal and how climatechange adaptation is integrated to all facets of society and how
disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction has been
one of the main directives and vectors of orientation when they
designed the strategy and the Green Deal.

Adaptation is very relevant because this is where innovation
comes into play and shared information on what they do on
innovation in adaptation and disaster management.
They seek to accelerate the rollout of Adaptation Solutions. The
Horizon Europe mission on adaptation to climate change, including
societal transformation, flagship on research and innovation, willseek to reduce climate related risks. There are guidance for the
public and the private sector on how to climate proof theirinfrastructure, for instance, to make sure that the infrastructure thatis going to be there for at least half a decade is able not only towithstand the temperatures of tomorrow and the weather of today,
but the climate of tomorrow.

The European Green Deal, is the European climate law whichcame in to a legislative action in July 2021, which sets as a legallybinding objective, climate neutrality for the European Union by
2050. It is also the first ever piece of legislation that sets binding
objectives on adaptation as well and have made a lot of progress.
It is the vision that by 2050 the EU will be a climate resilient
society, and fully adapted to the unavoidable impacts of climatechange.

On the protection gap, they work with insurers and not just on
adaptation but also in disaster based management. In general toincrease the penetration of insurance solutions in the European
market, and to increase modelling to look at innovative solutions
like parametric insurance or even the insurance of nature based
solutions.

But climate adaptation and the disaster management components
are also in the EU biodiversity strategy, in the agricultural strategy,
and also in the forest strategy. They were also adopted back inJuly 2021 as well as in sustainable finance. It goes beyond theusual collaboration between climate interpretation and disaster risk
reduction and disaster risk research that happens in the researchworld.

He closed his presentation with the flagship initiative, Horizon
Europe, which is the European Union's funding mechanism forresearch and innovation. Five of these flagships have been
identified. Four of them are related to climate action. The Green
Deal is the one on adaptation to climate change. It has been
designed as a big influx of funding resources, communications
around adaptation with very clear numerical objectives that will bereachable within 10 years. They are supposed to be ambitious but
feasible as well. It will start mostly as a collaboration inside theEuropean Union. The goal is once tested, it will roll out globally.
Partners will be invited to join. It will be started at the EU level witha global blanket
awarenessincrease in termsof the risks that
EU will face andcontinue to helping
communities
tobuild
pathwaystowardsasustainable
adaptation.

A brief overview of the mechanisms of the adaptation strategy
which are relevant to the bridges and the gaps to fill on the topic
was given as well. The objective is to make adaptations smarter seeking to improve knowledge, but also to manage uncertainty bypushing the frontiers of knowledge on adaptation. It is acontinuation of what the European Union has already been doingfor quite a while, funding a lot of research into adaptation in
conjunction with Disaster Risk Reduction. Several of the EU
funded projects are setting standards at global levels and also
trying to increase the quality and quantity of risk and lost data, andthis extends beyond just a climate related event. But to disasters ingeneral to allow for example, policymakers to make better
informed decisions, to allow companies to better protect
themselves better but also individuals. For example, when one
buys a home, they should be able to not only have access to thepast disaster data of that particular property, but also futureaccurate forecasts of what the property is scheduled to withstand.
And also bringing all of this on climate adapt, which is the EU
somehow flagship platform for knowledge which already exists, but
are trying to make it even more useful and more connected. The

51

Deidre Brock, Member of Parliament, Scottish Government,
Shadow SNP Spokesperson for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs, Scotland

most affected by the climate crisis, have their voices heard, young
people, indigenous communities and disadvantaged groups. The
indigenous communities are often those most affected by theactivities that contribute to climate change, such as deforestation,
and are more likely to live in the areas hardest hit. Young people
are those who will have to live longest with the consequences ofclimate change and those from disadvantaged communities areless able to afford mitigation of its consequences. The Spanish
Government sought to include the voices of young people at COP
through their youth climate program. A series of events putting
young people from around Scotland at the heart of the climate
conversation and have recruited local champions from every local
authority in Scotland to connect their communities in the fightagainst climate change. The Scottish government has also createdthe world's first climate justice Fund, which supports vulnerable
communities in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda to address theimpact of climate change.

The Member of Parliament, Dr. Deidre
Brock focused her presentation on
actions taken by Scotland to tackle
the twin crises of climate change andecological decline.
In her presentation, Dr. Brock gave adetailed and informative presentation on manging climate crisis
which has been in the forefront of efforts by Scotland, and how
they have set challenging targets to cut emissions, develop
renewable power and funding schemes to increase energy
efficiency in homes.
On the COP 26 to take place in Glasgow, Scotland in November
2021 she stated, is a critical moment for the world to deliver its
most ambitious and tangible climate actions. The opportunity
paves the way to Scotland to assist with shaping the narrative on
climate change; and to show the world the work they are
undertaking to manage the climate emergency.

In closing, she stated that they look forward to COP with hopeknowing just how important its outcomes will be to the country, theplanet, and future generations. Collaboration between all thecountries of the world is more crucial than ever before, and they
really look forward to seeing the important work of GADRI Summit,
helping to create the necessary pressure at COP to stimulate theurgent changes to government policy this climate crisis deserves.

Scotland is working closely with the UK Government and manyother partners to deliver a safe, secure and successful Glasgow
COP and strive to engage in particular with those who have been
historically side lined in climate discussions and to ensure those

Desmond Manatsa, Africa Alliance of Disaster ResearchInstitutes, Bindura University of Science, Zimbabwe

some international policy processes on climate change and DRR,
in particular, discussions in negotiations under the UNFCCC
despite the relevance and importance of DRR to adaptationagreements strategies and approaches.

Prof. Manatsa’s presentation focusedon DRR and efforts to cope up withclimate change in southern Africa. He
stated that as far as the DRR andclimatechangeadaptation
areconcerned, they are adhering to
adopting a more integrated approach to the issues. However, hehighlighted, that they notice that there is no coordination andcommunication between adaptations disaster risk management
within the communities, which includes institutional frameworks,
political processes, funding mechanisms, information exchange.
Further, practitioner communities have developed independently
and remain largely separate to debts and there is no evidence ofsystematic integration of disaster risk management and climatechange adaptation.

As a result, key donors, and institutions, are struggling to ensure
good communication and collaboration between their own disastermanagement in climate change departments and units affecting
their ability to influence the common processes between the DRR
and climate change. Therefore, they recommend that DRR must
be a component of adaptation to sustainable approaches ifsustainable approaches are to be achieved. By realizing that
adaptation and DRR have similar names in terms of seeking tobuild resilience in the face of a climate change hazards, theyshould focus on both reducing peoples vulnerability hazards, andimproving methods to anticipate, resist, cope with and recoverfrom the impact. In so doing, climate change adaptation should
focus on climate related hazards such as floods, droughts, andstorms. Both adaptation and DRR assistance, as they both build
resilience in hazards in the context of sustainable development,
climate change adaptation requires to reshaping and designing
development and connect practices to respond effectively to new,unscripted environmental changes. Likewise, DRR seeks to
influence development decision making and protects development
aspirations from environmental related risk effectiveness of both
adaptations are limited if they are not viewed within the broader
context of sustainable development

Projects related to climate change and disaster risk reduction
operate in silos and independently of each other. This is mostly
because climate change is, housed in a climate change
government department and the disaster risk reduction is within
the civil protection units. Therefore, to find the common ground for
those two, is very difficult when they are being coordinated fromdifferent government agencies. For example, government
department responsible for increasing resilience and DRR in somecases, are way over ability to extreme climate events, but they
have no means of coordination. This leads to the development ofparallel efforts in all areas. This lack of coordination is evident in52

Sarah Webb, UK Research and Innovation

Next question is around how to evaluate the feasibility ofadaptation options and outcomes for resilient sustainable
development and making sure that everyone knows what they are
doing is possible and is actually the best thing to do. While there
are very many overarching high-level common approaches tothis, it needs a local adaptation and a local scale. Adaptation
options must be codesigned with the end user at all scales andthe feasibility and evaluation is required all the way through sothat people do not actually create an extra burden on otherpeople when doing this. It needs to be built in from the start fromany research; and codesigned alongside all the participants sothat the knowledge and experience; and local communities are
actually built in not marginalized.

UKRI is one of the major funders of
research and innovation and fund various
collaborative interdisciplinary research
programmes. Dr. Webb continued to statethat DRR is a critical component in help
globally handle climate change issues and adapting andbecoming more resilient to climate change in the run up to
COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021.
UKRI as main research fund in the UK is also one of the main
partners of the COP26. They contribute and facilitate tosustainable and inclusive climate adaptation and resilience. UKRI
aims to demonstrate local leadership for the global good. ThroughProf. Mark Pelling and IPCC, they have formed four corequestions to bring coherence to the workshops. The collaboration
gaps that needs to be addressed, and there is a need to bringevidence-based decision making into policy development. Thereis also a need to link disaster risk reduction with climate change
adaptation and to link the disciplines, social sciences, engineeringand innovation together for innovative solutions. This should bedone in an action-oriented way which adapts from the national, tothe regional, to the local.

Question three is around examples of the transformative
adaptation research, enabling action through addressing issues
such as social justice, capability, and governance. And there arevarious examples from this. Prof. Mark Pelling will be coveringsome of this.
The last question is for UKRI - how can research funders,
universities and data managers best champion inclusive, urgent
and solution orientated adaptation research? And this is actually
making us rethink our actual roles and is actually the topic of thenext discussion panel.

First question, what research is needed to respond to theadaptation gap? - looks at the differences between the current
adaptation actions and those needed to avoid, and the wellbeing
in the future. One of the things that is clear from what UKRI done
so far is there is not a single solution that will work for everyone,and not all are starting from the same place. Tackling climatechange needs a bigger systems approach, and connect research
globally, building trusted relationships and learning from eachother.

UKRI is trying to build new partnerships while trying to maintainexisting partnerships and making science actionable; and looking
to provide evidence that can be used by policymakers both in the
UK and globally. The core questions set aligned with the UK's
COP ambitions will feed into various initiatives and developments.
As Dr. Nico Elema said, working with networking is actually key toour success and we look forward to contributions from the GADRI
community.

Mark Pelling - UK Research and Innovation

opportunity for people-centred research on climate change risk.
Very often climate change risk is driven by climate modelling,which sets the context within social research. This program asks
the question that climate change risk can perhaps also be driven
by social questions, by vulnerability, by capacity to adapt.

Prof. Pelling continued on the lessons
learned from the Global Challenges
Research Fund and GCRF principles
which reflect the ambition of otherinitiatives going forward particularly, theAdaptation Research Alliance. These
focuses around research excellence and twining that also withsolutions focused and equitable partnerships as the core way ofdeveloping capacity and deploying research. Responding in some
way to Professor Manatsa’s comment around the difficulty withwhich research is able to enable facilitate policymakers to dodifferent things, and sometimes even make difficult decisions,science, then, according to the GCRF principles is not just about
generating knowledge, but is about facilitating new partnerships.
That means equity in partnerships, which is really difficult thing to
do. That is one of the key lessons. There is considerable appetite
for equitable partnerships, and indeed new ways of working havereally blossomed in the last five years. The management ofpartnerships cannot be taken for granted.

The second is a program called Multi Hazard and Systemic Risk.
This really encourage researchers in their policy practice partners
to place climate change risk in the context of other risks. There
are many other projects placing climate change risk in the context
of other natural hazards, i.e. geophysical hazards. But what they
have really encouraged them to do is to move beyond thegeophysical and the climate into other sources of harm and risk,
particularly for low income and marginalized individuals andgroups. And, of course, COVID is a prime example of that, where
many of the lessons of building resilience to natural hazards
including the climate change can also prepare the way for otherunexpected shocks.
In terms of climate change, it takes into what is called climate
development resilient pathways. As a final comment he statedthat there is recognition, that disaster risk reduction and its
emphasis on development, its emphasis on bringing together
vulnerability and hazard, does provide a resource of capacity andscience and associated policy to give substance to climate
resilient development pathways, which looks set to be a coreagenda coming out of the IPCC and COP26. The ambition is todo everything, to bring together adaptation, mitigation, and social
justice. But certainly, on disaster risk reduction, the GADRI
community has been championing that for some time and it is wellrecognized.

Resolving the climate crisis through the lens of social justice isperhaps not just about engaging with the existing set ofstakeholders and their existing relationships, but provoking new
conversations. Perhaps elevating the voices of those who mightotherwise be marginalized in these policy conversations. Scienceis a key language to enable that conversation.
He shared information on two global challenges research fundprograms. First programme is Equitable Resilience. It provides an53

Hour 22

— 19:00 JST 1st September 2021

Discussion Panel Session II: Bridging the knowledge Gaps: Exploring solutions for Transforming Data into Action
Chair: Dr. Tom De Groeve, Deputy Head of Unit, Disaster Risk Management Unit, European Commission, Joint ResearchCentre (EC-JRC), Italy

This session explored the 2021 new initiatives by the EU
especially the launch of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism: A
Knowledge Network. The Knowledge Network is thought up as asolution for pooling knowledge, expertise and experience acrossParticipating States, as well as a place for debate on knowledge
gaps and foresight for future disaster risk management. A further
aspect of the session was to consider how communication andmedia development enables the bridging of knowledge gaps
through a whole of society objective, influencing social andbehavioural change to enable disaster risk reduction. What are thekeys to more comprehensive bridging of knowledge gaps throughactivating data and information for utilized knowledge? How might
GADRI institutions use their disaster research data processes tohave more impact in disaster risk reduction?

EC-JRC: Science Pillar of the Knowledge Network by
Dr. Marzia Santini

collaborate with twelve different directory generals of the European
Commission with periodical meeting to exchange on tools,
methodologies and approaches, and to try to coordinate theirperspectives on policies. They aim to serve not only the European
Commission, but of course, the Member States, the participating
States and the larger communities beyond the European
Commission and the European Union.

