 |
|
Login
|
|
|
Forthcoming Events
|
|
|
Software
|
|
|
Literature
|
|
| |
Welcome to the official portal of the EU-MEDIN project
Research in natural hazards is being supported by the Research DG of the European Commission since 1986 with the overall objective of unravelling and understanding processes, comprehensive risk assessment, forecasting and risk management and mitigation. Advances have been made in seismic research, forest fires, landslides, floods, volcanic hazards, avalanches and technological hazards, particularly with the development of improved models and technologies for hazard forecasting, risk assessment and mitigation.
The European Mediterranean Disaster Information Network (EU-MEDIN) is an initiative of DG Research that will foster co-ordinated and increased access to data and expert know-how before, during, and after a disaster strikes. The availability of reliable and timely information could contribute to our knowledge for reducing impacts of hazards and risks and bring about improved disaster preparedness in Europe in the near future.
The EU-MEDIN project aims to improve the interaction and synergy between the actors of European research in the field of natural risks and disasters and all organizations, institutions or individuals interested in disaster management research and development issues. |
|
The first issue of the newsletter providing information on recent research on Climate Change and Environmental Risks has been launched by DG Research of the E.C. You can download it from here.
Questions or comments regarding the newsletter can be sent to bjorn-vidar.vangelsten@ec.europa.eu
|
From AlphaGalileo - October 11th, 2007
Research is already taking place in Bradford and Leeds to tackle some of the problems that led to the severe floods which swept the UK this summer.
Academics from the University of Bradford are involved in two of the Making Space for Water Integrated Urban Drainage pilot projects, funded by the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to find new solutions to flooding problems in urban areas.
|
The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) is calling for presentations for the 18th World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM).
The Conference will be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada from June 15-18, 2008.
WCDM is the premier annual event that addresses issues common to all aspects of disaster/emergency management. The conference program includes speakers from many parts of the world and provides excellent opportunities for training and networking among those in the fields of Emergency Planning/Management, Business Continuity, Emergency Response, Risk Management, IT Disaster Recovery, Disaster Management Research, Emergency Communications, Emergency Health, Security, HR, Environmental, Community Planning, as well as for the organizations which supply and service these professions. The 2008 Conference is expected to attract over 1,800 attendees from Canada, the United States, and from around the globe.
The Conference theme will be:
Resiliency - Individual, Community, Business
|
|
The Irasmos Summer School 2007 on "Integral Risk Management of Natural Hazards"
will take place in Davos, Switzerland, from 24 - 28 September 2007. There are still places available.
The Irasmos Summer School 2007 is hosted by the Swiss Federal Research Institutes WSL/SLF and the EU's 6th FP STR-Project IRASMOS. All relevant information and final registration can be found on our website at http://www.slf.ch/irasmos/news.htm.
We remind that those who register and pay until 20 August 2007 will profit from a reduced participation fee.
We kindly request you to circulate this announcement to qualified PhD candidates doing their dissertations on topics related to rapid mass movements or risk management of natural hazards.
|
From AlphaGalileo - July 27, 2007 Why is Britain suffering from severe floods this summer? Will climate change bring more frequent and intense storms in the future?
The Natural Environment Research Council is funding scientists in universities and its own research centres, who are currently carrying out research to provide answers to these questions. The research data they produce helps to underpin many of the flood forecasts and defence mechanisms provided by organisations such as the Environment Agency.
|
The WaReLa conference “integrated catchment management for hazard mitigation” approaches. This conference composes the closure of an Interreg IIIB-project that focuses the enormous damages caused by floods especially on small and medium-sized rivers. It will take place on 24 -26 September 2007 in Trier, Germany.
For more information and registration please visit the WaReLa website
|
On September 12 and 13, 2007 the international conference ‘Climate changes Spatial Planning’ (CcSP) is organised by the CcSP programme in the Netherlands.
We would like to invite you to participate in this conference. The conference will take place at the World Forum Convention Center in The Hague. There is no conference fee.
Climate change is a reality. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has provided a mount of new and convincing evidence that human influence on climate is undeniable and should be regarded as a factor of major importance. Currently the climate science community and policy makers are converging at a concept of combining mitigation efforts with climate adaptation measures and strategies.
