Post-earthquake Reconstruction: Experience from Chile

Felipe Kast, Presidential Delegate for Reconstruction and Former Minister of Planning

Government of Chile

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Please find the presentation attached here.

On February 27, 2010 a 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off of the coast of Central Chile. It was the sixth largest earthquake ever recorded, and it caused tsunami warnings to be issued for 53 countries. The event affected six Chilean regions with 80 percent of the country's population, destroyed 200,000 dwellings, and caused blackouts that affected 93 percent of the country's inhabitants. Despite the size of the event, only 525 lives were lost and 25 went missing. The losses to the economy were significant, however, at estimated US$15-30 billion.

Felipe Kast, the Presidential Delegate for Reconstruction in Chile, leads an ambitious three-year reconstruction plan to rebuild all the affected dwellings and to provide assistance to the affected families; he is also in charge of managing camps currently inhabited by more than 25,000 people. His plan includes strong economic, social, and urban components to provide a sustainable solution.

Mr. Kast, a former Minister of Planning, shared his personal experiences on issues and challenges in managing the reconstruction process. His presentation focused on the main guiding principles of the plan, how to deal with resettlement issues and community expectations, and other key elements that are essential to managing the process.

Mr. Kast, an economist, was director of the Social Program of the Instituto Libertad y Desarrollo (LYD) in Chile, has been a consultant for the World Bank, has taught at the Institute of Economics at the Catholic University of Chile, and is the author of several academic publications. He is a member of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). He earned his Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard University.

Multi-Hazard Assessment in Haiti, Phase 2 (NATHAT 2)

Sergio Mora, Senior DRM Specialist

LCSUW

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Please find the presentation attached here.

On January 12, 2010 a 7.0-magnitude earthquake affected large portions of Port-au-Prince, Léogâne, and Jacmel, causing very large losses to housing, schools, hospitals, electricity, water, and basic infrastructure. Estimates indicate that 3 million people were affected, more than 225,500 killed and 300,000 injured, and at least 1 million left homeless and living in camps throughout Port-au-Prince and other cities. The total value of damage and losses is estimated over US$8 billion, more than 120% of the country's GDP in 2009, compounding the already accumulated difficulties. In response to this disaster, the Government of Haiti (GoH) is now engaging in a process of accelerated reconstruction. The World Bank and GFDRR have built up a process intending to fulfill the needs for information and standard tools to support decision-makers, as a contribution to the reconstruction process in Haiti. The main objectives are to:

• Incorporate recent data to NATHAT and improve existing macro and micro natural hazard scenarios for priority areas defined by GoH and/or other stakeholders. The availability of new LiDAR-DEM (1m) and existing or newer thematic information (geology, rainfall, tide gauges, etc.) might allow enhancing their resolution.
• Define structural mitigation typologies according to predominant types of natural hazards (e.g., liquefaction, tsunami, slope failure, torrential debris flows, fluvial/coastal/urban floods) to improve resiliency of urban neighborhoods.
• Define criteria and social communication tools to assist in involving communities in defining risk (i.e., perception) and incorporate them to “formal” (engineering) assessments and their solutions (structural and non-structural mitigation).
• There will be an intense effort in training, transfer of knowledge and experiences to Haitian counterparts (i.e., government, academia, engineers, scientists) aiming at attempting a sustained continuity of risk assessments.
• Update, upgrade, display, and make available all NATHAT 1 and 2 products at a public web-based platform (i.e., Haitidata.org), with the intention of sharing all sources of information to support the design of neighborhood/housing projects, and the reconstruction of Haiti.

Using Geospatial Data to Map Haiti’s Hazards and Development Progress

Matt Ford

LCSUW

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Please find the presentation attached here.

The purpose of HaitiData.org is to facilitate open access to Haiti-related geo-spatial information, data, and knowledge products, and to encourage others to share and use them. This BBL explained and demonstrated the platform.

Access to high-quality information is critical for planners, policy makers, and other stakeholders involved in the reconstruction process in Haiti. This site is intended to facilitate more effective support to the country’s rehabilitation, recovery, and long-term sustainable development.

FONDEN Mexico: Building a Comprehensive Disaster Risk Reduction Instrument

Rubem Hofliger, General Director

FONDEN Mexico

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Please find the presentation attached here.