Dr. Marzia Santini discussed about theDisaster Risk Management Knowledge
Centre of JRC which has been designated tobe the leading entity for the science pillar of
the Union City Protection Knowledge Network.

She shared information of flagship reports on science for DRM.
The latest one published in 2020, is a product in which they try toperiodically evaluate the state-of-the-art of the knowledge in DRM,
gaps with a multidisciplinary and multi-risk approach and tackle all
the different phases of the integrated disaster risk management
cycle.

Starting from the JRC Mission to be the providers of up-to-date,robust and high-quality scientific facts to back the European Union
policies, Dr. Santini shared information on how they strive to be on
top of things from policy areas at different stages of the policy
cycle, and all the way from the agenda setting to the evaluation of
the policies.

In 2019, the Commission decided to establish the Union Civil
Protection Knowledge Networks. They intend to reinforce themaintenance and building of the knowledge base. They will
facilitate it with a networking approach to identify innovative
solutions among the Member States and beyond it so that it will bean open platform where everyone is welcome to participate. There
will be two different pillars: one for capacity development work forscience; and the other for the science pillars. The Disaster Risk
Management Centre as the leading entity, will be collecting andengaging with all existing networks and institutions inside andoutside the EU to make it a scientific pillar as useful as possible forthe decision makers. The integration of the Union Civil Protection
Knowledge Network will include the national risk assessment
recommendations, dataset explorers, risks and urban supports. In
the second stage, they will step towards the future and will aim tolaunch new activities and establish new partnership to expand thescience that would build a new face of this engagement with theMember States, with the different countries and also with theirrespective scientific communities.

One of the first challenges, she stated, is to make sense of thevast amount of knowledge that is available in the world. There are
hundreds and thousands of different sources from different sides
and stakeholders and there is a need to be able to recognize therelevant information to filter them to validate, extract and distil themessages that are important for the decision makers to draft theirpolicy agendas and implement them. What is self-evident for thescientific community is very often not such for the policy makers.
For example, a scientific result that is self-explanatory for scientificcommunity, needs to be translated into a language understandable
by the policymakers. That has been the mandate of the Knowledge
Centre of the Joint Research Centre for some time now, and they
have excelled in it. The Disaster Risk Management Knowledge
Centre is connected to the Union City Protection Mechanism toenable the Member States of the European Union to better
cooperate among each other from cases of disaster to emergency
response to prevention.
In order to reply to the global agreements on climate change andthe development of the sustainable development goals, it wasdeemed necessary to integrate the challenges and responses.
Realising that there is an increased need for the systematic
reviews of the knowledge, they have decided to increase andinvest the effort for knowledge management. With examples of theDisaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre, various otherknowledge centres were launched.
With the Union Disaster Resilience Course, they work on society
resilience to the impacts of mega events such as COVID-19
pandemic. The Commission is also interested in identifying
transboundary scenarios possibly with cascading effects, toexercise and plan against them. In addition, they closely

JRC: Science Pillar of the Knowledge Network—Union Civil
Protection Knowledge Network, UCPKN

54

Dr. Zuzana Stanton-Geddes, The World Bank

solutions, and early warning systems. It also highlighted, certain
gaps, and steps that can be taken up by future action andresearch. Again, investment and data, especially for hazards,
there is a need to apply this knowledge against actual
investments that maximize core benefits and to learn from theimplementation and gather information about the impacts on thecore benefits as the available information quite standard and verymuch underestimated.

Presentation by Dr. Zuzana Stanton-Geddes
was on a collaborative effort between theEuropean Commission, and the World Bank to
explore ways to transform data into action
through the lens of recent analytics. It had contributions frommany individual experts from research institutes and universities.
The starting points and the main issues managed areinvestments in prevention and preparedness which are still much
lower than the expenditures of post-disaster. She stated that thishas to do with insufficient data, about disaster and climate risks
and the impacts, but also limited information about costs andbenefits in investing in prevention.

The third part of the study on capacity covered discussions with arange of civil protection representatives to understand theirchallenges, and their needs. Information was gathered about
financial resources, limits or challenges for cross sectoral
coordination; and these mainly highlighted the existing technicalcapacity gaps. Although these representatives wish to use risk
assessments, they do not know how to include it into their work,
planning for emergency preparedness or planning for risk
reduction. In local levels, they lack capacity to continuously
update it, and knowledge on
how to use new tools.

The work has also noticed that there is lack of linkages between
the different aspects of disaster resilience, finance andinvestments; and the capacity. These elements were address intheir study by analysing and comparing disaster risk within EU
Member States.

She reiterated throughout
her presentation that there
are many gaps and muchneeds to be done tocontinuously invest and to
be able to provide soundpolicy advice. The EU is a data rich region in comparison toothers. However, there are still gaps, whether it has to do with thecatastrophic modelling or even obtaining information about
insurance penetration across EU Member States which is actually
very hard to do. Related to this is also economic benefits andcosts, and applied research is really critical for certain hazards
and for certain core benefits to be able to capture. For example,
they have looked at 74 case studies, and that is only a third of thecase studies they looked at and identified many gaps. She statedthat there is a huge opportunity to have a better framework or aknowledge network to track and evaluate a different kind ofdisaster investments and also be able to gather this kind of
information in an open and transparent manner.

She shared information on how they were able to give a better
understanding of disaster and climate risks with the catastrophic
modelling. The results generated were pitted again countries tofind out what they have in place to protect themselves fromfinancial impacts of disaster. They found that some countries use
emergency reserves, where they might have contingent credit inplace, or they rely on insurance mechanisms to be able to protect
themselves from such impacts.
The analysis focused only on two hazards and there are manygaps in terms of the availability of data. It was noted that financealone cannot solve all the challenges posed by disasters andclimate change.
The second part on investment for which they have used thereports from the National Institute of Building Sciences, which has
communicated the kind of benefits and costs of certain risk
mitigation measures which they were aiming for in their study. By
adopting the triple dividend of resilience, a methodology which
was developed by the World Bank and the Overseas
Development Institute, which considers avoided losses, which isquite traditional but also tries to look at unlocking economic
potential and various core benefits.

Finally, in the context of COVID-19, she said she believes
resilient recovery is a great opportunity to promote both research
and action for disaster resilience. Disaster risk management has
been put in the spotlight and at least within the EU, they knowthat substantial resources will be available and therefore there
are opportunities for all of them. Just as their study was acollaboration between different stakeholders, she underlined that
only through collaboration that data can be transform into action.

The report also highlighted that smart investments that linkdisaster and climate change, can bring in substantial benefits.
Some case studies and examples showed where and how
countries really made efforts and taken actions in prevention andpreparedness, and these included green measures, nature-based
Ms. Lisa Robinson, BBC Media Action

That also means that everyone is an actor in this communication,in both talking about it, understanding it, and making sense of it tothemselves, and in their own world. When thinking aboutknowledge, it is important to remember that what we might callaudiences or general populations have their own knowledge andthat knowledge itself is really important although it is often
overlooked.

The presentation by Ms. Lisa Robinson started
with the question: What do you think risk
communication is? How would you describe itor how would you define it?
With the answers received from the audience, she stated, that it
is about imparting information, sharing knowledge, telling people
about risk, and helping them understand it. But way back in 1989,
the National Research Council gave a definition - they described
it as an interactive process of exchange of information andopinions among individuals, groups and institutions. Earlier in theprevious session, Prof. Mark Pelling mentioned the word
“conversation” and the idea is that risk communication issomething that is ongoing, it is dynamic, and it involves everyone.

On the role of media and communication, and in the exchange
amongst different actors, it is important to remember also that
there is a very dynamic network in which everybody participates.
People often thinks of media as where one picks up the phone,talk to somebody at the news station and hopefully they will
broadcast the message. It does not quite work that way. There
are a lot of factors, not only the one who controls the media, themajor channels, but also who is participating in that media.
55

In terms of social media, COVID has shown lots of false andmisleading information, but that is not unique to COVID or even tosocial media. That happens when nobody at all is involved. It is
the same with risk communication that complicates the situation.

Decision making around risk happens at so many different levels,
political and policy levels, community levels, household andindividual levels. In order to communicate risk more effectively, it
is necessary to seek ways of collaborating in novel ways, acrossboundaries, across professional boundaries and scientists,
media, policymakers, ordinary people, and need to find ways tocommunicate better amongst themselves and to communicate
better with wider audiences.

There are also issues depending on with whom the messages
are related to, which groups or communities; and the access to
information, access to channels or platforms to be able to not justreceive information, but to share back, talk back to whoever
sharing that information. There are communities who may nothave access to mobile phones and media or do not have the timeor the ability or the resources to develop digital literacy, and notable to distinguish between the credibility of certain sources orinformation.

She closed with an example of work they have done in East
Africa. In this case, the dynamics between journalists andmeteorological officers were not working and they avoided eachother. The Met officers felt the journalists were not representing
weather correctly. Journalists thought the scientists were looking
down on them. They went through a long process of practical
exercises building those relationships. A lot of times, it is about
making those connections across boundaries long before one has
to deal with an urgent crisis. The met officers and the journalists
have for several years made radio programs together tocommunicate to farmers and fishermen in East Africa. Throughthe practical exercises, they found a way to communicate in amuch more practical and engaging way. The audiences noticed
the difference as well and their ratings for those radio programs
were much higher thananything they have done
before.
Taking inspirationfrom them, she stated, that
we all need to push throughthose challenges that wealready know exists; and findways to establish relationships, build collaborations, and just try to
work a bit better together to communicate risk more effectively.

On the production side, one also need to consider the skills andthe capacity of different media stations and different technicalexperts to be able to communicate about risk effectively. If there
is a local media station who can barely pay their reporters,
chances are, they do not have extra funding to really give them,or skill them up and help them understand the complexities of risk
or even pair them up with the technical experts who do have that
information. On the other side, those technical experts, with highlevel communication skills, are needed to match up with thepeople in the media side as well; to come together to be able tocommunicate in risk in a way that is interesting, relevant, andengaging; to get the message through so that it really resonateswith the audience on the other side; and also to be able to prompt
some of that open discussion and sometimes very heated topics
and to manage those conversations well. Then to process theconversations that come out and take those towards really
productive decision making.
A few examples from the Q&A session:
Chair: Communication is a challenge for all of us, no matter
where we are, whether we deal with policy or with economic
actors or with citizens, etc. In the case of Joint Research Centre
this is very true and has become an increasingly important
aspect. They should not just be scientists, but also should beknowledge managers. Communication is seen as a strategic
responsibility for the Joint Research Centre, to be more
responsible in this area to bring the messages where they should
be and to have more impact than more change. Whether you takea similar view on communication whether you feel it as a part ofyour responsibility from your institutes to communicate to thegeneral public?

principles of the open DRI is also that the data needs to be locallyowned, locally generated. That is a huge undertaking and really
important to connect. As Marzia and Lisa were saying, there aredifferent holders of knowledge and they need to be involved.
Today, if we think about what is the knowledge repository, it is notjust the library or online catalogue of reports, it is everything
possible. It includes those local communities and even theirtraditions. We need to think broader. It is a very important
initiative. And the Bank supports it.
Chair: lately we use the acronym FAIR also for this. It is the kindof open data that has been around for awhile, but lately it is reallythis FAIR, findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable – four
keywords that are good. They do not mean the data has to be
centrally available, it's just data is good if it is findable, accessible,
interoperable and reusable. The FAIR principles are being rolled
out also through all our work and hopefully other research
institutes will follow the same FAIR principles. Zuzanna, youmentioned the central repository is not the way to perhaps collectknowledge.

The role of open data: open data is being championed by the
Bank for a very long time and the GFDRR program and etc Opendata has been very important also in the European Commission,and open data is the default way of doing things. In Horizon
Europe it will be about open science, and open data. Are there
any specific remarks on the role of open data, the need for open
data and why this is so important.
Answers:

Marzia how are we in the knowledge center managing thisknowledge. So how is this done? What about the risk data hub for
instance?

Zuzanna - the bank promotes free access to development data
and a big part of it is also initiated or supported by the Global
Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, which is called open
DRI - open data for resilience. It is a collaborative effort or call fora cooperative effort to collect, to analyse, and to share data.
There are several tools. There is also certain capacity building
with training videos and other elements. The bottom line is therecommendation that data should be as open as possible. It
should be transparent in the sense what it contains, and what it
does not contain, and how it can be used. One of the key

Marzia: - First of all, all our platforms and services are of course
making available all the data that we use. We are not actually
storing all the data that we use from the multiple sources in ourservers. We simply connect to them and this is probably the way
to go. For example, having web services where you can visualize
and also analyse and play with data. Even if they are not centrally
located in the framework of the Union Civil Protection Knowledge
Network, we hope that all the different countries and respective
56

The point is that the data shouldbeopen as long as they are yourdata should bedata. Yet, this is very often
open as long as
the problem and this wethey are your data
hope to go beyond this withthe knowledge network sciencepillar and make really a collaborative environment where there areplatforms that are online and can allow people to analyse andcompare data from multiple sources, even if they are located indifferent places, physically.

level, at regional level, and all with an incentive to make the data
open and available where it is appropriate. Hopefully, throughthese initiatives and bigger awareness that open data actually has
an added value, we will be able to generate more and make itavailable to many others and also cross sectors..
Charles - The only other point I was coming up with was how toincentivize. In the academic world, the publish or perish is themain incentive. If it has been mooted to try and elevate publicationof data to the same level as publication of peer reviewed journals,
but that really does not seem to be much of an incentive. We
need to look for new incentives for opening the data. Money is an
incentive and the sponsors are very powerful in this regard.

