Meetings

    2009

  • The International Conference "ELECTRONIC GEOPHYSICAL YEAR: STATE OF THE ART AND RESULTS", Pereslavl-Zalessky, Russia, June 3-6, 2009

    • The Conference sponsored by Charity Kauffman Foundation, Systems Integrator "Office Technics" , "Data+" International Distributor, ESTI MAP - MapInfo in Russia, "Stroyteks" Group of Companies, Open joint-stock company commercial investment bank "Euroalliance", ASM Holding and information sponsors National Information Agency "Natural resources", Russian French Metallogenic Laboratory, Scientific analytic magazine "Engineering ecology" was attended by over 120 scientists from 8 countries (Austria, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and USA). The welcome addresses were presented by A. Okhapkin (Mayor of Pereslavl-Zalessky), A. Gliko (academician-secretary of Earth Sciences Branch RAS), A. Ismail-Zadeh (Secretary General of IUGG), J.-B. Minster (IUGG), V. Mayer (CNRS, France), M. Zgurovsky (academician of NAS, Ukraine), and S. Abramov (corr.-member RAS, IPS RAS). The scientific program included the following Plenary sessions –

    4.1: Electronic Geophysical Year: results and prolongation (invited lectures: “Challenges facing Data Centers in the Earth, Ocean and Space Sciences” by C. Fox, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USA; “Electronic Geophysical Year: the Present Moment and Prospects” by P. Fox, High Altitude Observatory, NCAR, USA);
    4.2: Electronic Geophysical Year, International Polar Year, International Heliophysical Year, International Year of the Planet Earth, International Year of Astronomy (invited lecture: “90 years of international collaboration in geophysics” by  A. Ismail-Zadeh, IUGG);
    5.1: GIS, Methods of Artificial Intellect in Geoscience. Problems of Geoinformatics in Seismology and Geoecology (invited lecture: “Analysis of interconnection of big Kondratiev cycles of the world economy development and C-waves of system global conflicts M. Zgurovsky, National Technical University, Ukraine);
    5.2: GRID-systems (invited lecture: “Overview on GRID applications” by M. Petitdidier, H. Schwichtenberg, CNRS, France);
    5.3: Transition of World Data centers to World Data System (invited lecture: “The new ICSU World Data System: A world-wide community of excellence for data issues” by J.-B. Minster, N. Capitaine, D. Clark, ICSU World Data System Transition Team);
    5.4: Geomagnetic Observations, Geoinformatics and Virtual Observatories (invited lecture: “New approaches to look into the Earth’s magnetic field” M. Mandea, Helmholtz-Zentrum PotsdamDeutsches GeoForschungsZentrum, Germany);
    6.1: Global Changes, Climate and Weather in the Solar-Earth System (invited lecture: Diagnostics and modeling of natural and anthropogenic climate changes” I. Mokhov, Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS, Russia).

    V.G. Kossobokov contributed to sessions 5.4 and 6.1 with presentations entitled “Feasibility of geomagnetic forecasts: a practical approach” and “The three longest temperature series from Europe evidence influence of a level of solar irradiance” (in co-authorship with J.-L. Le Mouel and V. Courtillot, IPGP, France), correspondingly, and participated in Meeting of the National Geophysical Committee of Russia.

    The Conference has issued the following -

    Pereslavl-Zalessky Declaration

    We, the participants in the “eGY: State of the Art and Results“ symposium in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Russia on June 4-6, 2009, endorse the “Tsukuba Declaration” of the “IGY+50” meeting in Tsukuba, Japan, on 10-13th November, 2008.

    Tsukuba Declaration

    We, the participants in the four “IGY+50” programs – the International Polar Year (IPY), the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE), the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY), and the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) – which mark the 50-year anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), meeting in Tsukuba, Japan on 10-13th November 2008,
    note the outstanding success of these international science year programs in building on the legacy of IGY by

