Lead academy: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Professor Guo Huadong, director general of the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, spoke at  the IAP General Assembly in London in January 2010 providing valuable insights and highlights of the last three years activities of this IAP programme. He discussed the valuable role that science and technology can play in disaster forecasting and management. Guo, who based his remarks on a recent IAP report, 'Natural Disaster Mitigation – A Scientific and Practical Approach', asked how science can play a more effective role both in understanding and predicting such events as the tragic earthquake in Haiti - which measured 7.0 on the Richter scale and caused more than 100,000 deaths - and in devising measures, including the creation of space-based monitoring networks and early warning systems, which will help curb their impact.

Visit the link for the presentation at: www.twas.org 

NEW REPORT ON "Natural Disaster Mitigation - A Scientific and Practical Approach", published by Science Press Beijing in December 2009.

Download the pdf file HERE, or request a printed copy from iap@twas.org

Other Activities:

The IAP Natural Disaster Mitigation initiative streamlined its 2006 working plan as follows:

- modify and to streamline the document “Global Natural Hazards and Disaster Reduction”
- draft a statement on natural disaster mitigation
- design example frameworks of emergency response for developing countries where major hazards occur.

The working group has been in contact with the Committee on DATA for S&T (CODATA) and jointly co-sporsored a regional workshop  with CODATA Task Group on Data Sources in Asian-Oceanic Countries (DSAO) in Thailand 12-13 Jan, 2006. See: http://www.codata.org/taskgroups/TGasian/DSAO2006agenda.html for more information on the workshop.