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 Environment and Sustainable Development
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ESD Project
Agrodiversity
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 Multi-hazard Risk Assessment
2004-

the Asia Pacific region


 

Focus on ensuring human security as one of the priorities of sustainable urban development. ESD project on
multi-hazard risk assessment is composed of two sub programs:

 

 

(1) Multi-Hazards Urban Risk Assessment with Dynamic Spatial Information, Japan (Tokyo)


   

Background
and Objectives

This program focuses on assessing and reducing human vulnerability to disasters by looking at the dynamic behavioral patterns of the urban communities to understand the vulnerabilities brought about by urban life style, especially those related to increased utilization of underground spaces and large concentrations in potentially vulnerable areas. The program aims at developing methodologies to utilize high resolution dynamic spatial information related to urban infrastructure, human behavior and incorporating them in multi-hazard risk assessment to facilitate implementation of appropriate mitigation measures.

   


Partner


 

(2) Catastrophic Flood Risk Assessment in Asia-Pacific Region, Vietnam and Thailand


    Background
and Objectives

The program conducts a comparative study to understand the nature of catastrophic floods in different countries in the Asia Pacific region and promote information and experience exchange at provincial or city level. Most major urban areas are faced with the dilemma that it had become extremely difficult to increase design standards against flood hazards anymore due to landuse and drainage capacity limitations whereas an event beyond the design levels would bring huge losses. The threat of changes in rainfall intensities and patterns that could be brought about by climatic change may amplify the problems.The program proposes to carry out pilot studies in a number of Asian countries focusing on five study-areas related to the reduction of catastrophic floods, namely, extreme rainfall, inundation modeling, risk assessment, community participation and capacity building. The goal is to identify and implement strategies to implement 'safe-fail' strategies to avoid catastrophic losses in the event of an extreme flood when it is not feasible to implement 'fail-safe' infrastructure.The program promotes the risk reduction in global arena through participation in ISDR Inter-agency taskforce and International Flood Initiative.

    Partners
    Focal point Dr. Srikantha Herath Dr. Akiyuki Kawasaki Sidat Atapattu
 



26 June 2007

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