LONDON’S GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction
Annual Conference Programme 2014
09:00-09:20
Registration
09.20-09.30
Welcome by Professor Peter Sammonds, Director, UCL IRDR
09.30-11.00
Cascading Crises Panel Discussion
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the disasters of conflict, refugees, rising food and fuel prices
and drought as a cascading crisis sweeping the Sahel. But cascading crises are not new: the Great Kanto
Earthquake of 1923, with fire sweeping the city fanned by an ill-timed cyclone, caused unprecedented
damage but also political change; while a cascade of crises led to the nuclear incident at Fukushima. This
session will interrogate the interaction between physical phenomena and society and the implications for
engineering and health of cascading crises.
Session Organiser: Prof Peter Sammonds (UCL IRDR)
Chair: Dr Dina D'Ayala (UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
Panellists: Prof Sarah Curtis, Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience, Durham University; Kim Hagen,
Trilateral Research and Consulting;Prof Brian Golding, Uk Met Office; Dr Gordon Woo, RMS
11.00-11.30
Coffee Break
11.30-13.00
The role of Women in Disaster Risk Reduction
Women are disproportionately affected by disasters and largely excluded from decision making in disaster
risk reduction (DRR). The UN ISDR is setting the agenda for a new International Framework for Action for
Disaster Risk Reduction (HFA2) for 2015-2015. The UCL IRDR aims to influence their goal of placing
women at the centre of DRR policy making and practice. This session will be introduced by Ms Paola
Albrito, UNISDR Regional Coordinator for Europe.
Speakers: Dr Maureen Fordham, Principal Lecturer in Disaster Management, Northumbria University: If I
wanted to get to there, I wouldn’t start from here: Disaster Risk Reduction and gender equity.
Farnaz Arefian, UCL DPU, Director of Phoenix Civitas and Founding Director of Silk Cities: The role of
women in improving the built environment in disaster prone regions; how reconstruction activities can
contribute to women's awareness of DRR.
Daniel Morchain, Oxfam, Global Advisor, Climate Change Adaptation: Women's role in identifying and
prioritising action in risk reduction and resilience building plans in rural communities.
13.00-14.30
Lunch
14.30-15.30 Keynote Address by Dr Robert Macfarlane, Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the UK
Cabinet Office on “Building a more resilient country: policy and practical challenges”
Dr Robert Macfarlane will provide wide ranging coverage of the work undertaken by the CCS. This will
cover the work they co-ordinate across government, and the real practical work that is done at local level.
15.30-16.00 Coffee Break
16.00-17.00 In Conversation on Managing Risks in Business and Government
Speakers: Dr Dougal Goodman,Chief Executive of the Foundation for Science and Technology and former
head of safety at BP and former Deputy Director of the British Antarctic Survey.
Pallab Ghosh, BBC Science Correspondant
17.00-17.30 Research Poster Introductions
17.30-20.00 Research Poster Session, Fukushima Kimonos Exhibition and IRDR Summer Party
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Conference Speakers:
Prof Sarah Curtis, Professor of Health Risks, Durham University
Director of the Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience, Durham University, informing disaster
response and resilience. Prof Curtis specialises in risks for health and health care. She will be a
panellist in our panel discusssion on 'Cascading Crises'
Sarah Curtis is Executive Director of the Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience at Durham
University, UK, enabling, developing and supporting research on a range of hazards and risks in
the natural and socio-economic environment, informing strategies for disaster response,
preparedness and resilience. She is a specialist in health geography, and has published widely in
this field. Her personal research focuses particularly on the wider determinants and risks for human
health in the social and physical environment. Recent research includes work on how to adapt the
built, institutional and social infrastructures that support health and social care for older people, to
make them more resilient to the impacts of extreme weather events.
Her extensive knowledge exchange activities have contributed to the work of non-academic
agencies, such as: the World Health Organization, NHS Sustainable Development Unit,
Department of Environment of Food, and Rural Affairs, Environment Agency, the Improvement and
Development Agency, the Department of Health UK; Public health agencies across England; the
National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy, Canada.
She is a member (Ministerial Nominee) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
France; Academician Academy of Social Sciences, Member Society of Social Medicine, , and
Chartered Geographer (Founder Member) Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British
Geographers and the RGS/Geography of Health Research Group, Member of the Royal Society of
Medicine, Fellow Higher Education Academy, Fellow. She was Senior Editor, Medical Geography,
for the journal Social Science and Medicine (2003 - 2012).