In 2004, a unique and ambitious research programme started in The Netherlands, called “Climate changes Spatial Planning”. A budget of 80 million Euro has been made available, jointly by government and stakeholders on a 50/50 basis for the programme. It includes interdisciplinary research to improve climate models and scenarios, as well as strategies for adaptation and land use related mitigation in close dialogue with stakeholders.
For more information, you can visit the official site of the
CcSP programme.
|
|
Information available at LiveScience.com, July 6th, 2007 Our planet's prospects for environmental stability are bleaker than ever with the approach of this year's Earth Day, April 22. Global warming is widely accepted as a reality by scientists and even by previously doubtful government and industrial leaders. Find what is foreseen in the IPCC report
|
|
The European Commission has awarded €5.6 million to six cross-border civil protection projects which will design and test new ways of fighting against natural disasters affecting simultaneously two or more EU Member States. This initiative follows the spate of cross-border natural disasters (forest fires, earthquakes and floods) which have affected Europe in recent years.
|
|
From ESA's website - June 15, 2007 Desertification puts the health and well-being of more than 1.2 billion people in more than 100 countries at risk, according to the United Nations. The theme of this year’s World Day to Combat Desertification, held every year on 17 June, is ‘Desertification and Climate Change – One Global Challenge’.
Read this artcle at ESA's website
|
Information provided by AlphaGalileo - June 8, 2007 Monitoring the saltiness of the ocean water could provide an early indicator of climate change. Significant increases or decreases in salt in key areas could forewarn of climate change in 10 to 20 years time. Presenting their findings at a recent European Science Foundation (ESF) conference, scientists predicted that the waters of the southern hemisphere oceans around South Africa and New Zealand are the places to watch.
|
|
Information provided by Elisabeth Krausmann - June 7, 2007 The Seventh IIASA-DPRI Forum on Integrated Disaster Risk Management will be held in Stresa on the Lake Maggiore in Italy on 19-21 September, 2007. The conference will be preceded by two optional workshops (limited
participation) on “Implementation science, CASIFICA and DRH” and “NATECH risk assessment and management”, and the Young Scientists Session on 16-18 September, 2007.
|
From AlphaGalileo - June 6th, 2007 Weather models are not good at predicting rain. Particularly in hilly terrain, this can lead to great damage arising from late warnings of floods, or even none at all. From June 1 to September 1, 2007 Delft University of Technology is participating in a major international experiment in Germany’s Black Forest, to learn more about what causes rain.
|
Information provided by Denis Peter - May 31, 2007
The Commission intends to issue by July 2007 a communication that will focus on drought events and on long-term water unbalances. The communication will aim to identify possible technical, social or legislative options to mitigate the impacts of such events.
|
|
The 2007 NeWater Summer School on 'Managing Transitions to Adaptive River Basin Management' will take place from 11 July - 21 July, 2007 in Bad Krozingen near Freiburg and the Black Forest in Southern Germany. GWSP (Global Water System Project) offers funding (participation and travel costs) for up to 5 young researchers (PhD Students and PostDocs). Click here to read more.
|
|
Information provided by Abdelhaq Trache - May 15, 2007 The International Workshop "
Changements Climatiques et Adaptation en Afrique: Le Rôle des Technologies Spatiales" will take place in Algiers, Algeria from 25 to 27 June 2007.
The program of the Workshop can be downloaded from http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/SAP/gnss/icg.html
For participating to the Workshop, please contact Mr. Abdelhaq TRACHE
|
|
miltos writes " The ESPACE Project will be holding its final conference on the 29th of June in London.
This free one day conference will launch...
"
|
|
Information by ESA - April 27, 2007 As climate change continues to make headlines across the world, participants at the 2007 Envisat Symposium this week are hearing how Earth observation satellites allow scientists to better understand the parameters involved in global warming and how this is impacting the planet.
Read the full story at ESA's webpages: http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMRLH12Z0F_index_0.html
|
|
Information from Google blogs - April 15, 2007
By this time you have certainly heard about bees disappearing from their hives, never to be seen again. It’s called Colony Collapse Disorder.
One theory holds that cell phone radiation is interferring with the bees’ navigation system.