Prof. Charles Scawthorn—Number of years ago we founded anorganization called Agora the Alliance for Global Open Risk
Analysis, and it was not very successful. One of the reasons wasthat we found there were many obstacles to open risk analysis,
particularly open data. There were very few incentives for people
to make their data open. Now that the world has evolved to someextent, sponsors are encouraging open data. For people who arepaying for the data or encouraging it, and that is not a definite
improvement.

Chair:– The last comment from Lisa on the role GADRI. Whatwould you recommend all the institutes to do on communicationand do it strategically or ad hoc or collaborate, any
recommendations from your side to be most impactful?
Lisa: – Although I cannot make a recommendation for all theinstitutes, but what I thought is that if you and your institute do notcommunicate, someone else will. Someone else will fill thatvacuum with the technical information that perhaps you may or
may not agree with. Think carefully about your own
communication strategies and who will communicate in yourabsence. And is that a really credible source that you would be
happy with communicating in your absence? Or would you reallylike to step into that ring and
make
sure
that the really
If you and yourvaluabledata
andinformation that you
institute do nothave can be sharedcommunicate,more widely and cansomeone else will.
be put towards betteruse.

One of GADRI’s initiatives is to foster and try to create open
databases, but there are still obstacles. Many of the countries, forexample generate data, but do not make it open. In the US, alldata that is generated by the federal government is, by definition,
public domain which means it is not even owned by thegovernment, it is public domain. But the states in the UnitedStates will still control their data and do not make it open.
Chair: – It is not a simple and easy task. Otherwise, it would
have been done already so many times. But just to say one thing
following that, is that the funders have a big influence and I thinkin the European context, for instance, a new program Horizon
Europe will really make an effort. There will be so much new risk
analysis done under this program that is funded now at a local

Hour 23— 20:00 JST 1st September 2021

Discussion Panel Session III: Bridging the Science-Policy Gaps: Contextualising Governance to Explore Opportunities
for Action
Chair: Prof. Jörgen Sparf
The session will discuss the science policy gap: there has been
an increase of the use of those terms science, evidence,research, in some of the major and global agreements. For
instance, the Sendai Framework has a lot more of mentioning
these things compared to the Hyogo framework. It is a sign ofscience becoming even more and more important than policy. At
the same time, scientific evidence is great because it is conveying

an impression of precision and prediction and control. At the sametime, scientific evidence can be misinterpreted or tweaked in a lotof different ways. Depending on the context it is being used, it
may have very different outcomes. These are some of the topics
that will be touch upon in this session with short presentations by
three distinguished guests.

David Alexander, University College London, UK

Looking at disaster risk reduction in the face fairly and squarely,
the fact is that relatively few decisions are made on the basis ofevidence and research. It is hoped that they are the key decisions
and that there will be increasing use of evidence from researchalthough it is not always easy to use. It is a time when disasters
are increasingly common and they cannot be ignored.
Unfortunately, it is done with a worldwide relief system andnational relief systems that are extremely inefficient at asomewhat in crisis because of the increase in the scope, therange, the impact, the seriousness of the frequency of disasters.
There is a need for better use of information, better use ofevidence and in fact to a much more seriously, facing up to the
problems caused by disaster.

Prof. Alexander presented on the natureand the use or the lack of use of evidence.
He started with a diagram, which had its
origins back in the 1930s. He stated thatthe question is not so much how basic facts
and statistics data are transformed into information, or indeed somuch about how the information is interpreted in order to generate
understanding. It is really a question of the upper part of the
pyramid. How do we then derive action from the knowledge that isavailable, that we can either utilize or not utilize according to thecases?

57

One of the problems is“corruption” – there isevidence and clerical
work done on it andeven it is one of theprinciple
causesofdisaster. That does notbode well for the use ofevidence.
Itisnevertheless naïve to suppose that all we have to do is provide
evidence, and governments and decision makers hungering for it
will use it. It is naïve to suppose that all decisions will be based
upon evidence. All the policy will be formulated necessarily on thebasis of the best available evidence. It is also naïve to supposethat evidence necessarily matters, even if it is incontrovertible.

say what will happen next, which is very often done with themagnitude, frequency, return period issues associated withnatural hazards. Among problems, there might also be that thepast is not a guide to the future. That is particularly true withsome of the three main hazards that threaten us in the future.
One of those is climate change. One is instability and migration,and the other is the failure of technology. In no such cases is theevidence incontrovertible about what is likely to happen. There
are some questions associated with this.

But what is evidence? It is a rather difficult concept. It can indeed
be precise and decisive, although rarely so. More frequently it isequivocal. Just imagine the equivalencies that arose in trying tointerpret COVID-19 about which we knew very little when it firstarrived and had to learn as we went through it. There wastherefore a huge degree of ambiguity in the evidence over
COVID. It was much discussed and it led to much puzzlement.

Is evidence objective, or is it merely yet another perception of
how the world is? And that also begs the opposite question of towhat extent can we make decisions without the evidence? And
are they likely to be reliable decisions if we do so?

One is to what extent is evidence the surrogate from actual
practical experience. In other words, evidence is probably based
upon someone else’s experience, but does that allow it to betransmitted to get through to those who have not experienced?
Whatever the phenomenon is, but have to make decisions aboutit.

In the modern world with the growth of information technology,
there is an objective, measurable reality, and there are various,
perhaps many perceived realities. But because the perceived
realities give rise to actions, there is manufactured reality based
upon those actions and the opinions that are behind them. In fact,
we not merely have to deal with the objective reality, but withwhat people think is reality, and that is proving to be an enormous
problem with social media.

There are indeed cases where evidence is simply uninterpretable,
and that begs the question of what is it evidence and what does it
mean? But there are frequently cases, and they are easy toidentify around the world in some instances of evidence being
ignored, distorted, or used selectively.
Now evidence is always used selectively. However, the questionis exactly how is it used selectively and what are the criteria for
selectivity. Most evidence is not proof. Some is, but that is
relatively rare. It therefore points the direction, but it does notincontrovertibly say that things are as they seem to be. Thatmeans that it has to have an interpretation of evidence. It does
not demonstrate itself mostly exactly what it is and it has to beable to interpret evidence in a way that does not mislead people.
That leads us into a very difficult domain, which is exactly what istruth and exactly what do people think truth is.

He continued to that we live in a world that is characterized byturmoil, characterized by dynamic change and moving forward
into domains that we hardly know. We are having to deal with that
manufactured reality and that objective reality, and that perceived
reality. Somehow meld all of these together in a way that we caninterpret the evidence. What we have to avoid is all of this leading
towards anomie and nihilism. In other words, to a situation where
there is a breakdown of standards and values which then leads to
a completely ungovernable state of affairs, where evidence
becomes irrelevant, because there simply is not enoughgovernance to put it into the context that we need to do so. Sothat is really the challenge of what we have got to fight against.

Evidence can constrain uncertainty, and almost in all cases itcannot eradicate it. Anyone with a background in science knowsthat. In fact, in science, instead of searching for some revealed
universal truth, it is very often a controversial process where there
are viewpoints and opinions perhaps can contrast. Once again,
all use of evidence is selective.

As a last point, he stated that in a time of the dominance ofperception over objectivity, which is what we see as we struggle
to understand how to get to grips with the challenges posed bymodern media, we have to accept the fact that there are different
realities and somehow out of that we have to be able to draw theevidence and utilize it in a rational way and to support rationality.
But what we cannot do is to do that by putting our heads in thesand.

The question is which criteria is used in order to select theevidence that then may justify the decisions with. This isparticularly difficult for irregular and trending time series. In otherwords, situations looking to the past to project it into the future, to
Mr. Dzhergalbek Ukashev, Director, Center for Emergency
Situations and Disaster Risk Reduction, Kazakhstan

heads of emergency authorities in Central Asia. It also has adelegated regional resource on monitoring and implementation of
Sendai Framework which is in Central Asia and South Kazakh
region. Within the five states, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, they have implemented
several strategies to work with and the coping capacity index or
risk scale are quire different. Kyrgystan and Tajikistan are basedin high mountainous areas and Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan andTurkmenistan are more in plane terrain. In the sub-national risk
index for 2021 which is averaged value for all Central Asian
countries but Kyrgystan and Tajikistan which are high mountains
area had a higher risk. Main risks of hazards that are happening
in the region has the biggest share in earthquakes, floods andlandslides.

Interpreted
by
Mr.
Temur
KHUJANAZAROV, PhD Student, DPRI,
Kyoto University
The presentation by Mr. Ukashev, Director,
Center for Emergency Situations andDisaster Risk Reduction in Kazakhstan wasin Russian and was kindly translated by Mr.
Temur Khujanazarov.
The Center for
Emergency Situations and Disaster Risk Reduction which has apermanent state status as an interstate body, is also aninternational organization. It is a member of regional forums and58

In a context of current political and governmental decisions on
bridging science and policy gaps today, he stated that there arepolitical will and commitment to improve disaster risk
management. In addition, there are additional institutional
capacity and regulatory frameworks and governmental programs
that are taking on in action to use achievements of science andtechnology in technical programs and projects to be
implemented.

Out of the five Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan andUzbekistan are more developed. They could provide more
funding and finance to support scientific and technological side ofthe disaster prevention. All other countries, for example,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, they do not have resources andcannot provided the same fundings or finance to support
introduction of different satellite image and image processing
introduction of different digital technologies such as use ofdrones and so forth and so on. The early warning system andcenter for disaster managements are not so well developed
either. They do understand the need but lack of funding andhuman resources is a big challenge.

He stated that they support the global frameworks, for example
Sendai Framework, in terms of bringing science together. They
continue with scientific and field research work and there aremany different monitoring, forecasting, early warning prevention
systems and digital technologies that being introduced into place.
At the center as well as all other disaster prevention agencies,
are intensively using global navigation satellite system andgeographic information systems. In this connection, Kazakhstan
is in a better position compared to other countries.

He closed his presentation by thanking all donors and fundingorganization for providing and supporting them in the region andimplementing different technological and scientific knowhows. He
stated that it is also important to note that it has to be continued
in the region andthey will be happy tocooperateandcontinue working on
theseissuesinCentralAsian
countries.

Actions are also needed to assessing the current situation andidentifying the gaps for all countries and especially the ones thatare more vulnerable. It is necessary to implement different
measures to broaden scientific and technological base which isquite low in the region. All of this needs political action anddecisions to enhance and strengthen interaction between
scientists and government agencies, and implementation.
Dr. Valeria Drigo, Global Network of Civil Societal
Organisations for Disaster Risk Reduction (GNDR) Participatory data collection as a tool for actionable science

information and lastly analysing and using the data. She
highlighted some lessons learned or key factors that enabledownership and use of this data throughout the process. One of
the key challenges, she stated, that often data is available, but it
might not be using or might not be given to government in themost relevant format. Or in some cases it might not address themost pressing issues. When they were selecting the communities
to be part of the project, they work with the national partners who
are responsible for understanding what would be the areas of thecountry that were most at risk; or what would be communities
from that were at the front line of disaster which is part of the
program. What was interesting is that there was quite a lot of
freedom for national partners to come and identify their own
indicators of vulnerability and exposure. What made sense in the
country and what makes sense according to the key priorities
that national partners would identify through multistakeholder
process and they were able to own the process from the storage
and to lead. The data collected afterwards became a lot morevaluable to their partners in the country because they could
decide what would be the basis for collecting this data. There are
survey rollouts too.

Dr. Valeria Drigo presented examples of how some of theirmembers have been collecting, gathering,
analysing data and using it to influence andto create policies with it. She stated that itprobably falls a bit more in line with what
Professor Alexander was talking about on
perceived reality. She presented details of the programme “views
from the frontline” and why it is interesting, its methodology andexamples of how some countries, some members in countries
have used this data for influencing policies and local risk
assessment methodology.
She stated that they together with their members, haveconducted interviews in about 49 countries around the world. Itasks people who are in frontline of disasters, what is theirperceived threats. Or do they think what are the key hazards thatthey are facing? How do they think things could be addressed? It
is very much on the perceived reality.
The programme is structured in three main steps. First, there iscollection of data at the local levels through interviews andsurveys with communities, inside organizations and local
governments. All of this is then shared into an online opensource database where people can access this data,
disaggregated by country, community, age, gender and otherfactors. Their members at local and national levels go into
analysing this data and they draw out findings. The findings arethen used to inform actions at the local levels. For example,
putting together local action plans to address residence issues
and at the national level to support and influence government
decisions around risk and residents. So far, they have conductedinterviews in 49 countries and have collected more than 100,000
responses.

In each community the local organizations or the local partners
would either hold interviews with or focus in group discussions or
do random household surveys. Some of the main threats thathave been identified – floods, storms, drought, and disease andepidemics - most of this data were collected in 2019, which wasquite interesting. Down the list, pollution is listed as being a key
threat; unemployment and then scrolling down, there is poverty
sometimes identified as a risk or as a threat and similarly
alcoholism in some communities. There is a very diverse rangeof risks that people felt that were impacting them. This gave theflexibility to the respondents to identify what they thought would
be the main hazards or the main risk, rather than having to pickup from somewhere and being able to debate in a group where
they thought they all had the same understanding of what thepriority risks in that community was. There was quite an impact interms of the community level; in terms of what this data covered
and the focus.