This BBL presented FONDEN's experience with transforming a financial instrument for reconstruction into a comprehensive risk reduction instrument.

Mexico’s Natural Disasters Fund, FONDEN, is a financial instrument within Mexico’s National System of Civil Protection designed to support its citizens, Mexican States, as well as federal agencies, in response, recovery and reconstruction efforts resulting from adverse natural events.

The objective of FONDEN has been primarily to provide emergency financial support to address the effects of disasters when the magnitude and impact of such events have affected public infrastructure and exceed the financial capacity of state-level and federal agencies. Its new structure promotes a significant expansion of its scope of work to all phases of disaster risk management.

In the past few months, FONDEN has changed its operating regulations and structure to promote disaster risk reduction efforts.

Visualizing Sustainable Development: Managing and Sharing Geospatial Data

Galen Burr Evans

LCSUW

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

Do you wish you could access, visualize, and share geospatial information? This BBL provided a preview on an innovative open source technology that can revolutionize the way you create, manage, and share geospatial data in the coming years. It is relevant for every area of work in sustainable development.

The GeoNode project was developed out of the Central American Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CAPRA) initiative as a tool for management of information for disaster risk modeling and has now been developed as a free and open source software. The sharing of geospatial information is just as important to a forestry or land-use planning project as it is for disaster risk management.

Galen Burr Evans gave a preview of GeoNode 1.0 about to be released to the broader geospatial community. The generic function of the GeoNode was illustrated with the recently created Haiti GeoNode as a resource for the dissemination of information related to the earthquake in Haiti and the reconstruction process.

PREDICT Services: A Solution for Flood Management in Haiti

Guillaume Ferry, Engineer

PREDICT Services

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

PREDICT Services is an initiative developed in 2006 to help communities and companies to cope with recurrent floods in France. This initiative is an effort of BRL, a public-private partnership coordinated by the local governments of the Languedoc-Roussillon Region, EADS Astrium in association with Méteo France. Since 2009, PREDICT has also helped the government and local authorities in Haiti to increase their capacity in flood management.

The main principles of this initiative are:
- to prepare emergency plans, to organize crisis management and reduce risks;
- to assist communities and companies during crisis to activate and adapt their emergency plans with enough anticipation;
- to analyze floods effects and improve emergency plans afterwards.

The BBL talk presented the experience of PREDICT Services in Haiti.

Seeking Higher Ground: A New Approach to West Sumatra's Tsunami Risk

Brian Tucker, President

GeoHazards International

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

Padang, the capital of West Sumatra Province and the most populated city in that province, is recognized as having one of the highest tsunami risks in the world. Preparation for a tsunami in Padang has focused on developing early warning systems, planning evacuation routes, conducting evacuation drills, and educating the public about its tsunami risk. These are necessary, but insufficient, steps: it is estimated that even if evacuation begins immediately after the earthquake shaking stops, more than 100,000 inhabitants of Padang will be unable to reach high ground in less than 30 minutes—the expected time between the end of the earthquake shaking and the arrival of the tsunami wave at the shore. Based upon extensive fieldwork in 2009, GeoHazards International (GHI) concluded that Padang’s existing tsunami evacuation capacity is grossly inadequate, and that tsunami evacuation structures are essential to protect the people of Padang. The M7.6 earthquake that struck Padang on September 30, 2009 confirmed this critical need for tsunami evacuation infrastructure. For these reasons, GHI and its Padang partners are designing an affordable, scalable evacuation infrastructure prototype for Padang—a Tsunami Evacuation Raised Earth Park. Construction is expected to commence at the end of 2011.

Brian Tucker received a B.A. in Physics, a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University.  He headed the Geologic Hazards Programs of the California Geological Survey from 1982 to1991.  In 1991, he founded GeoHazards International, a nonprofit organization working to reduce the risk of natural hazards in the world’s most vulnerable communities through preparedness, mitigation and advocacy.  He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America.  In 2000, he was honored for his service to the people of Nepal by the King of Nepal, and, in 2002, was named a MacArthur Fellow.  In 2007, he received the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation’s George Brown Award for International Science and Technology Cooperation and was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. In 2009, he was named one of UC San Diego’s 100 Influential Alumni.