  • advancing discovery and producing remarkable new insights into geophysical, biological, and sociological aspects of our Earth and space environment,
  • improving our understanding of the physical and social impacts on human society of complex environmental phenomena and Earth’s vulnerability to natural and human-induced change,
  • expanding Earth observational capabilities,
  • fostering cooperation among scientists from all over the world, and facilitating coordinated, inter-disciplinary investigations of global phenomena,
  • reducing the “Digital Divide” by engaging scientists from developing countries,
  • creating opportunities for young scientists to participate in international projects,
  • exploiting scientific and technical advances, particularly in information and communication technologies,
  • moving towards the goal of a scientific information commons by promoting ready, full, open, and timely access to data, together with long-term data preservation,
  • raising public awareness of the wonders of our planet and its space environment,
  • widening the knowledge base needed for managing the health of our planetary home,
  • and promoting a common spirit of cooperation and harmony among nations;

    • assert that these functions must continue and expand in the future if Society is to achieve equitable, sensible, and sustainable life on Earth, as well as satisfy man’s innate curiosity about our wonderful planet and its surroundings; and
    look forward, beyond IGY+50, to enhanced cooperation among the global science community, national academies of sciences, research funding agencies, industry, national governments, and inter-governmental bodies so that society and its leaders will have at their disposal the best possible data and information to make the decisions necessary for a sustainable future for humankind.

    Tsukuba,
    13th November 2008

  • Spring School on “Fluid Mechanics and Geophysics of Environmental Hazards” in Singapore from 19th April to 02nd May 2009 (see IUGG Electronic Journal Vol. 9 No. 6).

    The School was promoted by IUTAM (the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics) and IUGG, and supported by an ICSU grant. The school was supported by the ICSU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific Region (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), and it contributed to two of ICSU’s priority areas : Natural and Human-Induced Emvirronmental Hazradsand Disasters and Building Scientific Capacity. Kuniyoshi Takeuchi and Gerd Tetzlaff of GRC represented IUGG in the school’s international scientific committee. Harsh Gupta gave a talk on “Natural and Human Induced Environmental Hazards and Diasasters” on 20th April, presenting the ICSU research program IRDR (Integrated Research on Disaster Risk). A. Jayawardena and Gerd Tetzlaff contributed to the lecture program and the student projects. The full program can be found on www.ims.nus.edu.sg.

  • An international scientific conference was organized celebrating the 600th anniversary of the University Leipzig, from 02-04 March 2009 in Leipzig.

    The program addressed the whole spectrum of disaster risk reduction and was held on the premises of the University of Leipzig. Gerd Tetzlaff was the conference chair. Details are available from the homepage of the conference

    • 2008

  • 29th General Assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU), Maputo, Mozambique, 21-24 October 2008

    The General Assembly is hosted by the Scientific Research Association of Mozambique (AICIMO), under the auspices of the Government of Mozambique and in cooperation with the ICSU Regional Office for Africa. More information on the event is available on the ICSU web site.

  • Second United Nations International UN-SPIDER Bonn Workshop: "Disaster Management and Space Technology - Bridging the Gap", Bonn, Germany, 13– 15 October 2008

    More information is available here.

  • International Disaster and Risk Conference (IDRC), Davos, Switzerland, 25 - 29 August

    The conference takes an integrated, multidisciplinary approach when addressing the different kinds of risks affecting society today, risks which might be far beyond any particular stakeholder’s capacity to control and that may adversely affect multiple parties across geographic borders, sectors and industries. More information is available at the IDRC web site.

  • GeoRisk Commission Business Meeting, 10 August 2008 Oslo, Norway

    The Georisk Commission will hold its next business meeting in Oslo (Norway) on the 10th August 2008 from 09-12 (to be confirmed).

    Agenda (to be completed):

    1. Review of previous actions :
        ICSU planning of new GeoHazard program
        ICSU RAO GeoHazard team application
        GeoRisk Commission initiative on Sichuan Earthquake at Tsukuba Conference
        Other reports
    2. Individual interest repots/proposals (5-10 minutes per person)
    3. Discussion on future GeoRisk Commission activities
    4. Any other matters


  • International Geological Congress, August 6-14, Oslo, Norway

    The Hazards megasession will be a part of the Conference International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) major geoscience programme.
    (Hazards : minimising risk, maximising awareness; Tom Beer et al. as conveners; code PEH-01; 07-08 August 2008 Oslo)
    The Hazards program is available here.