On the methodology, there are three main aspects. One is theselection of the communities at risk from which to gather thedata. Second is rolling out the surveys and collecting this59Dr. Drigo continued to explain what is done with the data. First
there is a data analysis that is conducted by national and local
partners. One of the key points here is that the findings from thisanalysis are then validated with the communities. They go back to
the local level. They make sure that the conclusions or findings
makes sense to them. This data is then used to inform local actionplans to address some of the key challenges; and at national level,
partners use it to influence policy making processes.

voice stronger. What our members have been saying is that being
involved in identifying the baseline for this data, is what information
they would cover later and the information part of this survey,
helped in building the local ownership, but then contributed tostronger focus at the local level as well as in the national level.
To conclude, some lessons learned from views from the frontline
program; we have implemented this program for several years.
There is a fourth or fifth iteration. What we have learned atparticipatory processes is to help to make the data and information
actionable. It is a validation that gathering data is relevant for thecommunities and letting communities decide what is relevant intheir context is also a way to increase ownership, to increasebuying and then use of data not only by communities, but by
policymakers as well. By validating this information with
communities at the local level and not just using this data fornational policymaking or policy influencing, it is possible to look at
how extract information afterwards and how it can be used foractionable planning at the local levels.

In terms of using the data, she used some examples on how thedata has been used at the local and at the national levels. One
example is of the uptake from communities and local governmentsin the Pacific - they set up committees at the local level who are
now part of the national disaster management structure in each
district, and they use the data coming from this service to identify
the priorities that had to be addressed by working with the disastermanagement office. Communities were directly involved in these
activities and they were part of this committee and would work withthe authorities at the local level. Similarly, in Kyrgyzstan, an
example of that data that were used by a group of local womenactivists. They were able to use this data to come back to support
the priorities that they were voicing to their local government thatwas often not seen as a main priority. The data collected at local
levels show that water pollution was a main threat, and this wasoften a threat disregarded by local authorities who instead werefocusing on other threats that people did not define as a priority for
their community.
At the national levels, she shared an example of how data give
credibility to ask organizations and also support to make their

A few examples from the Q&A session:
Chair: Do you think that the scientific community shouldnecessarily be engaged, or is it more important that we, forinstance, have good quality, open data to let the data play anactive role?

Integration of both risk and the solution maybe one. In terms of
data, collection of data is not as scientific as a lot of technicalorganizations do, but I do think there is value in trying to connect tomore between academia and practitioners on the ground.

David: - I do believe we should be engaged and I think it is part ofour mission in academia to write both for other scientists and for amuch wider audience. Currently I do a lot of advocacy. I feel I havebeen driven to that position by seeing a need and having a desire
to change things to improve. But this is not being done and it could
and should be done. Perhaps we can divide between thosescientists who would rather pursue a pure science course andthere is nothing wrong with that. But providing a contingent ofscientists to fully interact with the users and people in need andthe decision makers and politicians and so on. Then I think we will
be capable of achieving our aims.

Ukashev: - To address the harzards or disasters, and climatechange, I also agree with that having data monitoring forforecasting and analysis, we would need scientific research as abasis for getting the data right. Integration of both of these parts inscientific research and scientists doing the research, would provide
outcomes to address these disasters or hazards.

David: - we need to promote to launch disaster science. The
quality of planning and management is very poor worldwide. We
have a transverse discipline that has a 100-year history. It
embraces parts of at least 42 disciplines and professions and its
task is to connect things to be able to create a common languageand dialogue with the specialists. But it needs a seat at the top
table. It needs to be promoted as something that is serious. It
needs to be a career more than it is a present.

Valeria: - We put a lot of emphasis in what communities perceive
as community collected data, I think scientific information,
especially in addressing some of these challenges, is essential.
We can get from communities what their main risks are and what
they perceive as being the main threats, but they might notnecessarily have the best solutions, especially when we think of
the world as it is today. If you ask a village and how to address the
COVID-19 pandemic, then why not have the solutions, and theymight instead have solutions for more local risks like the floods.

60

Hour 24

— 21:00 JST 1st September 2021

Discussion Panel Session IV: Bridging the Generational Gap: Catalysing Science in Action by YouthEngagement
Chair: Prof. Chipo Mudhavanhu
This session, Chaired by Prof. Chipo
Mudhavanhu, looked at bridging thegenerational gaps by catalysing science inaction by youth engagement. Current session

is on disaster research and advocacy and on how can to support
the youth to become the change the future generations need?
And how to integrate the youth in this process? How can youth
participate in disaster research?

Fang Lian, IRDR Young Scientists Programme, China

to more challenging roles such as principal investigators,
projecting leaders and community scientific member, code
designer and co-development in DRR programmes. It isnecessary to establish more platforms for multidisciplinary andtransdisciplinary corporations.

Fang Lian’s presented DRR programmes
within the IRDR.
The programmes areformulated considering the voices andopinions of young people, and more
opportunities are provided to young
professionals. There are investments especially in for disasterscience communication. The young professional expertise inusing social media. She stressed the importance to increase
opportunities for high quality mentorship from senior scientists
and for on-the-job training, for example in scientific expedition forfact finding and problem solving. They also need more seedbonding or start-up funds for young scientists, especially who do
not have much visibility. Young professionals should be exposed

At the same time, young professionals should aspire to be more
vocal and assertive in demanding more meaningful participation
in solving problems and should be more proactive in reaching out
to policy makers, and practitioners. In their conference, young
scientists play important roles and were exposes to visibility inscience and policy dialogue. They at IRDR will continue theirefforts to support the youth engagement in DRR development,
safety and also they look forward to having more corporations at
all national, regional and global levels.

Alinne Olvera, The United Nations Major Group for Children
and Youth: The Science Policy Interface

generations that have progressively and unconsciously adapted
to previously non-existing conditions. Young people compromised
to experience unfortunately and first-hand unstable systemcaused by global warming and climate change. Young people
should be invited at the international efforts to mitigate suchphenomena through policies and agreements. Therefore, theirperception of risk varies greatly compared to the previous
generation’s perceptions.

Aileen Olvera represented the youth
stakeholders group as a focal point from the
UN Major Group for Children and Youth in
the science policy interface and in particularin young scientists platform on disaster risk
reduction. While they regard science as a fundamental source ofknowledge, it must also be properly identified and acknowledged.
As part of their efforts to make science available and foster new
talent, young scientists should be given the opportunity to share
their experiences and perspectives in a meaningful space. They
should be given the chance to communicate on international
objectives, advances and progress; and to be active participantsof young advocates like in local, regional and international events.
One of the biggest gaps that persists in scientific research is thatmost of the large scale research predominantly happens in themost developed countries where technology funding underprogress-oriented mindsets facilitates efficient scientificdevelopment and practical implementation. This often implies theexistence of uneven conditions and scarce opportunities for lessdeveloped countries to partake in science, and results in theperpetration of the solid technical experimental models testing
and frameworks. This situation is of particular interest because
least development countries are usually the most prone todamage and losses during disasters. Under these circumstances,
within young scientific communities, we face a complex challenge
involved in operating scientific research in a strategic zones andvulnerable areas. Economists protect themselves withautonomously generated knowledge, reducing their dependence
on foreign countries as in every area of study. Traditional
knowledge and practices tend to be preferred over innovations
and involvement of younger generations. Nevertheless, we are ina point in time where epistemic knowledge is changing faster thanever and faster than some scientific communities can keep up
with. New, but not precisely unpredictable conditions are reachinga turning point and a holistic approach shall prevail over otherstrategies. So is the case of climate change. It is hinderingsystemic and multi-hazard associated risk by failing to engage
youth in scientific research. We are failing to interact with

Following this idea of a sense of urgency and responsibility thatare entirely different approach to lead profound science-basedchange in an otherwise unsustainable system, such as deepchange, involves the compromise and level of consciousness. In
order to engage youth in scientific research and experimentation,
we must reinvent the idea of experts leading and already paved
way. With this in mind, we must restructure lines of action andbetter for accomplished specialists creating opportunities forinnovative thinking within their work. Getting to consciously
organize forums or conferences that congregate people withsimilar interests and diverse backgrounds can be a useful tool toexchange ideas among certain specialists, and the frequently
unheard voice of young talent.
Given the previously mentioned challenge of unevenopportunities due to regional disadvantages, the creation of
global online space, or young scientists can exchange
perspectives and later transform them into consolidated projects,
team working, networking and being able to learn from eachother. Engage youth in an organised and beneficial way that can
result in concrete tools for original work. Every proposal will be
destined to fail if we do not embrace a paradigm shift towards a
dynamic space. The idea of knowledge sharing comes from aaccomplished specialists, not experts, and is integrated with aninnovative and systemic thinking left by demographic
representation of a society. While the integration of suchsynergistic approach may require serious compromise from bothparties and investment of time in the long run, the generational
gap will become narrower and surely will generate unexplored
and unexpected perspectives that will integrate a better response
towards contemporary global issues.

61

Ida Ngurah, Plan International, Indonesia

The third one they concentrate is on right and commitments.
Young people have tried to participate and to be heard on issues
they are facing or concerned most. In June 2021, PLAN Indonesia
conducted a national essay competition on climate change. It wasparticipated by more than 150 youth across Indonesia. At the endof the competition, 25 best essays were selected and published asa book. This book is about specific issues from their eyes andperspectives on climate change and on what they want people tohear.

With examples, Ms. Ida Ngurah’s presentation
covered the activities of the Plan International
Indonesia as an empowerment of theadolescents and youth, and in particular, girls,
to take collective action for systemic, socialand political change that contribute to the realization of their rights
and achieve gender equality.
She shared information on gender equality and how and what isdone in Indonesia. Most oftenly, and in particular, girls are notconsulted or being informed with proper information. However, she
stated that with the proper capacity building, they can lead to
identify their own problems, stresses and their own restorations.
They were able to come-up with a possible solution and action in
fairly local and low-cost approach. For example, in Jakarta, youth
was facilitated to identify their problems through participatory
outreach activities on why people suffer and not be prepared forannual flood. The flood is happening every year. But people andcommunities are not prepared for the floods.

There are a few challenges in the youth engagement. For
example, under the current pandemic conditions, youth
engagement can be difficult and to interact with each other on adaily basis. They do have peer groups that provide psychosocial
support. But limited access to devices, Internet, and social media
are also gaps and challenges to youth, particularly girls andmarginalized groups.
In addition, there are limited capacity building for youth and theright to engage, organize, participate, and communicate toinfluence the political and social structure. This was also stated ina study conducted by young researchers in 2021 2021. She foundthe young researchers. Found that very limited youth engagement
and capacity building available for for youth are being mentioned in
ourThey developed a simple, low-cost early warning tool for flood
warning which can provide faster signal for communities andprovide ample time for the communities to be prepared. The tool
has been selected as a finalist in Global Award organized by Safe
Step and Prudence Foundation.

She closed her remarks with the recommendation to provide moreaccessible and improved collaboration with youth networks and toadapt to their needs, including reducing the technocratic
procedures and processes; recommended as well to campaign tomake a world where, particularly girls and young women, in all
their diversity, are equally able to make decisions on their lives.
They would also like to see, particularly girls, have equal power
and they can be leaders to take part in all decision-making
processes, and there is equal representation to call out
discrimination, and equal freedom online and in public.

The second one is how and what we are doing. As an agent ofchange and ensuring that their efforts contribute to thestrengthening of community restorations and shape their own lives
and society, it is important to provide safe space and opportunity
for youth with all their diversity to be active citizens and theircollective action to tackle community issue are taken into account.
Plan Indonesia facilitate youth particularly, they are given a seatand their voices are heard in community development meetings.

Marie-Claire Graf, YOUNGO

topics. For example, when it comes to disaster risk reduction andloss and damage, young people are sent directly to thenegotiations. Within the UN, the young people cannot vote or
make decisions. But they are able to inform the process. Although
it is not done directly by sitting at decision-making tables but it isas good as it can be in government driven processes. or example,
if attending conferences or important meetings, they can raise theambitions within the stakeholders during coffee breaks orafterwards by the young people moving around to interact withthem. They try to bring across their own points through giving
written statement, or an intervention and in various instances,
there are evidence of them being on the negotiations. Informallythere is a lot of lobbying and advocacy work with young people
from different countries. Sometimes, the country stands integrated
and they vote in favour of what young people want.

Marie-Claire Graf presented on behalf of
YANGO – the acronym is a combination of
two words, youth, NGO's and it is a network.
The UN climate Change secretariat has been
hosting the international climate conference,and have a mandated youth space where all the young people cancome together to do capacity building and most importantly comeforward with policy recommendations. They work on disaster risk
reduction under the theme of loss and damage and is one of theworking themes discussed in the UN climate change negotiations.
Within the YANGO structure, they have two global focal points,
Global North and Global South and their network includes anyone
up to the age of 35. Through YOUNGO, they can become part ofthe international movement towards the climate of the UN Climate
Secretariat. They can work independently or join groups to work on
loss and damage which is covering disaster risk reduction andclimate change issues. They specifically engage young people tobridge the gaps and encourage them to come forward withlocalised or regionalised recommendation on various aspects.

Nevertheless, they are not yet there and much needs to be done.
There are many demands from young people which have not yet
been integrated. They also engaged in capacity development
activities and many young people are very interested in topics
around education and gender. There is also a good many young
people who are interested in DRR topics as well. They believe theyneed more younger people to engage to create larger groupespecially within the climate space. At least those who understandthe rather technical negotiations. Sometimes, the young people
are willing but they do not have the tools to actually become
advocates in rather technical negotiations to bring across themessage they want.

