“The understanding of risk has to be by the people who have to cope with the risk,” said Dr. Ravi Sinha from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

“Risks are fundamentally hyper-local, therefore the data that goes into understanding it has to be hyper-local. To collect this data, we need wide participation of people who need to understand what it is they are collecting, thus the need for common terminology.”

The forum also saw the launch of two significant publications. The Europe chapter of the UNDRR Science Technology Advisory Group launched its first collective report, with contributions from 16 authors, titled Socio Economic and Data Challenges‘. The report, which is now available on PreventionWeb, highlights the need for scientists to include socioeconomic factors in their DRR analysis.

Towards the end of the day, Ms. Mizutori joined Dr. Rajib Shaw, Professor at Keio University, to celebrate the launch of the inaugural volume of the new journal Progress in Disaster Science  ‘Progress in Disaster Science.’ Prof. Shaw, who serves as its Editor-in-Chief, noted that this journal will aim to serve the needs of both scientists and policy makers, by publishing original research papers and practical ‘viewpoint’ submissions. Moreover, the journal will be accessible to everyone online with no paywall or subscription requirement.

“The great thing about this journal is the combination of academia, the practicality and the accessibility,” said Ms Mizutori, adding that “the most important thing, is that the focus of the journal is on the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.”

Date:

13 May 2019

Sources:

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Regions:

Africa, Americas, Europe, Asia, Oceania