Building Damage Assessment in Haiti: 150,000 Buildings and Counting

David Lallemant, Expert in Structural Engineering and Earthquake Resistant Design

LCSUW

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

Since February, the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) have helped the Haitian Ministry of Public Works lead the biggest building damage evaluation ever conducted. Currently, 270 trained engineers evaluate over 4,000 buildings per day in the affected area. Building tags (green, yellow and red) inform households of the safety of their living environment, and commence a process of reassurance for people traumatized by an event that saw 200-300 thousand people die from collapsing buildings. Having now evaluated 150,000 buildings (50,000 beyond target), geo-referenced structural evaluations are also used to produce strategic rehabilitation plans at an urban scale.

This BBL discussed the current status of the structural building assessment project, and the next steps to promote the rapid recovery of Haitian built environment.

David Lallemant is the technical advisor for several projects in Haiti related to building damage assessments, repair and rehabilitation. He is a candidate for a PhD at UC Berkeley and received his B.Sc. from MIT. His interdisciplinary studies in structural engineering and urban planning led him to his involvement in post-disaster and disaster risk reduction work. He serves on the committee for the Haiti chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and has taught several university classes in the fields of engineering and architecture.

Anticipating Earthquakes and Their Impacts in the Developing World: Implications for Latin America

Mary Lou Zoback, Vice President, Earthquake Risk Applications with Risk Management Solutions

RMS

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

The magnitude (M)7.0 Haiti earthquake in January 2010 as well as the M 8.8 earthquake that struck southern Chile at the end of February were anticipated. Using geologic and GPS studies earth scientists can now directly measure the on-going strain accumulation that is ultimately released in these large damaging earthquakes along plate boundary zones.  Typical earthquake cycles in the region are about 100-250 years, thus the longer it has been since the last earthquake, the greater the likelihood of a future event.  Hence there is a basis for assigning likelihood of future events.

While we cannot predict earthquakes, we can predict their likely effects and impacts.  The contrast in damage and fatalities between the M7.0 Haiti and the M8.8 Chile earthquakes demonstrates several of the principles involved in estimating impacts and consequences. These include damage due to proximity to the earthquake source, construction design and practice, and the presence/absence and enforcement of building codes.

Of particular concern for Latin American earthquakes are the urban poor who live in self-constructed residences, built using available materials. The substandard construction cannot stand up to the natural hazards that are present across so many large Latin American cities—from hurricanes to landslides and earthquakes. RMS is currently carrying out a new type of collaborative model development effort designed to quantify the economic and humanitarian impacts of future earthquakes on capital cities in developing countries, with South America as an initial test case
(http://www.rms.com/AboutRMS/Expertise/RiskReduction_Mitigation/Default.asp).

Mary Lou Zoback is a seismologist and currently serves as Vice President, Earthquake Risk Applications with Risk Management Solutions in Newark, CA.  Her responsibilities at RMS include leading initiatives on the significance of risk quantification for expanding the societal role of earthquake insurance, disaster management, and risk reduction activities worldwide.  She previously served as Chief Scientist of the USGS Earthquake Hazards team in Menlo Park, CA and also as Regional Coordinator for the Northern California Earthquake Hazards Program.  Zoback joined the USGS in 1978 after receiving her BS, MS and Ph.D. in geophysics from Stanford University.  She has served on numerous national committees and panels on topics ranging from defining the next generation of Earth observations from space, storage of high-level radioactive waste, facilitating interdisciplinary research, and science education.  She is a member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, past President of the Geological Society of America, and currently a member of the Carnegie Foundation Board of Trustees, the National Academies’ Disaster Roundtable, and the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America.  She chairs Advisory Committees for the Southern California Earthquake Center, the American Geologic Institute’s Government Affairs Program, and the San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection’s CAPSS (Citizens Action Plan for Seismic Safety) Program.

Haiti Update

Francis Ghesquiere, Lead Disaster Risk Management Specialist

LCSUW

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

In this BBL about the WB response after the January 12 earthquake, Francis Ghesquiere, who has been leading the WB team in Haiti since mid January, provided a short presentation on the achievements on the ground and challenges going forward. The presentation was followed by Q and A.

