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Focus on Latin America and the Caribbean
Most recent natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean (12 January 2010 M=7.0 Haiti earthquake and 27 February 2010 M8.8 Chile earthquakes and tsunami) attracted considerably attention of society to problems of natural hazards and risks.
The first events in the framework of the ICSU project were held at the Meeting of the Americas, Foz do Iguassu, Brazil, on 9-11 August 2010. The American Geophysical Union (AGU), International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), and the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC) of the International Council for Science (ICSU), as the principal co-organizers of the meeting.
The major event was a Union symposium "Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk in Latin America and the Caribbean". The symposium
contributed to better understanding of physical phenomena behind natural hazards and to disaster risk analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean region and promoted further research in an
interdisciplinary framework focused on natural hazards, risk assessment and reduction. The symposium's topics included geohazard processes associated with risk and disasters in the region;
analysis of disaster risk causes, drivers and impacts; understanding the factors and processes that contribute to the social construction of risk; and climate change adaptation and disaster
risk reduction.
Symposium organizers:
- Omar Cardona, National University of Colombia, Manizales, COLOMBIA (ROLAC, ICSU).
- Jaime Fucugauchi, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, MEXICO (AGU).
- Alik Ismail-Zadeh, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, GERMANY (IUGG, AGU).
- Ilya Zaliapin, University of Nevada at Reno, USA (AGU).
Invited Speakers:
- Alice Abreu, ICSU-ROLAC, Brazil (A new opportunity for collaboration in understanding and managing risk associated with natural hazards in Latin America and Caribbean)
- Irasema Alcàntara-Ayala, Institute of Geography, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico (risk of landslides in Latin America)
- Keith Alverson, GOOS, IOC-UNESCO, Paris, France (Global Oceanic Observing System for mitigation of disasters)
- Piero Boccardo, Politechnico di Torino, Italy (Geomatics and Disaster Management: Early Impact assessment in Haiti)
- Servando De la Cruz-Reyna, Institute of Geophysics, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico (volcanic hazards in Latin America)
- Tony Gibbs, Consulting Engineers Partnership Ltd, Barbados (hurricane loss reduction and safety in the Caribbean)
- Vyacheslav Gusiakov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk (The February 27, 2010 Chilean earthquake and tsunami)
- Allan Lavell, Programme for the Social Study of Risk and Disaster, FLACSO, Costa Rica (risk patterns in Latin America)
- Omar Perez, Universidad Simon Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela (seismic potential, hazard and risk in the Latin America and the Caribbean)
Other scientific events related to the project topics held at the meeting:
- Union symposium: The 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Lessons for Seismic Hazard and Societal Impacts in the Caribbean
- Union symposium: The 2010 Chile earthquake and several scientific sessions related to natural hazards in and around the region:
- Advances in volcano monitoring in Latin America
- Drought in the intra-Americas seas
- Land-ocean-atmospheric processes over Americas: Implication to natural hazards and global carbon cycle
- Landslides under extreme weather conditions in Latin America and Caribbean
- Natural hazards of the Americas in focus of geosciences
- Societal impacts of monsoon variability in the Americas
- Volcanic ash and aerosols: Monitoring, modeling, forecasting and hazards
- Extreme weather events in the Americas: observations, forecasts and projections
- Satellite applications on extreme weather monitoring in the Americas
- Seismic microzoning and risk management in Latin America
- Standardization seismic hazard methods in South America
The Union symposium "Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk in Latin America and the Caribbean" attracted the considerable attention of scientists to problem of natural hazards and disaster risk.
A Town Hall meeting was held on 10 August 2010 bringing together experts in natural hazards and disaster risks and leaders of learning societies to discuss the problem of hazards and disasters in the region.
The report on the events can be found here
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