Proceedings of the 4th Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction

The 4th Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction (4thGSRIDRR2019) under the theme of Increasing the Effectiveness and Relevance of our Institutes was organized by the Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI) and sponsored by the Kyoto University and the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University. The summit was held at the DPRI, Uji Campus, Kyoto, Japan, from 13 to 15th of March 2019.

Climate-related hazards such as floods and hurricanes and geo-hazards, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, are triggering catastrophes, disturbing, and altering the livelihoods of populations worldwide (UNESCO and UNICEF 2012). From 2000 to 2019, natural hazards caused US$1.23 trillion in damages, claimed 1.23 million lives, and affected over 4 billion people (UNDRR 2020).

This presentation seeks to identify the calls for action identified by the UN member states in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction for science advice to inform governments to support implementation; provide examples of tools currently being used to deliver science to help to inform policy and practice; and to provide an example of how the work has been taken forward in partnership to understand more of the all hazard paradigm as a policy and practice process.

Prof. Collins shared information on the work done by the expert group of GRAF which is a framework for assessing risks. He presented this also as a significant manifestation of the principles often presented in earlier forums, that understanding risk better amplifies the risk assessment and management cycle. This is a risk governance concern dependent on the application of good data and in-depth analysis of processes of change in reducing major threats, resilience building and moving towards a more well-being orientated emphasis for the future of people and planet. A key point is that there is a common vision of enabling sustainable societies and systems for improved planetary well-being; this requires global risk assessment to help increase resilience in the light of more comprehensively understood risk. The GRAF vision, objectives, principles and processes are based around an appropriately comprehensive theory of change.

The risk landscape is changing in the European Union (EU) but also globally. The emergence of new and the intensification of existing risks requires a joint effort to enhance society’s resilience to these risks. In support of this goal, the European Commission, in close collaboration with Member States and the disaster risk management community, has launched the Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC). The DRMKC is an instrument which provides a networked approach to the science–policy interface in disaster risk management in the EU and for developing and pursuing evidence-based EU policies. True to the provisions of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the DRMKC follows an all-hazards, multi-stakeholder approach. Its driving force is collaboration, and it fosters knowledge transfer, the co-development of solutions for existing needs, as well as the continuous uptake of innovative approaches to managing disaster risks. It also reinforces the existing links across Disaster Risk Management- and Disaster Risk Reduction-related policies. At the occasion of the Sendai Midterm Review a number of successful DRMKC initiatives and products are described.

An infrastructure resilience framework is introduced presenting processes, tools and outcomes for system assessment, management and governance. This can be used for analysis or design of systems prior to or following actual disruptions. For this framework, infrastructure is defined as the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., building clusters and lifeline systems) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. The framework emphasizes infrastructure systems and how they support community resilience through eight key elements. These elements provide the foundation for system assessments, management and governance of resilient infrastructure systems. Elements underpinning assessments identify the framework processes for evaluating existing or proposed systems and provide a strong basis for management and governance. The elements primarily underpinning management and governance identify the processes and tools needed to provide the outcomes to ensure resilient infrastructure systems; they also draw from and provide feedback for improving the other elements. Resilience management and governance utilizes the knowledge and results of system assessments and incorporates other tools to engineer, manage and govern resilient systems that properly support the resilience of the communities they serve.

The biggest challenge to disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Sub-Saharan Africa is being presented by climate change due to the continent’s acute vulnerability inherent in multiple stresses and low adaptive capacity. It is common knowledge that the task of managing disaster risks and disaster events is heavily dependent on scientific knowledge and evidence-based technique which doubles up as a pillar for investment in DRR and used as a basis for formulating disaster risk management techniques. In this way, the application of science and technology has the potential to substantially reduce losses of lives and property. The current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report (AR6) on managing the risk of extreme events and disasters thoroughly interrogates this aspect and provides the essential evidence base. Equally important is to note that climate change appreciation and discourse demands high scientific standards. As such, its acceptance and readiness to move to reduce its impacts through DRR techniques requires much more systematic and proven sets of data, methods and tools and much stronger scientific and technical support capacities than is the case at present in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sendai Framework for DRR 2015–2030 (SFDRR) sent clear signals to the mandate of science, technology, and innovation in driving government activities that is based on developing and sharing the knowledge and solutions needed to improve the resilience of communities. As such, there is need to harness the new global scientific challenges to DRR if Sub-Saharan Africa is to remain afloat in the DRR framework. Fortunately, the current science and technology advances have reached levels where a global village has been created which makes available more than ever before, immeasurable amounts of information relevant to DRR through a simple mouse click. In this way, more actors from different disciplines and policy areas can harness the emerging scientific challenges for the enhancement of DRR in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper is predominantly concerned with how disaster risks and losses in Sub-Saharan Africa can be further reduced through harnessing science and technology innovation in the case of Social Media.