Francis Ghesquiere is the Regional Coordinator for Disaster Risk Management program of the World Bank in Latin America and Caribbean Region.  He is currently managing a portfolio of more than 30 projects dealing with disaster prevention, risk financing and emergency reconstruction.  Francis was the lead manager in the establishment of the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), which provides CARICOM governments with financial coverage against hurricane and earthquake losses.  He is currently leading a number of innovative projects, including the Central America Probabilistic Risk Assessment (CAPRA) and the development of risk models in the Caribbean.

All the World's Data at Your Fingertips: Advanced Technologies for Use in the Real World

Kevin Montgomery, CEO

Intelesense Technologies

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

Never before in the history of mankind has our ability to acquire data about our planet and its inhabitants been so prolific. Data from in-situ sensors deployed worldwide, human-generated data (field reports, surveys, land use patterns, etc), and satellite imagery and other remote sensing data have produced an enormous amount of information totaling in the hundreds of gigabytes per day. This data, coupled with the broad ubiquity of the Internet has led to an unprecedented wealth of information available at every desktop.

Intelesense Technologies was founded to provide worldwide integrated monitoring of the environment and its’ inhabitants, to understand their interrelationships and improve our ability to protect the planet and its people. A global network of wireless sensor devices transmit their data to a grid-based computing server where they are integrated with hundreds of thousands of other data sources to help to better understand their interrelationships. This data, along with all data known from other sources in NASA, USGS, Google, and others are provided within a worldwide GIS browser (Inteleview) to provide interactive exploration of the world and its data. Current projects range from protecting some of the most beautiful and biodiverse places on our planet, to tracking emerging infectious diseases, to helping children from around the world to connect and interact with each other and better understand their environment and themselves.

Dr. Kevin Montgomery is the Chief Executive Officer of Intelesense Technologies. He is also the Director of the National Biocomputation Center at Stanford University, where his team develops advanced technologies in medicine for NASA, DoD, NIH, and other clients. Dr Montgomery is a veteran of multiple startups, earned a Smithsonian Award in telemedicine, serves as a technical advisor to the DoD, and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of California. He has over 20 years of technical experience and 18 years of management experience leading high-performance teams in academia, government, and industry.

The US Volcano Disaster Assistance Program: Helping to Save Lives by Reducing the Risk from Volcanic Eruptions

Gari Mayberry, Geoscience and Natural Hazards Advisor

USAID/OFDA

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

Since 1980, volcanic activity has killed more than 29,000 people globally and displaced more than 1 million others.  With more than 1,500 potentially active volcanoes worldwide, an average of 10 eruptions a year cause significant damage and casualties, while major volcanic events occur several times a decade.  Following the 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia, which resulted in approximately 23,000 deaths, USAID/OFDA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) established the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) to respond to international volcanic events. 

VDAP is the only international rapid-response volcano crisis team in the world.  VDAP contributes to the enhancement of risk reduction and increasing response capacity in developing countries through transferring volcano-monitoring equipment, developing early warning plans, and monitoring technology and hazard assessment training. VDAP projects in Colombia and Tanzania will be discussed to illustrate some of the recent responses they have participated in. The success of VDAP underscores the value of preparedness and long-term international partnerships and the establishment and maintenance of national monitoring networks.

Gari Mayberry is the OFDA Geoscience and Natural Hazards Advisor. She is a geologist/volcanologist who provides guidance and technical assistance on program development, disaster response, and mitigation activities in the fields of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, and tsunamis to OFDA, NGOs, and IOs, as well as other Bureaus in USAID. She serves as liaison with the US Geological Survey (USGS), from which she is seconded, and assists in managing two inter-agency agreements with USGS. Gari also explains/translates complex technical information for OFDA and a wide variety of humanitarian organizations. Gari received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Earth and Environmental Science from Wesleyan University and a Master’s degree in Geology from Michigan Technological University. Gari has participated in projects at several volcano observatories in the United States and Montserrat, at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. 

Exploiting the Potential of Space-Based Geodesy to Aid Rapid Assessment and Response to Large Earthquakes and Related Phenomena

Dr. Mark Simons, Professor of Geophysics

Seismological Laboratory, Caltech

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here.

