PartⅢ : Panel Discussion 15:30 - 17:40

Chair:
Prof Hiroshi Takeda, Executive Vice President, Kobe University

Panelists:
Speakers from part I & II and;Dr Denis Peter, European Commission
Prof Hormoz Modaressi, BRGM
Prof Jochen Zschau, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Prof David Alexander, Global Risk Forum GRF DavosPart 3 looked into the aspects and initiatives taken by themore coordination or stimulating cooperation between theEuropean institutions followed by a panel session among

member states and the agencies both at the international

Japanese and European specialists. Professor Hiroshi Takeda,level and European level.

Executive Vice President of Kobe University chaired this2. Research dimension

session. The former part was an individual presentation onA description and breakdown of the Seventh Framework

each initiative by the respective institutions.

Programme for Research and Technological Development orFP7, which is a seven-year (2007-2013) research programme

Dr Denis Peter from the European Commission presented anin Europe. The objectives of FP7 are grouped into the four

overview of their activities related to natural

instruments: 1) COOPERATION, the highest budgetedhazards/disasters in three parts:

programme, is for collaboration between certain number of

1. Policy context

research institutions, universities and enterprises on projects

The role of the European Commission in the disaster policy isincluding those in the ﬁeld of natural hazards; 2) IDEAS is for16

new frontier research; 3) PEOPLE is best known for the Mariecountries.

Curie Actions, a fellowship programme for post doc in a form

ONAMAZU is the quantitative assessment of nonlinear soilof training networks; and 4) CAPACITIES is a programme toresponse during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake andoptimize the use and development of the best research

DYNTOHOKU is its dynamics from long term stressinfrastructures in Europe. In addition to those four

accumulation to asperities. SYNER-G focuses on systemic

instruments, the Commission also has Joint Researchvulnerability, like those which occurred in Japan. There are 3

Centers (JRC) to conduct nuclear and non-nuclear researchmain objectives for this project. The ﬁrst is to select the mostactivities, as well as the European Atomic Energy Community

advanced fragility functions to assess the physical and(Euratom) to coordinate the Member States' researchsocietal-economic vulnerability of all assets, improving andprogrammes for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

further developing new ones where necessary, considering

3. Research related and pre-operational

European distinctive features of the buildings, which are

The Commission intends to respond to emergency situations

diﬀerent from countries. The second point is to develop ain the European capacity through Global Monitoring for

uniﬁed methodology to assess vulnerability at diﬀerent levels.

Environment and Security (GMES) Emergency Response

And ﬁnally, to build an appropriate open source software andService . It has developed a common web-based platform

tool that would be made available to scientiﬁc and other

Global disaster and alert coordination system (GDACS) withcommunities, if they wish to use it or implement it for diﬀerent

UN to quickly estimate hazards and give alerts through thepurposes.

joint research centre Ispra .
Professor Jochen Zschau of GFZ German Research Centre forProfessor Hormoz Modaressi of BRGM, France, presented theGeosciences ﬁrst explained the activities of the centre whichscientiﬁc perspectives following the GEJET in which BRGM isfocuses its research on earth system dynamics. The centre isinvolved. Examples included two recent collaboration withconducting a number of projects including its Earth Systems

Japan on Tohoku earthquake, the ONAMAZU andAnalysis, SAFER (Seismic Early Warning for Europe), MATRIXDYNTOHOKU; and SYNER-G (Systemic Seismic Vulnerability(Multi-Hazard and Multi-Risk Assessment Methods) andand Risk Analysis for Buildings, Lifeline Networks andREAKT (Real-Time Earthquake Risk Reduction) for FP7.

Infrastructures Safety Gain), one of the FP7 research projects
in which Kobe University is one of its 14 participants from 1117

Another project, the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) is a

IDRC is a biennial conference on disaster and risk reduction

public/private partnership for mapping and communicatingand climate change adaption that is complemented withcomplex earthquake risk globally, an OECD initiative which

regional conferences and workshops in the intervening year.

now involves governments, industry, science organizations

There have been three IDRC conferences held so far, and theand institutions, World Bank, ISDR and UNESCO. Japan s

next will be held in August, 2012. The Risk Academy is themembership is currently being negotiated. Professor Zschauknowledge sharing and know-how transfer pillar of GRF. A

pointed out in the last part of his presentation that it is notthink tank is organized within Risk Academy to exchangeenough to just quantify risk hazard and risk; there is also aknowledge and information, and also to launch teaching andneed to quantify the changes of hazard and risk, because

research initiatives in the study of disasters, risk and climate

vulnerability is a very dynamic quantity. He also stated thatchange. There are four aspects to it. 1) The raising of

there is a need to update risk quickly. Classical risk

awareness, which is done in a variety of ways throughassessment methods would take years, GFZ is developing adiscussions, ﬁlms, exhibitions, etc.; 2) Education such as

method that combines satellite, remote sensing tools, withtraining courses, workshops and publication; 3) Service &ground based panoramic street view with mobile 3-D cameras,

Products, which include regular updates on global risk andsimilar to the system used by Google.

editing books; 4) Research & Development, which include
project development on integrated risk management.The thirdProfessor David Alexander of Global Risk Forum (GRF) Davospillar, Planet@risk is a web-based networking platform which isstarted with an overview of his organization. GRF is anused to showcase some of the best non-academic ororganization founded in 2008 which is funded by a variety ofsub-academic literature. These are speciﬁcally useful tosources including the Swiss federal, cantonal and local

stakeholders who deal directly with risk and disastergovernment, private sector and others. GRF has a network ofproblems.

collaboration with a dozen UN organizations, 40 internationalorganizations and many academic and research institutions
around the world. GRF is based upon three pillars: TheInternational Disaster and Risk Conferences (IDRC) andWorkshops; Risk Academy; and Planet@risk.

18

Prof. Takeda, the chairman, has started the second part ofthe city planning, which might be due to the diﬃculty ofPanel session by inviting panelists to comment on the two

incorporating it into the long-term city planning. One way toaspects of GEJET; the damage states and the eﬀects of thesolve this problem may be to build a true sense of local

damage. Panelists have given various comments on theseautonomy. On the other hand, regulations are normally forpoints and the conclusions may be summarized as follows:

life duration and we cannot change the hazard map every-Hazard assessment: One of the most important lessons

year. Hence, the ﬂexibility, transferability and adaptability

learnt from this tragic event is how to prepare for the mostare indeed needed to be included at the very beginning of

improbable case. Prehistoric information is also very

the planning.

important. Obtaining information about the areas previously-Communication: Communication is also a very important

visited and investigated by researchers; we should do more

aspect that we learnt from GEJET. People are the ones who

research on the lack of utilization of research, or on how toreceive the information, and to whom the governments andbetter utilize research.

scientists should communicate to prepare for the safety.

-Government involvement: The government of Japan provide

Before the Kobe Earthquake, many scientists talked to thehazard map to the public to promote preparedness andgovernment only about the safety, not to the citizens. This

prevention. Politics plays an important role here; therefore

communication process is not a very good style, and wethe map should be politically explainable and most likely toscientists have to change our attitude from this bad style

be realized. As for the EU, basically land management policy

to communicating better to the citizens.

is in the hands of the member states, however there was adocument released last year for risk assessment andmapping guidelines for risk management. This document is
not something meant to impose on member states, but isintended to provide them with guidelines and to help them.
An example can be the hazard map that was prepared by amunicipality in Tohoku area after GEJET, which was very
accurate because it incorporated scientiﬁc knowledge in theadministrative planning. However, the problem was that thedisaster reduction plan was not adequately incorporated in19