    2007

  • IUGG General Assembly, July 2-13, 2007, Perugia, Italy

    Commission Business Meeting

    The last business meeting of the Commission was held in Hyderabad (India) in December 2004. The next business meeting is to be held in Perugia, on Friday 6 July, 12:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Please mark the date and time in your dairy. The President, Secretary General and Treasurer will report on the activity between December 2004 (last business meeting) and June 2007. Based on the reports and discussions, we should recommend to the IUGG Executives that whether the Commission continue its activity. Another item of the business meeting is the composition of the Commission for the next 4 years.

    US007: High-Performance Computations in Geosciences

    Conveners:
    A. Ismail-Zadeh, Geophysical Institute, University of Karlsruhe, GERMANY
    Z. Wu, College of Earth Sciences, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, CHINA
    Co-conveners:
    V. Gusiakov, Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, RUSSIA
    J. Rundle, Center for Computational Science and Engineering and Engineering University of California, Davis, USA

    Invited Speakers

    1. M. GHIL (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France) “Modeling and Data Assimilation in Atmospheric Sciences and Oceanography”
    2. G. GLATZMAIER (University of California, Santa Cruz, USA) “Three-dimensional Simulations of Explosive Volcanic Eruptions”
    3. G. PANZA (University of Trieste, Italy) “Modeling and Prediction-oriented Simulations of Hazards Bridging to Engineering”
    4. T. SATO (The Earth Simulator Center, Yokohama, Japan) “Fostering the Simulation Culture”
    5. Y. SHI (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China) “Computational Geodynamics and Its Applications” (abstract is not yet submitted)
    6. P. TACKLEY (ETH, Zurich, Switzerland) “High-Performance Computing in Mantle Dynamics”
    7. V. TITOV (National Center for Tsunami Research, Seattle, USA) “Tsunami Modeling”
    8. J. TROMP (California Institute of Technology, USA) “Adjoint Methods in Computational Seismology”

    US012: Early Warning of Natural Hazards

    Conveners
    R. Singh, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur INDIA
    D. Tang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, CHINA
    M. Buchroithner, University of Dresden, GERMANY
    V. Sgrigna, University of Rome Tre, ITALY

  • IUGG-AOGS Session on Strategy of Reducing Predictive Uncertainty of Geophysical Hazards, 30 July - 4 August 2007, Bangkok, Thailand
    IUGG-AOGS joint session “Strategy of Reducing Predictive Uncertainty of Geophysical Hazards” is organized during the Asia Pacific Geophysical Society (AOGS) Annual Convention to be held in Bangkok, Thailand from 30 July to 4 August 2007. Principal convener: K. Takeuchi, co-conveners: H. Gupta, T. Beer, and Z. Wu.
    Reduction of uncertainty in prediction is a common objective of all geoscientific disciplines. Advanced observations, simulation, nonlinear mathematics, catastrophic theory, super computers, satellites etc. are the common technology available, yet waiting for break through for new generation prediction accuracy. The session brings scientific strategies of uncertainty reduction from different disciplines and compares them to find the possibility of better collaboration and joint work. It focuses on super-hazards such as 1991 Pinatubo eruption, 1998 China Floods, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, 2005 Pakistan Earthquake as they are so destructive and badly need, if ever possible, prediction for survival. This session is organized jointly by IUGG GeoRisk Commission and AOGS and contributes the Hazards Theme of the International Year of Planet Earth and the UN-ISDR activities for Hyogo Framework for Action.

  • Workshop “Natural and Human-induced hazards and disasters in Africa”, Kampala, Uganda, August 2007
    A purpose of the workshop is to promote networking between the various organizations and groups working in the field of natural hazards in Africa. This workshop is organized by the African Scoping Group on Natural and Human-Induced Hazards and Disasters, ICSU Regional Office for Africa (ICSU ROA) in the co-operation with the IUGG GeoRisk Commission. At present, ICSU ROA is spearheading efforts to mobilize the African and international scientific community to take a proactive approach on natural and human-induced disaster in Africa and interacts with governments and other bodies to help frame policies that will raise public awareness, minimize hazards and reduce people’s vulnerability to them. In addition the workshop will assess the need for developing educational materials on hazards and prompt cooperation for new initiatives in the region. In this respect, ICSU ROA will facilitate and work as an umbrella organization to bring together the GeoUnions and other international organizations to ensure that existing and new scientific knowledge is used to develop improved hazard mitigation strategies. Another aim is to facilitate participation in the Hazards team of the United Nations proclaimed International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) in 2008. IUGG supported the GeoRisk Commission proposal toward the Kampala workshop and allocated $US2,000 to assist African young and women scientists and invited speakers to attend the workshop.