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world’s harvests fail.
|
|
lisa writes " Information provided by Lisa - 12 April, 2007 The 7th IIASA-DPRI Forum on Integrated Disaster Risk Management will be held in Stresa on the Lake Maggiore in Italy on 19-21 September, 2007. This year's conference theme is "Coping with Disasters: Global Challenges for the 21st Century and Beyond". The 7th IIASA-DPRI Forum is co-organized by the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC) of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre(JRC), the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) of Kyoto University, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
More information is available at: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/RAV/conf/IDRiM07/index.html"
|
|
News: Model helps explore patterns of urban sprawl and implicaitons for quality of lif
|
|
From Eurekalert - March 22, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- Americans like living in cities, and according to statistics in the United Nations World Population Database so do an increasing number of people throughout the world.
About 81 percent of the United States’ population now lives in urban areas, as does almost half of the world’s total population. Scientists and engineers say that as the trend continues there’s increasing urgency for societies to learn how to develop more sustainable urban environments.
|
|
Earthquakes - News: Scientists explain source of mysterious tremors emanating from fault zones
|
|
From Eurekalert - March 14, 2007
Tiny tremors and temblors recently discovered in fault zones from California to Japan are generated by slow-moving earthquakes that may foreshadow catastrophic seismic events, according to scientists at Stanford University and the University of Tokyo.
In a study published in the March 15 issue of the journal Nature, the research team focused on weak seismic signals known as "non-volcanic tremor" and "low-frequency earthquakes," which seismologists say may be useful in forecasting the likelihood of potentially destructive mega-quakes of magnitude 8 or higher.
|
|
From Eurekalert - March 22, 2007 Geophysicist urges public, policy makers to consider all tectonic boundaries as lethal
The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and resulting tsunami are now infamous for the damage they caused, but at the time many scientists believed this area was unlikely to create a quake of such magnitude. In the March 23 issue of the journal Science, a geophysicist from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute urges the public and policy makers to consider all subduction-type tectonic boundaries to be "locked, loaded, and dangerous."
"Seismologists have long tried to determine which subduction boundaries are more likely than others to break," says Robert McCaffrey, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Rensselaer. "Yet, the great earthquake of 2004 ruptured a segment that was thought to be among the least likely to go."
|
|
The 2nd dissemination event of the ARMONIA project "Land use plans in risky areas: from unwise to wise practices" will take place in Milan, 20 February 2007, at the Politecnico di Milano (Roger Room, Via Bonardi 3).
|
|
Adaptation to climate change is high on the agenda of the German EU Presidency programme this year. Experts from around Europe will shortly be meeting in Berlin on the 12-14th February to analyse the challenges that climate change poses to water management and to identify adaptation strategies to meet these challenges.
|
|
The 5th International Conference on Concrete under Severe Conditions Environment and Loading (CONSEC '07) will take place in Tours, France, from June 4 - 6 2007.
Information on guidelines for paper preparation, registration, accomodation, as well as the technical program are available at the address www.consec07.fr.
|
|
Information provided by EC Services - December 20, 2006 A "GEO-related" Information Day will be organised by DG RTD in Brussels on 15 January 2007. The main focus will be on FP7 opportunities for Earth Observation research activity under Theme 6 "Environment". Some Earth Observation related activities supervised by other Commission services, including DG INFSO, will also be presented (e.g. GMES, Support to Research Infrastructure, ICT for the Environment and INSPIRE). For more information please go to: http://cordis.europa.eu/sustdev/environment/ev20061117.htm or contact Mrs. Nicoleta-Ariana Nastaseanu by e-mail: nicoleta.nastaseanu@cec.eu.int .
|
|
OECD report, December 13 - 2006 Many regions in the Alps had the warmest November on record, delaying the arrival of snow by several weeks and worrying ski operators. As the first flurries are coating Alpine slopes, questions arise: was this balmy autumn an exception or a harbinger of the effects of climate change? How sensitive are the Alps to climate change?
The Alps are particularly sensitive to climate change and recent warming there has been roughly three times the global average. The years 1994, 2000, 2002, and 2003 were the warmest on record in the Alps in the last 500 years (according to high resolution reconstructions of the climate in the region since 1500AD). Climate model projections show even greater changes in the coming decades, with less snow at low altitudes and receding glaciers and melting permafrost higher up.
Read more about this report in the website of the OECD
|
| |
|
|