The rapid geophysical assessment of what occurred during and as a result of a large earthquake has historically relied exclusively on seismologic data.  Even more restrictive, for rapid response to most events on the globe, we have relied primarily on distant as opposed to local observations.  Over the last decade, dramatic advances in space-based geodesy (measuring millimeter scale movements of the Earth), have demonstrated the ability for the combined use of seismology and geodesy to provide the next generation of high-resolution earthquake models with concomitant improvement in model-based predictions of the consequences of these events (e.g. distribution of ground shaking or tsunami potential) as well as direct measurements of the areal extent of destruction caused by a large earthquake. 

Over the next decade, we will experience a flood of raw observations from globally distributed dense real-time GPS networks and from a variety of radar satellites capable of producing exquisite, spatially continuous space geodetic images of surface deformation induced by large earthquakes as well as from subsurface migration of magma in volcanically active regions. These data have the potential to usher in a sea change in the achievable detail and accuracy of our understanding of these large events - all possible on time scales sufficiently short to inform rapid assessment and recovery efforts in the case of earthquakes and monitoring efforts in the case of restless volcanoes. The inherently global reach of space-based observations makes them suitable for crisis response in both wealthy and developing countries (e.g. Chile, Peru, Pakistan, Haiti). 

Mark Simons is a Professor of Geophysics in the Seismological Laboratory at Caltech. He received his Ph.D. in geophysics from MIT in 1996 and his B.Sc. in geophysics from UCLA in 1989. His research is aimed at understanding the mechanical behavior of the Earth's outermost layers. One aspect of this work has included developing models for the seismogenic character of major faults and the associated large earthquakes. His current research emphasizes the constraints provided by the new generation of observations from space geodesy. Over the last decade, Prof. Simons and his colleagues have build a continuous GPS network in S. Peru and N. Chile designed to serve as a basis for a prototype tsunami early warning system and as an aid to rapid assessment for large earthquakes endemic to that region of the world.

Resettlement as a Tool for Disaster Risk Reduction

Elena Correa, Senior Social Development Specialist

SDV

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Please find the presentation attached here. You can also find the video recording of the presentation at

mms://wbmswebcast2.worldbank.org/LCR/2010-02-04/Resettlement_Toolkit_BBL.asf.

For many years resettlement has been done as a precondition of development projects, instead of being for the benefit of the displaced people. In these cases, the risk of impoverishment of the affected people is high if resettlement is not conducted properly. Currently, resettlement has become an important tool for disaster risk reduction strategies, where the main resettlement objective is the protection of lives and assets of people living in high-risk areas. Resettlement as one of the tools for reducing the risk of disasters can take place in different phases, from prevention to emergency and post-disaster reconstruction. Implementation of resettlement programs could reduce the number of casualties, economic losses and the risk of further impoverishment. In order to compile lessons learned in resettlement practices during the preventive phase, four case studies (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Guatemala) were carried out and a Resettlement Toolkit for Disaster Risk Reduction has been developed.

This BBL discussed the trends of natural disasters in the LCR region, their consequences, the pertinence of resettlement for disaster risk reduction strategies, the main findings and lessons learned in the case studies, and the structure of the Toolkit.

Elena Correa is a Senior Social Development Specialist with extensive experience on social impact assessment and the management of development projects, particularly in infrastructure sectors. She is leading the work of the Social Development Department on involuntary resettlement caused by development projects, natural disasters and conflict, including resettlement associated with climate-related hazards.

Risk Assessment in Urban Areas: Impacts of Hazardous Atmospheric Releases and Explosions

Dr. Orlando Soto, Senior Research Scientist, and
Dr. Fernando Camelli, Assistant Professor

Center for Applied Computational Sciences, SAIC, and Center for Computational Fluid Dynamics, George Mason University

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Please find the presentations attached here and here.

Our research focuses on the study of transport and dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. The main goal is to gain a better understanding of how contaminants move (transport) from their source and how they spread (disperse) into the atmosphere. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling is undoubtedly a very powerful approach to simulate air-dispersion type of events in various application areas. Our capabilities allow us to simulate the damages produced by blast events over urban structures such as hospitals, industries and public buildings. The methodologies have been used in several cities (i.e. Baltimore, New York) to support the development of emergency planning, impact assessment efforts, and public policies, to mitigate the consequences of atmospheric releases and/or blast events, either from natural or man-made causes.

