GeoRisk Update - August 2002

Occasional newsletter of the IUGG Commission on Geophysical Risk & Sustainability

Chairman's annual report
(as presented at the Budapest Meeting of the GeoRisk Commission)

The GeoRisk Commission was established by the IUGG Bureau in August 2000 to study the interaction between hazards, their likelihood and their wider social consequences as a result of the vulnerability of societies.

The Commission received the support of all the seven International Associations that comprise the IUGG, as well as the support of some of the inter-association initiatives, principally CMG and ITC. These bodies all nominated a person to be a member of the Commission, to represent their Association on the Commission, and to report Commission activities back to their respective Associations through the appropriate Secretary-General.

The GeoRisk Commission Executive consists of Tom Beer (Chair and Treasurer), Grant Heiken (Secretary), Alik Ismael-Zadeh (vice-chair), Kuniyoshi Takeuchi (vice-chair).

Since August 2000, the activities of the Commission have been to establish a web site, to organise future meetings, and to initiate the webcyclopedia project, and to discuss the feasibility of a cities project. Communication between the membership has been via e-mail, including distribution of "GeoRisk Update", an occasional newsletter of the Commission.

Web site
It took longer than envisaged to set up the web site - primarily because the administrative and financial arrangements proved more complex, and slower, than expected. However the attractive website is now functional at:
http://www.mitp.ru/georisk/
and is maintained by our webmaster, Dmitry Krupsky [s_dmitry@rambler.ru]. I would urge you all to visit the website regularly, and ensure that the material related to your own area of expertise is timely and relevant.

Past and future meetings
Crowding the Rim Summit, Stanford University(August 2001)
This successful meeting, organised by the US Geological Survey, Stanford University, the Pan-Pacific Council and the American Red Cross was supported by the GeoRisk Commission and attended by the Secretary and the Chair.

Workshop on Science for Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development of Society, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (June 2002)
We owe a debt of gratitude to the vice-chair, Alik Ismael-Zadeh, for his success in organising this workshop, which also serves as the inaugural meeting of the Commission.

IUGG General Assembly, Sapporo, Japan (July 2003)
The GeoRisk Commission is organising two sessions. The Union Symposium U4 - Geophysical Risk and Sustainability on a Crowded Planet - that is an invitation only session; and an inter-association symposium JSP11 - Geophysical Risk and Vulnerability: The population-hazard interaction - for which we seek papers.

The program for Session U4 is as follows:

Other meetings
The GeoRisk Commission plans to have involvement with the Third World Water Forum to be held in Kyoto in March 2003.

Webcyclopedia
The main activity of the Commission is the development of a web based "Webcyclopedia of Urban Risk and Sustainability". The shell is developed and should be examined at http://www.mitp.ru/georisk/webcyclopedia/index.html
The webcyclopedia is envisaged as a matrix, ordered in terms of cities, hazards and risks. The rows of the matrix will be envisaged to be the cities, whereas the hazards and risks form the columns. The ordering of cities will be determined by the past scientific studies of the members of the commission, the future activities, and contacts made as a result of the on-going commission initiatives. The hazards to be considered will be determined by the scientific skill base, as determined by the IUGG associations - hydrological, meteorological, marine, tsunamis, volcanoes, seismic, geodetic (landslides), geomagnetic. The risks will be determined by the sustainability issues such as infrastructure issues (building vulnerability, robustness of infrastructure), and health issues (air quality, water quality, contaminated land).
The Webcyclopedia project will seek to find volunteers who will provide web-based material to insert into the cells of the matrix. The form of such material could be many and varied, ranging from the traditional scientific paper through to interactive hazard maps, real time data, models of the phenomena, or merely hyperlinks to other sites providing information on the topic.
The next stage in the development of the webcyclopedia will be to find an Editor-in-Chief, and an editorial panel of Geographic Editors and Disciplinary Editors. We are presently negotiating with some possible publishers to determine how to maintain the webcyclopedia as an ongoing entity after the initial seed-funding from IUGG is exhausted.

The future
The outstanding achievments within such a short time span are a tribute to the enthusiasm and energy of the GeoRisk Executive. Further progress will require more participation from the members of the Commission. We need, for example:

Web director - to liaise with our web master to ensure completeness and topicality
Editor in Chief and Editors for the webcyclopedia
Liaison person - to produce and distribute GeoRisk Update
Treasurer

When the Commission was inaugurated, it was envisioned that it would have a focus on megacities. The need for such a project continues, as does the need to find a funding agency that would be receptive to the concept of such a project.

Report from Budapest

Grant Hieken, Commission Secretary (justify) and Tom Beer, Commission Chair outside the Hungarian Academy of Science Building in Budapest

The IUGG Commission on Geophysical Risk and Sustainability (GeoRisk Commission) arranged its inaugural meeting at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest in collaboration with Euroscience. The form of the meeting consisted of a by-invitation only workshop entitled "Science for Reduction of Risk and Sustainable Development of Society" with speakers from IUGG (representing the physical sciences) and from Euroscience (representing the social sciences). The workshop was designated a NATO Advanced Research Workshop, and the workshop proceedings will be published by Kluwer.

After opening talks by senior representatives of IUGG (Uri Shamir, the Vice-President) and Euroscience (J.-P. Connerade, the President) talks were given on Natural and Environmental Risk Prevention and Sustainability. These talks were: Environmental Risk & Sustainability (Beer), on Flood Risk Management (Ferencz), and on Geophysical Risk and Safe Transportation Systems (Panza). These were followed by a panel discussion with Shamir, Heiken and Jayawardena of the GeoRisk Commission.

The talks that followed were on Science, Risk and Society. These talks were: Science and Risk: Science authority at risk (Schmeder), Science, Risk & Law (Paterson) and How safe are aluminium containing vaccines (Gherardi).

Prof. Genevieve Schmeder aroused a heated discussion (especially from the Americans) with her claim that society distrusted scientists. It emerges that the BSE and Foot & Mouth epidemics have greatly tarnished scientific credibility in Europe. Prof. Gherardi's talk, by contrast, was a detailed medical examination of his hypothesis that aluminium- containing vaccines are responsible for chronic fatigue syndrome.

The second day consisted of two items. Firstly, a plenary in which the talks and the discussion were summarised into the Budapest Manifesto on Risk Science and Sustainability. The 27 July 2002 draft of the Budapest Manifesto is attached. It will go to the IUGG and Euroscience Executives for endorsement prior to being publicised.

After the plenary, there was a business meeting of the IUGG GeoRisk Commission. This provided the first opportunity for members of the GeoRisk Executive to meet each other, and to meet with Uri Shamir, the Vice-President of IUGG. This meeting elected Paula Dunbar as Treasurer of the GeoRisk Commission, and endorsed the choice of India as the venue for a meeting of the GeoRisk Commission in July 2004.

Membership of the GeoRisk Executive

Chair

Vice-chairs

Secretary

Treasurer