Introduction of a New International Research Program: Integrated Research on Disaster Risk - The Challenge of Natural and Human-Induced Environmental Hazards

Abstract

Weather-climate and geophysical hazards create many disasters around the world and the impacts have been devastating on many communities and countries. Over the decades there has been significant international scientific response, much of it organized by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and its partners in the United Nations system, especially the World Meteorological Organization and UNESCO. There is also an international policy response. For example, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the related Millennium Development Goals and the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, held in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan in 2005, which agreed on the Hyogo Framework for Action. Through the deliberations of an ISCU-sponsored process, a new international research program Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) – the challenge of natural and human-induced environmental hazards – has now been initiated, with the support of ICSU, the International Social Sciences Council and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. The focus of the research programme is on disaster risk and disaster risk reduction and takes an integrated approach to natural and human-induced environmental hazards through a combination of natural, socio-economic, health and engineering sciences, including socio-economic analysis, understanding the role of communications, and public and political response to reduce the risk. The legacy of IRDR will be an enhanced capacity around the world to address hazards and make informed decisions on actions to reduce their impacts. The IRDR Scientific Objectives are: 1: Characterization of hazards, vulnerability and risk; 2: Understanding decision-making in complex and changing risk contexts; 3: Reducing risk and curbing losses through knowledge-based actions. There are cross-cutting themes and approaches on: Capacity building; Case studies and demonstration projects; and Assessment, data management and monitoring.