Bricks & Bungees, Triggers & Shadows, or What's New in Earthquake Risk

Ross S. Stein

U. S. Geological Survey

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Please find the presentation attached.

Using a brick and bungee demonstration to explore and explain the principles of earthquake occurrence and earthquake interaction, Ross Stein demonstrated how earth scientists are making progress in the very difficult problem of earthquake forecasting by solving the easy parts first. He then moved to a series of computer animations that extend the demo into three dimensions, showing how the concept of earthquake stress triggering is being applied to quake sequences in California, Japan, Sumatra, and Turkey.

Ross Stein is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Geological Society of America, was Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research during 1986-1989, and chaired AGU’s Board of Journal Editors in 2004-2006. During 1993-2003, the Science Citation Index reported that Stein was the second most-cited author in earthquake science. Dr. Stein received the Eugene M. Shoemaker Distinguished Achievement Award of the USGS in 2000, the Excellence in Outreach Award of the Southern California Earthquake Center in 1999, and the Outstanding Contributions and Cooperation in Geoscience Award from NOAA in 1991. He was keynote speaker at the Smithsonian Institution for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 2005, and gave the Frontiers of Geophysics Lecture of the AGU in 2001. He has appeared in a number of documentary films and the 2004 IMAX movie ‘Forces of Nature,’ which he helped to write and animate.

Advances in Flood Hazard Forecasting: Using the International Community to Accelerate Innovation

Karel Heynert

Head of Hydrodynamics and Real-Time Systems Group, Deltares

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Please find the presentation attached.

One obstacle to flood hazard forecasting in developing countries is data-poor environment. In such an environment, flood early warning systems (FEWS) provide national/regional authorities with the capability to begin a flood hazard forecasting program with limited data and to expand the forecasting program as data becomes available.

The presentation will discuss the successful open systems approach and the future ambitions of Deltares in the field of flood hazard forecasting. It will address the challenges of data-poor environments and demonstrate how Delft-FEWS, Deltares' open-shell forecasting framework, enables productive inter-agency cooperation and facilitates the introduction of new state-of-the-art methods from the research field into the operational arena. The system has been adopted as the national flood forecasting system in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United States. On a regional scale, Delft-FEWS is used operationally in Pakistan, Italy, Georgia and by the Mekong River Commission.

Karel Heynert is a hydrologist with over 20 years of international experience in water management, flood forecasting and flood risk management. Currently he heads the Hydrodynamics and Real-Time Systems Group within Deltares (formerly called Delft Hydraulics). Based in The Netherlands, Deltares provides specialist consultancy services and conducts applied research in the field of marine and coastal systems, inland and ground water systems, and geo-technics. Over the past 7 years Karel Heynert has been leading Deltares’ activities in real-time flood risk forecasting, including the implementation of national flood forecasting systems in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Numerical Methods and Computational Techniques Development and Application in the Decision-Making Process in Front of the New and Global Environmental Challenges

Pere-Andreu Ubach de Fuentes

International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE), Deputy Director

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

(Presentation in DVD format to be distributed to attendees)

The purpose of this presentation is to share with the audience the active CAPRA’s initiative experience, elaborated by CIMNE for the World Bank and related to enhancement of disaster risk understanding in the Central American region, as a starting point to illustrate the Numerical Methods and Computational Techniques development and application for the decision-making process in front of the new global environmental challenges.

Given its clear international professional vocation and strategic scope, and through its 23 knowledge-sharing, development and Numerical Methods Application and Computational Techniques application classrooms, the CIMNE carries out numerous research and development activities and participates in a large number of technology transfer projects in cooperation with over one hundred and fifty enterprises and organisations from different countries. Some of them will be presented to the attendees, focusing on those dealing with civil and environmental engineering and energy sectors’ sustainable duties.