In YOUNGO, there are different active working groups working on
different aspects around climate. These are either topic which are
directly linked to the negotiations, for example loss and damage;adaptation; renewable energy, gender and climate, and so on. But
it can also be more crosscutting topics like for example humanrights or intergenerational equity. The working groups then focus
on one aspect of the negotiations or give input to cross cutting62She also introduced the Conference of Youth, which is an event
happening directly before the International Climate Conference.
The conference is dedicated to the young people where they cancome together to write and consolidate their positions collectively.
Prior to the conference, they embark on a sophisticated policy
gathering process, by starting with local youth conferences. The
information and inputs from there are given to the next level, be it
regional or international. They try to feed it into an international
policy document under the theme of loss and damage atinternational conference levels. For instance, with the COP26,
this document is given to all the delegations and also to the
Climate Conference President and other relevant people.
Although the young people are not able to sit at the tables, they
try to ensure that the voice of young people are heard despite
their absence, and they are able to influence the process and thatyoung people are actually part of the delegation at least in the

climate space. From a youth’s perspective, it is very important tohave a variety of entry points either through national government
representative channels or international. They also need young
people, especially outspoken young people. to be part of thedelegation and pushing for topics and working closely together
with the governments to be able to bring across the messages.
Only through such initiatives the young people can show the fullvalue and potential to bridge the intergenerational gap. She
commended the previous panellists who stated that “nothing
about the young people should be ever done without the young
people at the core leading the whole process”. The young people
should be engaged from the beginning to the end and need to bepart of the delegations in the climate change negotiations. The
youth need to be given space and voice in climate change
negotiations.

A few examples from the Q&A session:
Chair: The views about what matters for the progress in reducing
disasters and providing the means to better quality of life for
future generations. What we need to understand this view thatmatters most when it comes to or may be viewed or may beprioritized differently by youth?

people from these countries should be given opportunities to be
included in climate actions and other places. These are thecountries where people are hard hit and very much affected bydisasters and hazards and these kinds of things. Therefore, youth
should be actively involved in participation and being given trust
and at some places and positions in the internationalorganizations so that they can be helpful in combating hazards.

For those who can offer greater influence - how can we catalyse
that? How can we address that challenge where we tend to haveyouth views or priorities different from the priorities of those in our
greater influence. How can we address that gap?

Chair: - What would you recommend the scientists community to
do to support youth engagement for DRR? The scientists are notnecessarily engaged politically. Is there anything else we can doto bridge the generational gap down in one sentence?

Marie-Claire: - What we currently see is that at the negotiations,even a study done by the UNFCCC, the UN Climate Change
Secretariat, that there was only three young people in aleadership position. The young, it is below the age of 35 though
not particularly young, but it is kind of like very wide span to be in
any leadership positions in the climate change process where allothers have been older. Therefore, these rather young people in
the leading process may not be able to actually bring across theirown opinion, but rather to support other opinions. There is a lot of
hesitation, especially from the older generation, to give this spaceand give the trust to young people and really give them theopportunity to lead but we have to face them proactively.

Fang: - I think that from IRDR perspectives, we try to provide
more programs that cover young researchers and seniorresearchers so that they can have a platform to discuss with eachother and communicate opinions and research. I think that theplatform is very important. The platform to communicate could bea solution.
Ida: - With proper capacity building, the youth or young
researchers or young scientists can use the space or use theopportunity that has been given to them. If there is no capacity
building for these young people, then the space or opportunity
provided to them cannot be effectively used. Therefore, although
the space and opportunities for young people to lead their action
or to lead their research or whatever the effort that they would liketo do, are given, there is also a need to provide them with thebasic knowledge and with the proper capacity building for them tobe able to use the opportunities effectively.

Aileen: - I completely agree with the fact that as young people,
we are not given the same opportunities in politics even though
we have demonstrated as I mentioned before, the drive and thesensibility to understand complex situations. We are not given thetrust. I completely agree with that part. I do believe that,particularly, in disaster risk reduction, this generation is the first
one to fully understand the phenomena happening on earth.
Missing this opportunity of engaging youth and progressively
understanding the points of view of youth, could be a such goodpractice in this area of knowledge. Because we are so different
from previous generations that we can provide different anddiverse points of view.

Aileen: – We, the young people, are not politically involved ingeneral. We are decision makers in some cases. These positionsof making decisions sometimes allows us opportunities to join-up
with people even if we are not currently the power that moves
most decisions. But creating and giving opportunities to younger
generations, when it is in their hands to make a difference, could
be possibly the solution to work with the young and being young.

Fang: - I totally agree with you all on the trust of the young
professionals and provide opportunities. I agree that we need tosupport the innovations or the initiatives of young professionals
though their thoughts are different with our research priorities. I
think we need to provide space, provide opportunity for them tocome to speak out, and to do the research and findings can be
adopted in the new research agendas or global frameworks. The
priorities of young generation can be the priorities of all the DRR
community as well.

Marie-Claire: - I just want to reiterate that yes, I do agree that weare not doing this on a political view, but the topics around DRR
and at least in the climate space are highly political. I think it isreally important to also support young people when they areyoung researchers, but also young people who are interested intheir journey, to not only write a scientific report, but also makethem relevant for society. Make this relevant for the international
negotiations, relevant for decision makers to pick them up
because this can be a very, very important space. We need moreof these reports which support the politicians to take correct
decisions at the end of the day.

Participant from India: - A recommendation. For youth there is a
scarcity of trust. I also want to say that people specially fromAfrica, and in least developed countries and Asia, the young63

Wrap-up Session for Europe with Africa and Middle East Session
Chair: Prof. Jörgen Sparf

Prof. Sparf welcomed chairs of the four panel discussion
sessions to reiterate and share a few highlights from thediscussion sessions.

targeted and some of its research calls on the theme of equitable
resilience which is vulnerability orientated. Other investments
have been exemplified by support for research on multi-hazard
and systemic risk. It is keen to maintain a focussed agenda
emerging in the research environment in the context of COP26
and equitable resilience focuses on attention, though. In the chatMark actually further added that when asked whether canresilience to climate change and other hazards enable equity indevelopment processes and outcomes, and also, if not, thendoes resilience for some generate risk for others. We have one
underlying question for this, which I think is probably anunderlying question in other parts of the programme as well, but
about how can we use the GADRI network of collaborating
institutions to speed-up disaster risk and climate change
adaptation solutions based on evidence‑based agenda.

Session I: Chaired by Prof. Andrew Collins:
In drawing together solutions to bridging gaps between scienceand action, the session focused on collaboration and the pressing
issues; and the need to integrate disaster risk reduction andclimate change adaptation for more urgent and effective sciencein action. And it was stimulated by four contributions that spanned
research policy and practice,
Liviu Stirbat presented in relation to adaptation and the European
Green Deal initiative, including steps towards the mission on
climate change adaptation and societal transformation as part ofits vision for 2050. Amongst the range of strategic moves, it was
clear the direction is for more systematic adaptation on faster
adaptation amongst other properties. Faster adaptation formed
part of the rationale to this session itself, since DRR for
addressing the climate emergency cannot lead to business as
usual with only small adaptations.

There was not really time to gain a lot of input from that, but there
were comments on this and they are very much already coming
out along the line that GADRI has a unique lead in this agenda
through the interlinking of institutions, which brings added value.
This adds influence to academic institutes to be able to influence
policy with varying opportunities for its development andultimately more science going into action.

Deidre Brock MP referenced, that as a Member of Parliament,
referenced to COP26 and Scotland contribution, including a
range of targets that devolved and other orientations. Scotland isprioritizing climate change adaptation and is seen as anopportunity to work on the focus reflected through COP26 hosted
in Glasgow in November 2021. She particularly emphasized theneed to open this up to those whose voices need to be heard
flagging indigenous groups, the young, and the disadvantage
people. Building on the solutions driven approach of this session,
she referred to the use of climate justice perspectives in theagenda and indicated various initiatives at the local level they aresupporting, including a world first climate justice fund.

Session II – Chaired by Dr. Tom De Groeve
Dr. De Groeve explained the background painting which is doneby an artist who is working with them in the secretariat. She isconstantly exposed to the science work and the art is about
droughts and many other societal aspects. Art and science has avery strong link. Art is a way to communicate to, to talk to theemotions of people and the artist does that spontaneously. Dr. De
Groeve stated that they like the concept and what comes out is
indeed one way to communicate. It also comes back to what was
discussed in the group, how to bridge the knowledge gaps andthere was excellent panel discussion sessions with the panelists,
Marzia, Zuzanna, and Lisa.

Desmond Manatsa provided perspectives on interlinked DRR andclimate change adaptation as he considered it in the Southern
African context. These are regarded as separate agendas andneither are integrated at the local level or be it local adaptive
capacity is prevalent such as in the relation to flood and drought.
The concept and investments are not embedded. One of thelimitations is that these remain separate sectors within governing
bodies, often appearing in different ministries. The discussion
showed that whilst the conceptual challenge may be overcome incombining these fields, including chances for better levels of local
and global engagement, the structures of government andsociety are not yet orientated or benefiting from it.

He shared the following three messages:

And lastly, input from UK Research and Innovation in the form of
Sarah Webb and Mark Pelling. Sarah Webb built on the action
orientated theme as addressed in both horizontal and verticalgaps in governance and implementation; and how UK Researchand Innovation is orientated with support as a research funder.
The work of UKRI includes work on adaptation and resilience,
including steps to facilitation of core research-based topics in thecontext of COP26. Sarah noted the importance of the GADRI linkin helping with this agenda and presented four core questions
that are being used in the adaptation and resilience theories.
Mark Pelling added to the UKRI input from his experience ofsteering the GCRF research initiative in a co-produced mannerwith certain partners, in particular the UKRI investment notably
64•

first is that bridging the knowledge gaps require very close
collaboration between the stakeholders. It was reiterated all
the time and there is a need to build a common understanding
between scientists, policymakers, economic actors andcitizens.

•

Secondly, a more qualitative data and evidence are stillnecessary. When they are created in some of the productsthat were shown, they do have an influence. They must be
curated and delivered. The data must be fair, findable,
accessible, interoperable and reusable. It must be delivered in
the right format and at the right time and a lot more emphasis
has to be given to that.

•

Thirdly, narratives are so important, and perhaps this painting
comes back to that. The narrative to put things into a context.
The context for the evidence. It is being heard several times to
get wisdom from evidence. For instance, it is crucial that thesenarratives must be collectively designed and communicated.
The GADRI institutes can play a role in this by having anactive role in their communication, be there on the stage andbringing these narratives to play.

Session III – Chaired by Prof. Jörgen Sparf

throughout the world in this field of study.
Session IV: Chaired by Prof. Chipo Mudhavanhu

This session had a discussion about science policy gaps
presented by David Alexander, Dzhergalbek Ukashev, andValeria Drigo. They had very strong and different resonating
messages from each other.

The main recommendations from the discussion on bridging thegenerational gap—this requires a participation of youth in thespace.

The first one from David was talking about the evidence andtruth. What is truth really? He talked about evidence-based, butevidence can both be interpreted in different ways and what is atruth really. It varies overtime and it varies between people etc.
He presented a model for objective reality, perceived reality andmanufactured reality. All of these prompted thought-provoking
discussion about truth, reality and evidence. He also advertised
his upcoming publication which is under review currently.
Second presentation from Ukashev and interpreted by Temor: hepresented the perspectives from Central Asia. He works in
Kazakhstan and he is the Director for Emergency Management
Center. They are certainly facing a different set of challenges inCentral Asia in terms of general development, very uneven risk
distribution and vulnerability distribution. But at the same time,
the gaps that he identified between science and policy werepretty similar to the ones we are facing in other parts of theworld. Also given the general need for development in Central
Asia, there is the possibility to actually include or build in DRR inthat process.

•the need to increase opportunity for the young scientists
through mentorship with the senior scientist. Why? Because
sometimes we have the youth, they have different priority
from those with greater influence; and there is a need toincrease the mentorship by senior scientists;•

to expose youth to more challenging roles as part of capacitybuilding;•provide opportunities for young people to be heard in the
DRR space and in climate change adaptation space; andyoung people need to be heard.

•

youth also need to be part of the delegation in climate change
negotiations. Their voices needed to be heard;•

the voice of young people should influence the research
process. Why? Failing to engage the youth may mean the
failing to interact with the future generations.

So if we want our disaster research to be sustained in the future
generation, there is need to make sure that the voice of young
people are heard; and they are given opportunities to influence
the research process.

Finally the presentation by Valeria Drigo from the GNDR, Global
Network for the Civil Society for DRR: she was telling about the
fascinating empirical work that they are conducting. It is called“Views from the Frontline” - similar to a very large interview study
in a research project. They have interviewed more than 100,000
people in 49 countries. Very impressive, and about the perceived
risk in their everyday life. Kind of sociological take on it and she
provided some data and analysis from that. It is at the GNDR
website. Very fascinated work from Valeria.
Finally complimenting on what Tom was saying, there is a needfor qualitative data and not of quantitative data, that is neededa need for
qualitative data andnot of quantitativedata

a need to makesure that the voiceof young people areheard

the voice of young
people should
influence theresearch process65

Hour 25

— 22:00 JST 1st September 2021

E-Poster Session:achievements during the past two years, ongoing research
projects and activities, and other related topics.

All members of GADRI are requested to actively take part in the
e-poster session especially young scientists are encouraged tosubmit an outline/abstract of the posters along the lines of the on
the proposed conference themes/group discussion sessions.

There were 48 e-posters presented during the 2-hour session.
This session was chaired by Dr. Hiroyuki Goto, Dr. Yokomatsu
Muneta, and Dr. Masamitsu Onishi , all members of the GADRISecretariat Committee and DPRI, Kyoto University.

GADRI members were allowed to utilize the e-poster session topresent disaster reports, research results and their research

Networking with Institutions Session:difficulties. Other institutes may have enough human resources(researchers) but many unsolved issues and in need of scientificknowledge,
experience, experimental and observationequipment, and technological supports and vice versa.

This session was chaired by Dr. Kenji Tanaka, Prof. Tetsuya Sumi,
Dr. Yukitoshi Fukahata, all members of the GADRI Secretariat
Committee and DPRI, Kyoto University.

This session, in particularly, explored research seeds and needs
and assist to realize the effective/active collaboration among
GADRI members.

GADRI encouraged the members to use this opportunity tointeract closely with each other and provided the institutes with
opportunities:•

to network and connect with other institutes, and showcase
each institute’s resources; t•

to find potential partners among GADRI members•

to collaborate, and to engage and enhance ongoing or new
research project activities.

