Innovation in Disaster Risk Assessment in Current and Future Climates

See Presentations from the Innovation in Disaster Risk Assessment Session from the Understanding Risk conference HERE

Session overview: Human society and climate are coevolving in a manner that could place more vulnerable populations at risk from natural hazards. Climate change is predicted to increase intensity and/or frequency of weather-related hazards (IPCC 2007), while growing societal vulnerability, especially in the hazard-prone areas, may further increase risk of natural disasters. These trends highlight the need to better understand the interactions between hazards and societal vulnerability in a context of climate change, and call for innovative, integrated approaches to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. This session brings together researchers and practitioners who work at the interface of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to explore methods, models and innovative solutions to various aspects of the disaster cycle in a changing climate.

Welcome to the session! We are excited to moderate this session and learn from everyone though this process. This discussion will be informal. Everyone is invited to contribute. A few active participants of this forum will be invited to share their innovative work at the World Bank conference on “Understanding Risk” in June, 2010. While we currently focused on the upcoming conference, we hope this becomes a venue for ongoing discussion and collaboration. To jump start the discussion, we would like to offer the following topics/questions in the discussion threads below.

Olga Wilhelmi, NCAR and Hannah Brenkert-Smith, NCAR (session leads)