Mr. Pere-Andreu Ubach de Fuentes is a Roads, Channels and Ports Engineer, as well as a Master of Science in Construction Management by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is now CIMNE’s Deputy Director, having previously worked in the organization as an R&D Project Strategies Consultant, closely collaborating with Dr. Eugenio Oñate, director, as his assistant. Having participated in many public and private financed R&D projects, and contributed to many other international congresses, he is author of one published book. More recently he has coordinated the new CIMNE’s dependencies construction in the Catalonia’s Polytechnic University Mediterranean Technology Park. 

Community-Based Landslide Risk Reduction: Scaling Up in the Caribbean

Malcolm Anderson and Liz Holcombe

MoSSaiC; University of Bristol, UK

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

(Please find the presentation attached)

MoSSaiC is a methodology to reduce landslide risk affecting communities and infrastructure in developing countries.

Launched in 2004, MoSSaiC addresses landslide risk at the community scale in the most vulnerable communities. Their work with community groups and government agencies delivers low cost landslide risk reduction measures on the ground. The knowledge of community members is vital in synthesizing the highly-localised slope processes that cause landslides. MoSSaiC combines this local knowledge with a community mapping methodology and with the use of their industry-standard slope stability software (CHASMTM). Where appropriate they can then design a drainage plan to manage surface water in the community and reduce the landslide risk. This approach has been developed in Saint Lucia, West Indies, where on-the-ground drainage construction has been completed in 6 communities by community contractors. The methodology has been formally endorsed by the Government of Saint Lucia which has committed Government Revenue funds to MoSSaiC in the Budget years 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2008/09.

Having outlined the proof of concept, we will look at issues of developing an appropriate franchise for the scaling up of the approach in a regional context, together with the appropriate supporting resources. Finally, we will discuss, and seek views on, issues of how best to capture the benefits of this preventative approach to landslide risk reduction, and appropriate ways of relating these to the real costs involved.

Background information on MoSSaiC is available at www.mossaic.org

The World Bank and the OpenGeospatial Web

Chris Holmes

OpenGeo, President

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

(Please find the presentation attached)

The past few years have seen an explosion in the awareness of geospatial information, with Google Maps and Google Earth making the previously specialized domain of GIS available to everyone. Can we see an equivalent explosion in access to the data that these systems visualize? Utilizing the principles of open source, Web 2.0 and 'Architectures of Participation', Chris Holmes believes that through the creation of the Open Geospatial Web the answer to this question is yes.

Earthquake Early Warning Systems: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Paolo Gasparini and Gaetano Manfredi

University of Napoli "Federico II"

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

(Please find the presentation attached)

While the prediction of earthquakes is still controversial, current technology allows for prompt identification of the onset of potentially dangerous seismic events seconds before its hits an urban area. Paolo Gasparini and Gaetano Manfredi will present early warning system technologies in use in Japan, Italy, Ukraine and Romania to protect high speed trains, metro lines and nuclear power plants. The technology uses the small time difference on the arrival time between the fast travelling low amplitude compressional (P) waves and the high energy destructive waves (shear and superficial waves). Though warnings are issued only a fraction of second before a potentially destructive event, this is often enough to protect sensitive infrastructures. These early warning systems also allow for the generation of fast and reliable information on ground motions at different sites, allowing the rapid production of damage maps useful for emergency and rescuing action

Paolo Gasparini Professor of Geophysics at the University of Napoli "Federico II" and President of the AMRA Scarl a no-profit consortium owned by five universities and three national research agencies. AMRA Scarl is managing the only earthquake early warning system in Italy. Prof. Gasparini is member of the Executive Committee of the SAFER Project, a European Community funded project on Earthquake Early Warning. He is Scientific Advisor for the Environment of the European Commissioner of Research. He has contributed to the Mt. Vesuvius volcano emergency Plan of the Italian Civil Defense. His main expertise is on the seismological and real time risk reduction aspects of earthquake early warnings.

Gaetano Manfredi Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Napoli "Federico II" and member of the AMRA Scarl Executive Committee. He is Director of RELUIS, a no-profit consortium of Earthquake Engineering Laboratories, a reference institution for the Italian Civil Defence. His main expertise is on the implementation of automatic engineering application and on the decisional aspects of the earthquake early warning systems.
Prof. Gasparini and Manfredi are co-editors, with Prof. Jochen Zschau, of a book titled: "Earthquake Early Warning Systems" published by Springer, Heidelberg, in 2007.