In order to prepare for the session, those who are interested inthis session are requested to submit a PPT slide to explain“Seeds & Needs” for collaboration; and expectation from afuture partner within 300 words.
In addition to the regional time zone sessions, there were two othersessions on Networking with Institutes; and an e-poster session.
During the two hour period, 17 institutes participated in the
Networking with Institutes session and 48 e-posters were
presented

For instance, some institutes may have their own methodologies,
datasets, experimental equipment, computer resources, but lackusers, application fields, in-situ data for validation, and other

Hour 26

This session was held in parallel within two hours and attended by— 23:00 JST 1st September 2021

Institutes participated at the Networking with Institutes Session:

University, Japan•

Dr. Ailsa Mackay, National Centre for Resilience, University ofGlasgow, UK•

Dr. Garry Stevens , Humanitarian and Development Research
Initiative (HADRI), Western Sydney University, Australia•

Prof. Zieaoddin Shoaei , Soil Conservation and Watershed
Management Research Institute, Iran•Prof. Qiuhua Liang, School of Architecture, Building and Civil
Engineering, Loughborough University, UK•

Dr. Sonephet PHOSALATH, Department of Climate Change,
Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment in Lao PDR.

•

Prof. Towhida Rashid, Department of Meteorology, Universityof Dhaka, Bangladesh•

Dr. Hiroyuki Goto, Disaster Prevention Research Institute,
Kyoto University, Japan••

Dr. Christian Resch, Disaster Competence Network Austria(DCNA), Austria

Prof. Nicola Casagli , UNESCO Chair on Prevention andSustainable Management of Geo-Hydrological Hazards,
University of Florence, Italy•

Dr. Lata Shakya, Ritsumeikan University, Institute of Disaster
Mitigation for Urban Cultural Heritage (DMUCH), Japan

Dr. Lubna Alam, LESTARI, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
Malaysia•

Prof. Ekkehard Holzbecher, German University of Technology
in Oman (GUtech), Oman•

Dr. Kenji Tanaka, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto
University, Japan••

Prof. Kishor Mehta, Texas Tech University, USA•

Dr. Yoshihiro Ito, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto

66Hour 27

— 00:00 JST 2nd September 2021
Final Wrap-up and Closing Session
Achievements and Recommendations

Chaired by: Prof. Hirokazu Tatano, Secretary-General, GADRI; and DPRI, Kyoto University
Closing wrap-up session included reports from all three regionalsession organising committees to share the final outcomes of eachsession. Each representative of the session shared achievements
and recommendations of their respective sessions.

The 5th Global Summit of GADRI was closed by Prof. Paul Kovacs
and Prof. Eiichi Nakakita, Director, Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan at 01:23 hours of 2nd
September 2021 covering 28 hours and 23 minutes.

During the closing Ceremony, Dr. Jenty Kirsch-Wood, Chief ofSection, Global Risk Analysis and Reporting, UNDRR, Switzerland;Prof. Qunli Han, Executive Director, IRDR-IPO, China; andProf. Andrew Collins, Leader, Disaster and Development Network,
Northumbria University, UK congratulated on the success of theconference.

An amazing number of 640 participants from 77 economies
registered for the conference; and nearly 568 members from 73
economies logged in via zoom meeting to attend the 27-hour long
conference.

Americas covering North and South America
Multidisciplinary Modeling Progress and the Role of Community Engagement in Resilience
Planning
Reported by Dr. Grace Yan, Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA
Dr. Grace Yan, Missouri University Science and Technology
delivered the final report on behalf of the organizing Committee.
While everyone is passionate and motivated, it is apparent thatclimate change is taking place at an unprecedented pace,causing an increased number of natural disasters in North andSouth America as well as in the rest of the world, and thecommunication on resilience is not effectively delivered to thecommunities. The American session covering North America andSouth America, brought together 25 nationwide and international
experts in different natural hazards from government and theindustry to talk about enabling effective ways to communicate
resilience in a changing climate.
The Americas Session looked into the increasing number ofnatural hazards in North and South America and shared views,
opinions and measures in place to combat the disasters. The
following four topics were identified by the North American
Alliance of Hazards and Disaster Research Institutes(NAAHDRI), and debated during the discussion sessions toenable resilience by preventing natural hazards from becoming
disasters:•

Q1: What goals do we want achieve?

•

Q2: How to achieve the goal? What innovative approaches do
we need?

•Q3: How to reduce barriers when implementing the developer
approaches?

•

Q4: How to upgrade resilience to equitable resilience toreduce the hazard impacts by vulnerable populations?

The session was opened by Prof. John van de Lindt with akeynote speech on the topic of “Multidisciplinary Modeling
Progress and the Role of Community Engagement in Resilience
Planning”.
Recommendations from the keynote speech was shared by
Prof. Van de Lindt:•

resilience analysis requires the modeling before, during, andafter an event: like in Florida hurricane and typhoon, tornado,
67

and wildfire - of the physical as well as the non-physicalsystems. It requires inter-disciplines, multi-disciplines, but also
cross-disciplines working at their seams as well as in theoverlaps;•

the practical application of the theoretical resilience concepts to facilitate actionable strategies requires partnerships, andcommunication to make sure that the tools that come out into
communities are useful and usable; and•finally, perhaps most importantly, is that there are many,
many challenges that remain related to constraints andresources and number of other challenges. But with theengagement partnerships, with the researchers working with
community leaders, these are all solvable.

Prof. Paul Kovacs shared the recommendations from his
presentation in the panel discussion session:•

Resilience in recovery: “build it back better” mentality

The presentation was based on the priority for action four in the
Sendai Framework, “build back better”. In the recovery process,although the communities are aware of the need to do better, it is
not being done even under favourable economic conditions. This
trend is shifting and a lot of good action is actually being
implemented. In the pre-conference survey undertaken by
GADRI, it showed that many of the scientific researchers havestarted to focus on this area, relatively new, and presenting
opportunities to tie science into how to use this opportunity inrecovery to achieve some of the broader goals as a community. It
was also endorsed by thesession participants that
this is an opportunity to do
better. There is not only an
opportunity to do better but
to get some transformative
improvements
notjustincremental,but
realmaterial change in therecovery process.

Dr. Yan continued to share the recommendations from the four
panel discussion sessions:
•

•

•

•

•

•

necessary to educate the general public, for them to work
together to achieve community resilience. For example: as ahomeowner if they retrofit their own home, the total economic
loss from each natural disaster will be significantly reduced.

“All disasters are local”: resilience is a local issue that must be
addressed at that scale – using a combination of technical andcommunity engagement efforts - for example there may be aneed to downscaling climate model to project the global climatechange to the local area.

Further recommendations included:

Risk modeling: multi-hazards. Encourage interdisciplinary
efforts - while appreciating the research investment in eachindividual hazard risk modeling, in order for the risk modeling to
be able to better predict the risk to a specific region, it isnecessary to do multi-hazard risk modelling.
Impacts on civil structures: physics-based modeling to get
the design loading - For example: the force of tornado exerted
on a 21-flour is completely different to a straight-line winds flow.
With this type of situation, it is possible to use computer
dynamics to simulate the tornado effects and the design may be
estimated more accurately.
Retrofit houses by leveraging insurance- to reduce thedamage during a disaster, an idea was promoted to retrofit theindividual houses by leveraging on the insurance. If the houseowners use certified roof, the insurance premium will be
reduced. By using this type of incentive, eventually, the generalpublic will also be contributing to community resilience.

Engage decision-makers (those who control the funds) intrying to implement resilience solutions. To promote theimplementation of a resilient solutions, it is necessary to engage
the government and decision-makers from the very beginning.
Find new ways to share information.
Improve the communication between engineers andphysical and social scientists, and decision-makers. Whencommunicating with them the benefits of resilient solutions, it isnecessary to find an innovative way to communicate the risk
information to them.

•

Educate to improve broad-based public understanding andsupport. Besides the government decision-makers, it is also

In order to upgrade resilience into equitable resilience, it wasrecommended to identify which aspects of inequality that havenot been captured before and which communities are slower inrecovery and under what conditions?

•to incorporate equity in resilience measurement.

•

to incorporate equity in the state hazard mitigation plan.

•

proposed to partner with non-traditional partners and the multiagency coordination to leverage funds.

•

proposed to input the voice of behavioural scientists in theweather service and the weather forecast.

•

It is important to understand that the institutional mechanismsthat create inequitable outcomes for public housing after
disasters; and•on outreach activities, to take a whole community perspective toinclude all ages, races, renters and all other different
stakeholders.
In conclusion:

Create, support, and find mechanisms to facilitate researchto-practice partnerships (like the NSF Civic program,companies that can do the translation). and successfulmodel. - In order to promote the implementation of resilient
solutions, it was recommended to create and support and findmechanisms to facilitate research-to-practice partnerships. For
example: the US National Science Foundation’s Civic program
on ready to implement - the research program focus on theimplementation of the fundamental research to addresscommunity resilience. It would be good to see similar programs
introduced by research agencies or even from the government.

•

•

•

to respond to the increase in natural disasters, it is necessary to
implement resilient solutions.

•This requires the collaboration among different parties including
the government decision-makers, the academia or thegovernment that provides resilient solutions, and also thecommunities and the general public.

•

Be proactive and work towards the slowing down of theincreasing number of natural disasters.

•

To achieve this, it is necessary to slow down climate change
which requires also to slow down global warming.

•

No single country can do this alone. It takes all countries to work
together.

The question is, do we have any kind of mechanism to do this?
There is an opportunity, for example with the February 2021
announcement by the National Science Foundation, to work on
one of the “smart and connect to community collaborative” projects
with the counterpart of Japan. They are calling for proposals to
respond to the mitigation of Covid-19. Perhaps, by promoting theidea for research agencies to work together in this type ofinternational collaborations, and then it is possible to address theglobal warming and climate change together.

68

Asia and Oceania
Engaging Sciences with Action: Voices form Asia and Oceania
Reported by Prof. Mahua Mukherjee, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, India

This part of the 5th Global Summitof GADRI was organized by the
GADRI Secretariat Committee
members
attheDisasterPrevention Research Institute(DPRI), Kyoto University, and the
newly established South Asian
Alliance of Disaster ResearchInstitutes (SAADRI).
The Asia and Oceania time zone session was kicked-off by four
keynotes by Prof. Haruo Hayashi; Prof. Yang Saini, Dr. Gill Jolly;
and Prof. M. L. Sharma.
A few important highlights from the keynote speeches:
Prof. Haruo Hayashi, National Research Institute for Earth
Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED), Japan••

to be sustainable, it is fundamental to strengthen DRR in thebasic premise; and the online synthesis system (OSS), a webbased knowledge integration system, enabled to promote theidea. By having this kind of reciprocal work or activities
between OSS and facilitators, the online synthesis system willcontinue to grow by itself, and at the same time facilitators will
be improving their ongoing capacities.

•

The importance of the social science and community
engagement to develop a good message to respond to
emergencies and build a level of understanding before theevent occurs.

•

Health or safety of staff is paramount to the response situation.
Often staff will be going into fairly risky situations to collect data
importers, and having that long term investment in hazard andrisk science enabled to rapidly do risk assessment to support
the management decisions.

•

It is critical to be able to coordinate the science during large
scale disasters that impact large areas.

•

It is important to learn the lessons from each event and thenfocus on continuous improvement for future events.

•

Most importantly, building relationships with local communities,
understanding different sources of knowledge, listen and learn,being humble and showing that humility goes a long way tobuilding relationships even when one is in a highly stressedsituation.

Prof. M. L. Sharma, IIT, Roorkee; and SAADRI, India•

to achieve global and regional level support, it is important topromote cooperation between academic, scientific andresearch entities and networks; and the private sector todevelop new products and services to help to reduce disaster
risk.

•

proposed nations with successful earthquake early warning
systems should consider sharing the knowledge with countries
that cannot afford to invest on such instruments or by means offunding, or by providing scientific assistance, and also by trying
to increase the willpower of the political systems.

•

The hazards and disasters do not recognize the politicalboundaries. Such instruments should also be placed in the
global frameworks.

A good relationship with private sector will not come up fromnothing. It is necessary to have a lead time to develop a
collaborative relationship between science technology sector
and the private, and apply it with the practitioner side.

Prof. Yang Saini, Beijing Normal University, China•••

On a small project on people-oriented resilience building, ithighlighted the need to have different early warning systems
and prompted discussion on the different warming thresholds
for individual, community and country level. There is a need formore scientific evidence to develop tolerable early warning
systems that can be used by different stakeholders.
On another project conducted on road early warning systems,
it was questioned on how to balance investments in highstandard construction or to invest in service system. Upon
performing quantitative analysis on the cost benefit ratio of
early warning systems, it was clear that there is a very highreturn ratio for investment in service. When talking about
resilience building and engaging science into action, this typeof quantitative scientific evidence is needed to promote
fundamental new concepts.
Risk assessment outcome data shared with decision-makers
should be applicable and practical.

Dr. Gill Jolly, GNS Science, New Zealand:•

The importance of close engagement with the responding
agency, especially at a senior government level all the way up
to ministers and prime minister. It helps to know the people on
the end of the phone. Therefore, it is important to build trusts
before the event occurs.

69

The Asia and Oceania Session bought together 33 experts fromdifferent institutes of development, governmental authorities,
industrial group and the UN.

Prof. Mahua Mukherjee from IIT, Roorkee, India shared the final
outcomes and recommendations of the four parallel group
discussion sessions.

Thematic Group 1: Regional Alliances- Improving
Collaboration to support global stakeholders of DRR and
DRM – Session was led by Prof. Srikantha Herath, Prof.
Kenji Kawaike, Prof. Gretchen Kalonji and Prof. Wei-Sen Li.

