Announcement – Integrative geospatial science for disaster risk management @ EGU 2010

EarthzineAnnouncements, Disasters, Earth Observation, Original, Sections

Image of the European Geosciences Union 2010 logoThe annual General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union will be held in Vienna, Austria from 02-07 May 2010. EGU 2010, one of the most prestigious events in the field of geoscience, will bring together scientists from all over the world, covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The session program was recently approved by the program committee with the deadline for abstract submission set at 18 January 2010.

Earthzine will support a special session within the Natural Hazards Program Group dedicated to the concept of disaster management which is one of the GEOSS societal benefit areas. Following the conference, selected accepted and presented abstracts will be proposed for extended publication in a related special issue of Earthzine (scheduled for July/August 2010).

The session Integrative geospatial science for disaster risk management – Multi source applications and concepts aims at attracting an interdisciplinary attendance from diverse research fields related to geospatial problems in disaster risk management. The cyclic concept of disaster management serves as background and outline in order to have comprehensive discussions on all related aspects ranging from emergency response via risk analysis including hazard and vulnerability assessment to mitigation and early warning.

The concept of GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems ‰ÛÒ which is seen as a global and flexible network to provide an extensive range of information and decision support tools about the system of the Earth to a variety of users ‰ÛÒ highlights disasters as one of its nine societal benefit areas. GEOSS integrates Earth observations with other information to help planners reduce vulnerability, strengthen preparedness and early-warning measures and, after disaster strikes, rebuild housing and infrastructure in ways that limit future risks. This backs up the recent trend in dealing with disaster issues using more holistic and integrated approaches, which is also evident in the scientific literature.

Multi source and multi scale geospatial and space related information as derived from remote sensing and ancillary data sources provide broad possibilities to consistently and quantitatively cover complex aspects of disaster management. The spatial component in most cases is essential in order to get comprehensive insight and merge from theoretical to applied result-oriented research.

Both conceptual and applied contributions from all fields of research featuring a geospatial component are invited for submission to this session.The organizing team is looking forward to an interesting program including innovative geospatial approaches in disaster management and aims at raising awareness about pending issues in integrative analysis of complex human-natural coupled systems.

Direct links to session and abstract submission:

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2010/session/2619

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2010/abstractsubmission/2619

Convener:

C. Aubrecht ‰ÛÒ Earthzine Deputy Editor (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria)

christoph.aubrecht@ait.ac.at

Co-Conveners:

B. Pradhan ‰ÛÒ Earthzine Associate Editor for Disasters (Dresden University of Technology, Germany)

S. Freire (New University of Lisbon, Portugal)

P. Zeil, S. Kienberger (Salzburg University, Austria)

K. Steinnocher (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria)