Focus on Africa

The African legs of the ENHANS project took place in Cairo, Egypt on 1 November 2010 and in Pretoria, South Africa, from 17 to 20 January 2011.

1. The mini-symposium on Natural Hazards and Climate Changes was organized by the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology. Alik Ismail-Zadeh (KIT, Germany, pdf ) introduced the ENHANS project and emphasized an importance of the integrated research on topics of natural and human-induced hazards and disasters. Tom Beer (CSIRO, Australia, pdf) discussed problems of environmental risk management related to climate change and geophysical hazards. Harsh Gupta (NGRI, India, pdf) presented the tsunami warning system built for the Indian Ocean. He also discussed the problem of induced seismicity (pdf). David Jackson (UCLA, USA, pdf) told about global earthquake forecasts and how they help to understand seismic hazard. Samir Riad (Cairo Univ., Egypt, pdf) discussed the climatic changes and their possible impacts in Egypt. After presentations round-table discussion took place.
   
   


Speakers together with the participants of the round-table discussion


2. The International Workshop "International Workshop on Extreme Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk in Africa" provided an opportunity to the research community of the African countries and international experts to discuss and analyse major topics related to extreme natural events and disaster risk. The workshop served as a platform to establish links and networks between African experts with the relevant international organizations. The workshop was hosted by the Aon Benfield Natural Hazard Centre, University of Pretoria.