•

Individual and institutional capacity building at regional,
national to local level for informed decision-making forenhancing adaptive capacity for climate and disaster
resilience

How can the different regional initiatives collaborate, what
avenues are available?

•

Data and knowledge sharing both at national-level andinternational-level, transboundary collaboration because
risk has no boundaries

•





There is a need to find overarching themes to connect
different programs (because it is a very varied society
from many different perspectives of risk) to discussfindings to identify commonalities and disparities and learn
from each other.
Early warning, climate change adaptation andinfrastructure safety were themes that were addressed bymost groups. Workshops under these topics can be
another approach for initiatives in this region.

•

To build connection and collaboration between
universities and national platforms to enable anenvironment for both researchers and disaster managers.

•

Community engagementIt may be worthwhile to explore how GADRI can supportand develop a program to synthesize rich experiences ofsmall islands and other countries as well as the programs
conducted by different institutes, to develop education andpractice guidelines for engagement of communities tocreate a long-term effective dialogue between researchers
and affected communities.
Endorsement of such a program by importantorganisations such as the UN organization so that it
would make it effective.

Thematic Group 2: Target E - Disaster Risk Governance andContribution for Policy Making

Implementation of national and local DRR polices can befurther improved by the following efforts:•

Dealing with multi-hazards and new risk landscapes•

Involving
multi-stakeholder
corporations•

Making win-win relationships among residents,
governments, practitioners, and researchers

and•Third Pole: important weather & climate driver; Regional
Climate Centre (RCC) for South Asia & South Asia
Seasonal Climate Outlook Form (SASCOF)

Impact-based forecasting, early warning and rapid
information dissemination•

Knowledge and insight building on emerging tools andtechniques for•

Integrated multi-hazard risk assessment for different typeof hazards such as hydro-met, geotechnical, air pollution
and other hazards•

Resilience approach for resilient infrastructure, water
security, urban transformation•

Attention to specific ecosystem zones – mountain, coast,
Antarctic, Tibetan plateau, HKH, Small Island•

Sharing learnings from successes and challenges in
implementation•

Key Question : Why we failed to put our knowledge into
action (it is not a dearth of knowledge in the Asia andOceania regions; but there are so many failures when action
do not take place.); and what can be done to improve thestatus-quo for effective, improved DRR?

•

Key Understanding: We not only failed to translateknowledge into action, but we also failed to comprehend why
we failed!!

•

Key Recommendations (particularly for engaging DRR
science with action)•inter-sector

Thematic Group 3: Contributions to Climate Change
Adaption•

Weather and climate monitoring: DRR and CCA•

Led by Dr. Toshio Fujimi, Dr. Genta Nakano, Ms. Ritsuko
Yamazaki-Honda••

Led by Dr. Subhajyoti Samaddar, Dr. Masamitsu Onishi, andProf. Yuichi Ono

Many youth-related discussions also took place under thatparticular group.

In Asia and Oceania region, many research institutes havecontributed to making and implementing DRR policies inline with the Sendai Framework.

Evidence from observations – in-situ and remotesensing observations

Thematic Group 4: Implementation of Science for DRR
Actions (S&T Roadmaps realizing SFDRR)

The most important point under community engagement is
the inclusion of diversities of disciplines, languages,
cultures and hazards for DRM education to the youth••

Led by Prof. Tetsuya Takemi, Dr. Kenji Tanaka, Prof. Andrew
Collins; and Prof. Mahua Mukherjee

70

These ideas/parameters /understandings are derived
from projects, practices, research studies, casestudies and communications, experiences•

Improved Communications - mechanism, mode, language,
tools, fairness and participation.

•

Effective Facilitation/Coaching: training and coachingfacilities, infrastructure, tools and human resources (coach)•

Identity / Recognition and Rewards for Implementation•

Evaluation Criteria: Implementation impacts/degree as anevaluation creation of the performance of DRR researchers•

Diversity / Pluralism – disciplines, approaches, tools,
understandings and actions (No single knowledge/tool/
approach/tool/method works) to tackle DRR issues.

Europe with Africa and the Middle-East
Exploring Solutions to Bridge the Gaps for Implementation of Science in Action
Reported by Prof. Jörgen Sparf, Risk and Crisis Research Centre, Mid Sweden University, Sweden
The organising committee members for the Europe with Africa andthe Middle-East time zone session included Dr. Jörgen Sparf,
Regional Organising Committee, Associate Professor in Sociology
and a founding member of the Risk and Crisis Research Centre,
Mid Sweden University, Sweden, Prof. Andrew Collins, Leader,Disaster and Development Network, Northumbria University,UK,
Dr. Tom De Groeve, Deputy Head of Unit, Disaster Risk
Management Unit, European Commission, Joint Research Centre(EC-JRC); and Prof. Desmond Manatsa and Prof. Chipo
Mudhavanhu, Bindura University of Science Education; and theAfrican Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (AADRI),
Zimbabwe.

Instead of building parallel tracts, but rather collaborate in that
respect and there is a need to combine capacities in thisrespect too.
•

The keynote sessions were followed by four panel discussion
sessions on:

The session theme Exploring Solutions to Bridge the Gaps for
Implementation of Science in Action targeted theimplementation stages of science into action. The session
identified a number of gaps and invited speakers from different
sciences, countries and regions to address the identified issues.
The session was opened with two keynote speeches by Dr. Tom
De Groeve and Dr. Nico Elema, Director, PeriPeri U, Stellenbosh
University International, South Africa.

•

It is essential to interact with other communities to acquire
additional knowledge. We have to avoid becoming siloed within
our own research field even if we are many disciplines, weshould make an effort to interact with other researchcommunities as well.

••

Knowledge gaps•

Science-policy gaps•

Generational gaps

The third discussion panel was on Science Policy Gaps. Thissession was enlightened by Prof. David Alexander, University
College London, Mr. Dzhergalbek Ukashev who presented thesituation in Central Asia and the challenges of the Center for
Emergency Situations and Disaster Risk Reduction, Kazakhstan.
Speaker Valeria Drigo, Global Network of Civil Societal
Organisations for Disaster Risk Reduction (GNDR).

to make sure that the knowledge that we produced in the
Academia is useful and is being used. Of course, it is possible
to always debate to what extent the researchers should do thator should allow for other brokers to take part of that phase.

Dr. Nico Elema started his presentation by actually reminding us
about the vastness of the African continent because Africa is by no
stretch one coherent environment. In his illustration, once canactually fit quite a many of the large countries within the African
continent. It is very important that Africa is not seen as one
coherent place.
Starting from that point that Dr. Elema moved on to highlight:•

Collaboration gaps

Panel session on Knowledge Gaps discussion focused to finding
solutions for transforming data into action. This was covered by
Marzia Santini, JRC: Science Pillar of the Knowledge Network;
Zuzana Stanton-Geddes, The World Bank; and Lisa Robinson,
BBC Media Action covered an inspiring talk about how we cancommunicate better.

Key takeaway points from Dr. De Groeve’s message from thedisaster risk management to the scientific community issummarised below:
to continue research efforts on DRM and in all its dimensions.

•

Panel Session one on Collaboration Gaps was dedicated toclimate change and disaster risk reduction and how they interact
and how we need to see that interaction within research activities.
The session included Liviu Stirbat, Deputy Head, Adaptation Unit,
European Directorate General for Climate Action; Deidre Brock,
Member of Parliament, Scottish Government, Shadow SNP
Spokesperson for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; DesmondManatsa, African Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes, andSarah Webb and Mark Pelling from the UK Research andInnovation, funding institute .

The first keynote speech was by Dr. Tom De Groeve. The Joint
Research Centre is driving the science policy interface at theEuropean commission and Dr, De Groeve is heavily involved inthis process. His presentation on the Joint Research Centre
activities and especially on its Disaster Risk Management
Knowledge Centre, shared information on the collecting of dataand its dissemination; and their various initiatives, networks,
conferences, engagements with the policymakers anddecisionmakers.

•

to involve communities: it is really important to involvecommunities because the distance between science andpeople, might even be greater in many parts of Africa than insome other parts of the world.

how important it is to create these networks throughout thecontinent and that probably GADRI and also the African
Alliance represented by Prof. Desmond Manatsa andcolleagues, can serve as a vehicle towards more collaboration.
71

The final session was on Bridging Generational Gaps. As disasterrisk reduction is closely tide to climate change solutions and it is
not possible to solve problems here today nor in the coming years
or if in decades and in generations to come. For this reason
alone, it is really crucial that young researchers and young
activists are involved all the way.
There were several
representatives from different youth organisations: Alinne Olvera,
The United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth: The
Science Policy Interface; Marie-Claire Graf, YOUNGO; Fang Lian,
IRDR Young Scientists Programme, China; and Ida Ngurah, Plan
International, Indonesia.

we remind ourselves about this and also remind otheraudiences. He talked about objective reality, perceived reality
and manufactured reality.

Outcomes and Recommendations:••

Bridging
gaps
requirescloseandcontinuous
collaboration between stakeholders to build sharedunderstanding: populations, researchers, policymakers,
economic actors. Ecosystems approach! If we want tobridge these gaps, we require close and continuous
collaboration between stakeholders to build sharedunderstanding; and not the common understanding. It is notnecessary to agree or to think the same. It is necessary tounderstand each other’s understanding among populations,researchers, policymakers, economic actors. One interestingsuggestion from the European Commission, which is the
Ecosystems approach! When we think about this, it might beeasier to think of it in a systemic way like that.
Objective, perceived, and manufactured realities –evidence and truth – this came from David Alexander which
was quite thought-provoking but interesting. It is necessary tothink about evidence not being the truth. We might be aware ofthis as scholars and academics. But it is very important thatHour 28•

If we do not communicate, someone else does - from Lisa
Robertson from BBC Media Action. As scientists, as
researchers, it is important to communicate. If we don't do it
someone else will and someone else does. That is very
important for an organization like GADRI to constantly makesure to communicate in good ways for different audiences andalso through the regional alliances.

•

Heterogeneity and diversity of all sorts – narratives are
essential to provide context for evidence. Quite importantly
narratives are essential to provide context for evidence
because what is true and relevant in one part of the world andrelevant, may not be the same in other parts.

•

More data and evidence are necessary: fine-grained anddelivered in the right format at the right time. Several
speakers touched upon this that we need more data andevidence. Of course, we cannot adjust to continually build andbuild more data. We need to make use of it. We need to think
about the level of data. What it needs to be fine grained,
connecting to the heterogeneity and diversity; and delivered in
the right format at the right time.

•

Make sure young people have a seat at the table – youth
engagement in GADRI? – This came from the last discussion
panel on youth engagement. It is very important that young
people have a seat at the table. Perhaps an involvement ofyouth engagement in GADRI too. How to make sure thatyoung researchers and the next generation of researchers areincluded and involved and committed.

— 01:00 JST 2nd September 2021
Closing Ceremony

The closing ceremony covered remarks by Dr. Jenty Kirsch-Wood and Prof. Qunli Han, Prof. Andrew Collins, Prof. Paul Kovacs and finallyby Prof. Eiichi Nakakita.
Dr. Jenty Kirsch-Wood, Chief of Section, Global Risk
Analysis and Reporting, UNDRR, Switzerlandfrom young population, from different parts of society, different
indigenous people, into various dialogues and to see how they
can also contribute. Therefore, it is really a great achievement
today that so many of GADRI 200 committed member institutes
have been actively involved in pushing for the dialogue, thinking
about how to deepen, and further align and make more effective
the research agenda and how communication can be even further
strengthened. This conference on engaging sciences with action
has proved a really unique opportunity to elevate sciences
contribution to DRR and look for how science can accelerate risk
reduction and spur Innovation that can also help drive climate
Solutions and truly sustainable development. It has been very
enlightening to hear the outcomes from the region's today and it isencouraging to see about the breadth of work but also theuniversal commitment to accelerate putting science and policy
and practice to reduce risk. Once again she congratulated Prof.
Hirokazu Tatano, Secretary-General GADRI and Prof. Paul
Kovacs, Chair, Board of Directors of GADRI for putting together
an impressive array of speakers and exciting agenda. She also
used the opportunity to thank the Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitute, Kyoto University for hosting the GADRI Secretariat. She
concluded by saying that they look forward to receiving therecommendations from the summit to feed into GP22 workshop
proceedings and to continue to work together.

On behalf of UNDRR, Dr. Jenty
Kirsch-Wood congratulated theorganizers of the event andthanked GADRI and each andeveryone involved in theorganisation for an insightful
and very deep and creative
Fifth Global Summit.
She stated that “As heard from so many speakers yesterday andtoday, disaster risk reduction connected and the impact of hazard
cascading across, sectoral and geographical boundaries. The
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and that Global
Plan to reduce disaster losses adopted in 2015, emphasizes theimportance of tackling risk drivers through improved governanceand to a better understanding of risk, and through promoting thatrisk financing. But, of course, the issue of how you do this is stillsuch a challenge. The science and technology community play
the critical role in accelerating Sendai implementation as itenables to promote that inform decision-making based on
scientific evidence in the better use of technology. It has also
been able to bring new voices whether that is from the elderly,72Prof. Qunli Han, Executive Director, International Programme
Office of Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR-IPO),China

DRR can no longer be considered as a marginalized. It must be
central or the mainstream item in the agenda. If we make that tobe sustainable, that development has to be saved at the sametime. In this direction, IRDR will continue mobilizing science
actions and working with all the colleagues from GADRI, andfrom other DRR societies.

Likewise, Prof. Qunli Han opened his
remarks by congratulating the GADRI
community, GADRI Secretrariat, and theorganising teams of the summit, all thechiars, moderators, rapporteurs, for thesessions. He noted that the summit enabled a broad participation
especially researchers from different domains, different research
institutions, regions, and bought in many young professionals. It
brought in a strong sense of togetherness that could not havebeen seen physically in one place. The summit did not separate
because of different time zones but rather kept everyone closeeven during the long discussion sessions. The summit was arecord of 27-hour meeting.