The concepts notes were developed to facilitate discussion among various stakeholders gathered from around the world to share information on their ongoing research activities and current research projects, find collaborative activity partners, showcase research achievements, and challenge further improvements to disaster risk reduction and resilience to disasters.

Natural forces pose threats to human communities. Ongoing changes to the environment worsen these hazards, causing the associated risk to increase. Whilst the number of disasters is observed to decline worldwide, the costs of the disastrous events are increasing, showing how higher and higher human values are exposed and vulnerable to hazards. There is a growing acknowledgement of the need to enhance the resilience of local communities. At the same time, it is important to act accordingly to a common and broadly-shared strategy. International and regional organisations can be very effective in supporting local projects, providing solid knowledge and valuable funds. The European Commission manages the LIFE funding programme, aimed to support projects addressing environmental and climate challenges. It started in 1992 and until now it has supported more than 4600 projects Europe-wide. Amongst them is the PRIMES (Preventing flooding RIsks by Making resilient communitiES) project that ran from October 2015 to December 2018. The LIFE PRIMES project intended to increase the resilience of local communities against floods by strengthening risk awareness and promoting the involvement in innovative participatory tools. Ten flood-prone municipalities within three Italian Regions were involved in the activities, along with Regional Environmental Institutions, local Authorities and Academic Institutions. The activities included assessments of the project’s impacts. The analysis suggests a sensible increase of local communities’ resilience, thus highlighting the success of the PRIMES project and encouraging a further implementation of its methodology in other communities, to help build societies better prepared to cope with extreme events.

Performance and cost of rainfall observation systems use in the study phase of Centre for Urban Water (CUrW) of Metro Colombo Urban Development Project (MCUDP) were compared and a low cost observation system that can be used to customize rainfall forecast was tested. System includes an IOT-based real time rainfall observing station which can be configured personally and access data directly along with a computational system. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with freely available Global Forecasting System (GFS) data, is used to forecast a set of possible rain systems and real time observations are used to select the most suitable forecast in Kelani river basin which effects the water level variations in the Metro Colombo area.

North-eastern regions of India are progressing slower in terms of development than in India’s mainland since the Independence of India in 1947. Moreover, the most triggering and frequently occurring factor, natural disasters, especially floods, adds more burden to the Local Government. Despite many natural disasters in recent years like floods and landslides, no or few disaster-related planning projects have been conducted so far to participate in any local or regional development projects to avoid the vulnerability of the people. On the other hand, Master Plan, Kakching (draft) n.a. has not been revised for the last three decades by the concerned authorities. To help in the development, we have demonstrated the assessment of green vegetation cover and impervious surface for the near future, benefit the labour cost and take less time in strengthening the upcoming plans in the case of Kakching, Manipur, India. This study analysed the spatio-temporal of vegetation cover and built-up area for the last two decades in the study area. Furthermore, we studied the trend analysis of vegetation and built-up area by comparing it with the flood extent. It is found that there is an enormous loss of vegetation cover and proliferation of urban areas in last two decades are detected. Therefore, we have recommended that the concerned authorities should integrate to strengthen and shape the future for better development plans to build urban resilience in changing climate.

Adaptive architecture can be explained wherein contemporary construction and vernacular architecture techniques can be brought together to makes its inhabitant feel safe and secured and can be adapted to the local environment. Through the evidence based on the example of the Sangkhola School built for Human Resource Development Department (HRDD), Sikkim State Government, India, in earthquake prone region of East India Sikkim, the study is intended to understand how an architectural intervention can adapt itself within the community instead of just being an architectural artefact, and how this construction can help the community feel prepared and resilient towards next earthquake. The study indicated that, with the hybrid RCC and Ikra, contemporary construction and vernacular architecture techniques brought together to create Sangkhola Primary School, it has attempted in imparting safety and comfort to its users and is adaptive to local weather and environment which is proven from the testimonies of its users.

