IDRiM 2010 HELD IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA IN SEPTEMBER
The 2nd Conference of the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM2011) was successfully held at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, USA, on 14-16 July 2011. The theme of the conference was “Reframing Disasters and Reflecting on Risk Governance Deficits.” More than 100 participants attended the event including several well-known national and international speakers including Kathleen Tierney, Director of the Natural Hazards Center in Boulder, CO, USA; Detlof von Winterfeldt, Director, IIASA, Austria; James Featherstone, Director of the City of Los Angeles Emergency Management Department; and George Apostolakis from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Prof. Adam Rose from USC and Profs. Norio Okada and Hirokazu Tatano from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) of Kyoto University were co-organizing this important event.
Among the conference topics, there were two specials sessions on the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan of 11 March 2011. Other topics covered included post-disaster reconstruction and recovery; resilience as an approach to integrated disaster risk management; megacities and disasters; critical infrastructure vulnerability; climate change adaptation, linking climate change and weather-related disasters; conjoint natural and technological (Natech) disasters; social vulnerability and socio-economic strategies for disaster risk reduction; I; information management and sharing in disaster contexts; the future and limitations of catastrophe models; and among others.
Every year, the IDRiM conference hosts a special “young scientists research session”. This year’s young scientist sessions included both oral and poster presentations.