    • 2006

  • 26th International Conference on Mathematical Geophysics “Coupling in Earth Systems: Solids, Fluids, Life”, June 4-8, 2006, Israel

    • The GeoRisk Commission organizes together with IUGG CMG Committee a special session "Mathematical Aspects of Geohazard Research" at the 26th IUGG Conference on Mathematical Geophysics, to be held on the shore of the see of Galilee, Israel, June 4-8, 2006. The session will be held in honor of Professor Volodya Keilis-Borok for his contribution to understanding of natural hazards using mathematical, theoretical, and computational approaches.
    MORE

  • ESOF2006, 2nd European General Science Meeting, Munich , Germany, July 15th to 19th, 2006

    • The GeoRisk Commission organizes together with EuroScience a session "Riding the storm: Can science keep us in the saddle?" during the EuroScience Open Forum in Munich, Germany, 16 July 2006.
    MORE

    2005

  • 8th Workshop on Non-linear Dynamics and Earthquake Prediction, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Miramare - Trieste, Italy, 3-15 October 2005

    The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, in collaboration with the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Trieste, will organize the Eighth Workshop on Non-Linear Dynamics and Earthquake Prediction from 3 - 15 October 2005. The IUGG Commission on Geophsyical Risk and Sustainability and the IASPEI Commission on Earthquake Hazard, Risks and Strong Motion endorse the Workshop.

    More information is available from here.

  • Dynamic Planet 2005, Cairns, Australia, 22-26 August, 2005

    For more information about Dynamic Planet 2005 please contact the Conference Secretariat or visit the Conference web site.
    A rare joint conference of the IAG, IAPSO and IABO will offer opportunities to present and discuss cross-disciplinary research into the solid earth and oceans. In fact the scientific program, under the theme “Monitoring and Understanding a Dynamic Planet with Geodetic and Oceanographic Tools”, will emphasise the interaction of the earth and oceanographic sciences. The program will be enriched by a focus on the geodetic and oceanographic challenges in the tropics, the Asian region, the Pacific Ocean and its environs, and Antarctica, all regions where Australian and New Zealand scientists, and their international collaborators, play a significant role.

  • International Workshop - Recent geodynamics, georisk and sustainable development in the Black Sea to Caspian region, Baku, Azerbaijan, 3 to 6 July, 2005

    The workshop should prepare a scientific background for enhancement of disasters risk preparedness and reduction. This is important, since, for example, an earthquake of magnitude about 7 may reoccur in the Black sea to Caspian region, causing a regional to global scale catastrophe. Such a large earthquake in the region could face the devastating damage and destabilized social order in the whole region. The workshop will bring together people of natural, social and political sciences and of industry to analyze the problems of geophysical and technological hazards, risks and sustainability in the region and to develop the social and political background and acceptance; in this way it even may contribute to the peace process in the Caucasus region.

    More information is available from here.
  • World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR), Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, 18-22 January 2005

    The WCDR is a milestone event to increase the profile of disaster risk reduction in development planning and practice. The Conference will provide a unique opportunity to promote a strategic and systematic approach at the national level to address vulnerabilities and to reduce risk to natural hazards. Commitment to the reduction of disasters has been growing although actual materialization is still slow. Human and economic losses due to natural disasters continue to rise and remain as a major obstacle to sustainable development and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). New risks are emerging. The WCDR is expected to guide and motivate governments and their policy makers to pay more attention to such vital issues, identifying practical ways to incorporate risk reduction measures into action to reduce poverty.

    The Conference will build on the findings of the review of the implementation of the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action of 1994, aiming at:
    - Assessing achievements and identifying good practices;
    - Defining the remaining challenges, critical needs and opportunities in disaster reduction initiatives worldwide and examining emerging issues; and,
    - Developing a set of objectives and areas of action for disaster risk reduction to implement the objectives of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation for Sustainable Development, as essential conditions to achieve the relevant Millennium Development Goals (MDG's).

    For more information, please visit www.unisdr.org/wcdr