Extreme flood events cause huge amount of money and human resources in handling the catastrophic during and post to the disaster. In order to cope for these events, mitigation strategies to reduce the impact or occurrence are crucial. One of the ways is to better design the flood defense structures using possible highest rainfall values that might occur at a specific location represented by rainfall return periods. The main idea of this research is to consider using extreme rainfall homogeneous regions to help predict the best return period for designing flood defense structure using information of historical flood events occurring at the location of similar extreme rainfall homogeneous regions. The objectives of this research are to identify major flood events in Peninsular Malaysia and to map the rainfall return period associated to the flood events within similar homogeneous regions. The method of pooled frequency analysis was used to combine annual maximum series (AMS) data in each homogeneous region. The best distribution model is selected based on highest rank according to Kolmogrov Smirnov, Anderson Darling, and chi-squared. The highest return period of rainfall event occured at zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, and zone 4 is 50 years, 333 years, 500 years, and 20 years, respectively. The use of the highest return period values may be applied for designing flood defense structures located in the specific homogeneous region as those return periods have already occured within respective homogeneous regions.

It is important to conduct detail hydrological study at recreational area located at mountain sides. This is due to the fact that the geographical location and topographical conditions may post a risk of landslide dam outburst flood (LDOF). As a case for Gunung Pulai Recreation Area located at the foot hills of Gunung Pulai Mountain to be opened to public, a detail hydrological study needs to be carried out. The purpose of this study is to establish the preliminary baseline information on hydrological characteristics of the study area and to assess and analyse the existing hydrological parameter that can potentially cause flash flood within the recreational area. Then, proposing a long-term engineering solution towards prevention loss. A study area potential to be exposed to the LDOF within the recreational area needs to be determined. Hydrologic modelling is conducted to get a better understanding of the parameters in the study area. Rain gauge and water level were inserted at certain elevation level of the study area were conducted to provide the hydrological parameters needed to estimate the relationship between the rainfall and water level. Data obtained from the rain gauge and water level were plotted. The relationship between rainfall and water level is imperative to show the time needed for an alarm to be triggered. In conclusion, the parameters that can potentially indicate the occurrence of flash flood has been analysed and can be altered to make them useful against future flash flood events. A long-term solution has also been devised and ready to be deployed.

Disaster such as earthquake has an impact to water resources particularly groundwater. The migration of pollutant in groundwater is crucial particularly due to earthquake impact. In addition, the soil moisture content also might influence the pollutant migration. Therefore, this paper presents the investigation of light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) migration in laterite soil with two dissimilar moisture contents with and without vibration. The study of LNAPL migration was investigated using digital image analysis. The lab-scale experiments were conducted by using soil column, mirror, LNAPL and Nikon D90 digital camera. Unsaturated laterite soil was poured in the acrylic column then compressed until 100 mm height. Then, LNAPL was poured onto the soil column surface instantaneously. The pattern and behavior of LNAPL migration in laterite soil was monitored and recorded using digital image processing technique (DIPT) at certain time intervals. The images were processed with Surfer software and Matlab routine inorder to plot the LNAPL migration pattern using hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) value. The study found that higher rate migration of LNAPL with high moisture content, and the rate of LNAPL migration decreases with presence of vibration and with lower moisture content. The migration time required to reach bottom of soil was longer for low moisture content with/without vibration as compared to the high moisture content with/without vibration.

The Fourth Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction: Increasing the Effectiveness and Relevance of Our Institutes was held at the Disaster Prevention Research Institutes (DPRI), Kyoto University, Uji Campus, Kyoto, Japan from 13th to 15th March 2019. The three-day conference included keynote speeches by prominent stakeholders from a multidisciplinary array of specialisations; group discussion sessions, panel and poster presentations. The 4th Global Summit aimed to achieve critical challenges facing the disaster risk research community in implementation of the Science and Technology Roadmap; and particularly focused on the conceptualisation of the Science and Technology Roadmap. The Final Resolution summarises the inputs from the group discussion sessions, commitments by the Members of GADRI; and the results shared at the UNDRR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held in May 2019.

Mr. Daisaku Kadokawa opened his greetings by stating that he understands that the Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI) is a research network that aims to contribute to the reduction of disaster risk and the improvement of disaster resilience from an academic point of view by collaborating with disaster research and disaster prevention research institutes around the world through sharing information, knowledge, experience, and ideas.