Prof. Andrew Collins, Leader, Disaster and Development
Network, Northumbria University, UK
He shared information relating to theevent, COP26 to take place in November
2021 in the UK.
In the opening session, one of the
keynote speakers, Loretta Hieber
Girardet, Chief, Risk Knowledge, Monitoring and CapacityDevelopment Branch, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction (UNDRR) flagged that 80 to 90% disasters caused bynatural hazards are related to climate and that climate change
adaptation needs to be risk informed. We can argue about thedefinition of disaster causality, the complexity of interrelationships
and interpretations as to how risk impact and much-needed
recovery processes are represented. However, there can be little
doubt, the climate emergency is with disaster risk science policy
and action must energize climate change mitigation andadaptation at all levels. Increase bringing together apparent
relationships between DRR and climate change adaptation is in
itself one of the ways of speeding up science into action withrespect to current major emergencies.

Secondly, the overall theme of the summit, Engaging Scienceswith Action, it was not about engaging sciences for action but
rather on how to do it. What is felt strongly in particular is that thesummit has managed to engage science in the changing risk
context and in the risk landscape that has been shaped by theclimate change, weather extremes, current pandemic, and manyother systemic, compounding and cascading risks. This engages
science across the research disciplines but also beyond science
to technology to engineering. That is really a must to affect theaction and for practical solutions with engagement between the
countries and regions that share similar or common social,economic, cultural and technical conditions. This was clearlyreflected in the discussions of the Small Islands, Europe, Africa,
Asian Pacific on the North America or South America. It
underlined the engagements between the research institutions
and further, it is extremely important to engage with young
professionals and the practitioners on DRR.

The covid-19 context we are living in with globally, only serves toprovide greater impetus giving the myriad of the further
interconnections. This brings around a nexus of biohazards,
vulnerabilities, and capacity demands. This is the case whether
directly or indirectly experienced and magnified also by further
hazards and vulnerabilities in at risk ecologist and societies.

There was not enough discussion on the engagement of science
communication with the media, society and the social media.
There were some discussions and there is a long way for manythings to improve. There is a great general public, and behind it ismedia or societies. It is the duty of the scientific community tocommunicate effectively as has been highlighted by the previous
speaker. He underlined a few points:•

first of all it is really the time to have a global researchframework on DRR or risk research agenda for coherent
actions. Led by the UNDRR, and the International Science
Council, and through the facilitation of IRDR, last year, there
has been a proposal on the research agenda to launch at the
IRDR conference. He welcomed all colleagues in GADRI to
become involved.

•

It is extremely important that to continue to build a disasterrisk capacity especially the institutional capacity. The expert
groups are able to evolve and adapt to the new settingsprioritizing the environment and the requirements.

•

There is a need to see a new way of capacity development
especially on how to engage with young researchers andpractitioners and to be innovative.

The positive side of this is, there are greater opportunities tomake a difference since you contribute to changing the course ofhistory. Sessions in each of the time zones in this event haveaddressed the knowledge needed to address compounded
demands for climate disaster risk resilience and response. Some
specific reference to the climate change aspect and it will be usedthat with presenter’s permission to feed into the COP26
environment as best as possible. Some GADRI members are
already half linked. UK hosting COP26 in November represent
one of the opportunities to consolidate comments by the hosting
Regional Alliance links within the initiative of UK Research andInnovation (UKRI) and that process is already in progress. It will
help to make a wider voice heard but the process includes otherevents in various parts of the world that GADRI members cancontribute to focusing on COP26 themes in particular, its venture
into greater emphasis on adaptation of resilience.
Finally, GADRI is a partner in of the UKRI and will be kept
updated on progress and feed in some of the efforts of thiscurrent Summit to register in the neighbouring climate change
policy environment. Existing connections with the United Nationsand GADRI enjoy and others will only help to perpetuate that
also. We hope this should become standard item of GADRI
contributions to research policy and practice through theinevitable ongoing rounds of COP which itself will need tocontinue to adapt better in assisting with the delivery of greater
outcomes for peace, health and environmental security.

In his concluding remarks he stated that when talking about
disaster risk reduction and science actions, we should think all
the time of the effectiveness of the actions. Have to think about
the development and the safety of the developments or briefly thedevelopment safety. The development safety will help us to builda policy connection with disaster science, with development
interests, and goals that transpires with all sectors of science.
73

Closing of the 5th Global Summit of GADRI: Engaging Sciences with Action
Prof. Paul Kovacs: Chair of the Board of Directors, GADRI,
CanadaProf. Eiichi Nakakita, Director, Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Japan

With a big WOW! Prof. Paul Kovacs
stated that cannot get an opportunity toattend a conference of this size and theglobal pandemic has led to creative
people, doing things differently and we justexperienced one of those different and positive things. There has
never been anything like this before.

He started by stating that he conference
went around the world during the past 27
plus hours making this event truly aglobal event of the Global Alliance ofDisaster
Research
Institutes.
He
congratulated to all the participants and organizers for
successfully organizing one-of-a-kind event and thanked all theorganising teams for their wonderful and remarkable efforts in
putting together the agenda and coming-up with a stellar
programme with 93 impressive speakers. He also mentioned his
regret for not being able to welcome everyone at the Uji Campus,
as has been done before, due to the ongoing global pandemic.

It was incredibly complex to conceive to put together, andimplement. But it was done remarkably successfully. He sent ahuge thank you to all of those involved in the organization,
participation, speakers, participation for speaking up, and listening
in and being involved. It was a fabulous event and a real showcase for the Global Alliance for Disaster Research Institutes(GADRI). We have the capacity and a couple of hundredorganizations around the world to make a real difference. It wasvery evident over period of time here as so many really creative
and the thoughtful people shared their views about how we cando even better on one of those support issues of our time, global
risk management and global risk reduction. We heard many very
clever and thoughtful ideas on how to properly proceed going
forward and all found in science.

He pointed out to a comment made by the keynote speaker
Loretta Hieber Girardet, UNDRR who acknowledged GADRI as adirect partner of the UNDRR, and he said that he and everyone at
GADRI and Kyoto University is pleased to note it. Further, Ms.
Hieber-Girardet and Prof. Virginia Murray, both emphasized on
the importance of enhancing the interaction between
policymakers and the scientist to achieve the global engagementof science interactions. Prof. Nakakita stated that thesestatements acknowledge the important role played by the GADRI
community as a foundation of the international research networks
in the area of disaster risk reduction and serving as an advocacy
organizations with evidenced-based scientific results to influence
decision-makers. It is an important aspect of the academics to beaware how science can directly contribute to the national andlocal disasters, for example the current global pandemic,
earthquakes and volcanic eruption, etc. Such situations prompt
scientists’ intervention, expertise, and experience, and provide
opportunity to effectively communicate with the emergency
managers in crisis situations. As continually stressed during thepast 27 hours by many of the speakers, communication is one
crucial aspect of engaging science with action.

The focus on action, it is one thing to sit at a university and write
down some of the ideas, but to make sure that they actually arecarefully thought through and how they can support
implementation, where implementation is going well in anothermatter. During this summit, we had many speakers who gave
positive, successful examples of good things that are going onaround the world. We are pleased that we were able to report on
more of those that are happening all the time and making a realpositive difference. I am also concerned that we need to do better.
There are losses being experienced that are continuing to rise.
There is a trend that is been going on for several decades now
that is unsustainable and unacceptable. While there are positive
stories, there is a real sense that we do need to do better. We
have yet to break this very disturbing trend science gives afoundation for that. It can only be broken only through action andby linking science to action. I think that there is this optimism
many of us have that a lot of losses that are being experienced
are indeed preventable. We can do better going forward. There isa reason to be optimistic. It is through these kinds of dialogues
that we can do that. I want to close with just a really upbeat “wow”
that was exciting, that was a wonderful concept idea, really well
implemented, a huge thanks to everybody involved, and handover here a huge thanks to the Secretariat, for organizing this andthank the Disaster Prevention Research Institute for being hostand for the role being played.”

He also said that he looks forward to seeing the outcomes and therecommendations that will be fed into COP26 in November 2021
in the UK through the help of UKRI; and the UNDRR, GP22 inBali, Indonesia in May 2022.

th

5 Global Summit of GADRIHe concluded his remarks by reiterating that GADRI will always
have the support of DPRI, Kyoto University and that they areproud to host its secretariat at DPRI, Uji campus. He looks
forward to working together with GADRI community and continue
to enhance and build on our objectives to contribute to the DRR,
continue to educating the world to adapt to the changing climatesand strengthen the disaster resilience to build back better. He
thanked everyone for engaging sciences to action.

Engaging Sciences with Action

THANK
YOU!

The GADRI Secretariat sincerely thank all
the members of the organising teams
starting from the GADRI Secretariat, theCommittee members, all staff at the DPRI,
all members of the Americas covering with
North and South America organising team,
all members of NAAHDRI, Prof. John van de Lindt, Dr. Grace
Yan, Prof. Paul Kovacs, Prof. Lori Peek, and all other members;
and all members of the Europe with Africa and the Middle-Eastorganising committee members, Prof. Jorgen Sparf, Prof. Andrew

Collins, Dr. Tom De Groeve, and Prof. Desmond Manatsa andProf. Chipo Mudhavanhu, Bindura University of Science
Education; and the African Alliance of Disaster ResearchInstitutes (AADRI) – and everyone who provided the technicalsupport and other assistance behind the scenes too. When theidea was proposed to hold the summit via Zoom meeting, itsounded impossible but with your dedicated support, we managed
to make it a reality. THANK YOU!

74

New Members of GADRI
University of Management and Technology (UMT), Center for Disaster Management
Lahore, Pakistan

The University of Management and Technology (UMT) was established in 1990 and has evolved into a premier institution of higher
education in the country. Recognized by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan as a "W4" category (highest rank)
university, UMT distinguishes itself with 400+ full-time faculty members including more than 200+ PhDs, 26,000+ alumni and 25,000+
students from Pakistan and various countries around the globe. The Center for Disaster Management established under the ambit ofUniversity of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan has been mandated to lead research and education in the field of Disaster
Management in Pakistan.
For further details, visit the website: http://cdm.umt.edu.pk/

University of Glasgow, National Centre for ResilienceDumfries, United Kingdom

The University of Glasgow, National Centre for Resilience (NCR) is an academic research hub, using evidence to inform policy andpractice. It bridges the gap between academia, policy and practice by promoting cross sector partnerships, encouraging each to learn
from the other to improve resilience when planning for, responding to and recovering from natural hazard events in Scotland.
The NCR utilises existing knowledge, commissions demand led research projects and funds practical projects to address real life issues
faced by resilience practitioners and communities. Using its networks, it creates links for researchers to help them adapt their project
outputs into tailored briefings and tools for end users and then maximises the potential use and impacts of this work by disseminating
research outputs.
For further details, visit the website: https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/ncr/

The University of Alabama, Center for Sustainable Infrastructure
Alabama, USA

The mission of the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure (CSI) is to conduct research associated with constructing, expanding,maintaining, and rehabilitating all aspects of physical infrastructure. The Center facilitates and leads multi-disciplinary, collaborative
programs and explores linkages between different infrastructure systems that are traditionally studied in separate specialty areas. The
Center is particularly focused on the safe and efficient creation of resilient infrastructure, including assessment of infrastructure condition,
vulnerability, and recovery from disaster. Four key research themes of the CSI are 1) multi-hazards community-based resilience, 2)energy simulation and retrofitting of buildings, 3) accelerated and automated construction, and 4) advanced materials for civil
infrastructure. Its Large Scale Structures Laboratory (LSSL) contains a 75-foot by 40-foot test floor with a 3-foot thick strong floor, two 15ton capacity overhead cranes, and 2-foot thick reconfigurable reinforced-concrete blocks that can be stacked and post-tensioned to thestrong floor to provide reaction walls on the testing floor. The sponsors of research projects include National Science Foundation,Federal Highway Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, State
DOTs, and the industry.
For further details, visit the website: https://csi.eng.ua.edu/

75

GADRI Members
Established in March 2015, the Global Alliance ofDisaster
Research
Institutes
supporttheimplementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster
Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR) and the work of
the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of theUnited Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction(UNDRR).

institutions have joined GADRI.

In line with its vision, GADRI strives to deepen theunderstanding of disasters and find implementable
solutions to achieve disaster resilience; i.e. human,
technical system and infrastructure resilience,survivability and well-being, by integrating knowledge
and technologies from around the world. Over 200

To join GADRI, please contact the GADRI Secretariat:
secretariat-gadri@dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp

GADRI membership is free; and completely voluntary
and non-binding.
GADRI Secretariat is currently headquartered andhosted by the Disaster Prevention Research Institute(DPRI), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.

Geographical Distribution of GADRI as of 31 December 2021

Area

Members

Economies

Africa12

7

Americas

36

8

Asia
(Excluding Japan)

81

23Europe

36

12

Japan

33

1

Oceania102

Total Institutes

208

53

Japan
33, 16%

Americas37, 17%

Europe36, 17%
Asia excluding
Japan 81, 40%

53 economies

Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI)
Secretariat
Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI)
Kyoto University, Uji Campus, Gokasho, Uji-shi
Kyoto 611-0011, JAPAN
Tel: +81-774-38-4621
Fax: +81-774-38-4254
E-mail: secretariat-gadri@dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Web: www.gadri.net

All rights reserved. GADRI ACTIONS is the property of GADRI Secretariat and protected by the international
copyright laws. GADRI ACTIONS contents may not be reprinted, copied, and distributed without the copyrightholder's prior written permission.
76