Kim Hagen, Trilateral Research and Consulting
Trilateral is a London based niche research and advisory consultancy bringing together strategy,
technology and policy. Kim Hagen joined Trilateral Research & Consulting in 2014. Her areas of
expertise and interest are centred on the interaction between people and the environments they
inhabit, including community resilience and disaster preparation, response and recovery, natural
resource management, international development, and qualitative research methods. Before
joining Trilateral she worked in the fields of natural resource management and sustainable
development, both in academia and in non-governmental organisations. Kim holds a BA and MA in
Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies from the Radboud University Nijmegen and an
MSc in Environment and Resource Management from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, both in the
Netherlands, and is close to completing a PhD on community resilience to natural hazards at The
Open University in partnership with the British Geological Survey. She is currently also assistanteditor to the journal Disaster Prevention and Management.
Prof Brian Golding, UK Met Office
Fellow in Weather Impacts at the Met Office, Visiting Professor at Exeter and Bristol Universities,
and Consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation. He will be a panellist in our panel
discusssion on 'Cascading Crises'
Prof Brian Golding has been involved in Numerical Weather Prediction since joining the Met Office
in 1972. In the late 1970s he developed the Met Office's ocean wave prediction system and was
involved in early work on the UK wave power climate. In the 1980s, after a short spell in
operational forecasting, he led the team that developed the world's first operational non-hydrostatic
mesoscale NWP system. In 1990 he was seconded to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for
two years, when he used this model to study Australian weather systems. On his return, he led the
development of the Nimrod automated nowcasting system. More recently, he has contributed to
the application of rainfall forecasts in flood prediction and participated in the Pitt review of the 2007
summer floods. From 2006 to 2012 Brian directed the Met Office's research in Weather Science. In
2010 he was Met Office spokesman on the spread of volcanic ash during the Ejyafjallajokull
eruption. Brian is currently analysing a forecasting trial of localized flooding carried out during the
Olympic Games. He is also developing a plan for an international project to advance the science of
High Impact Weather forecasts and is a co-PI of the MED-MI collaboration, with the Health
Protection Agency, the London School of Hygience & Tropical Medicine and the European Centre
for Environment & Human Health, to develop a platform for linking weather and health databases.
Brian is a visiting professor at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol and serves on the Strategic
Advisory Board of the Cabot Institute. He also serves on the Programme Executive Boards of the
NERC Storm Risk Mitigation, Changing Water Cycle and Floods from Intense Rainfall
programmes. In 2013, Brian was awarded the OBE for services to weather forecasting and the
prediction of hazardous weather.
Dr Gordon Woo, RMS
Trained in mathematical physics, Dr. Woo has consulted on all the various natural hazards for
industrial corporations, government organizations, as well as the global insurance industry.
Gordon Woo is a catastrophist at Risk Management Solutions (RMS), specializing in mathematical
modeling of extreme risks, with a particular focus on catastrophe insurance. Apart from his
scientific papers, he is the author of two books, published by Imperial College Press: ‘The
Mathematics of Natural Catastrophes’, and ‘Calculating Catastrophe’.
Top mathematics graduate of Cambridge University, he completed his PhD in theoretical physics at
MIT as a Kennedy Scholar, and was a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is an adjunct
professor at the Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management at Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore, and has just been appointed a visiting professor at UCL.
Dr Maureen Fordham, Professor of Gender and Disaster Resilience, Northumbria University
Maureen is a founder member and long time Coordinator of the Gender and Disaster Network
(www.gdnonline.org); She is also the co-founder and co-editor (with Ben Wisner) of Radix –
Radical Interpretations of Disaster (website www.radixonline.org, discussion list
RADIX@JISCMAIL.AC.UK), which was stimulated by concerns following the 2001 earthquakes in
El Salvador and Gujarat. Her areas of interest and expertise include: Gender and disaster risk
reduction; disaster resilience; sustainable hazard and disaster policy and management; children
and disaster risk reduction; vulnerability and capacity analysis; and community-based disaster risk
reduction
In the field of gender and disaster risk reduction, her most recent publication was with Dr Sarah
Bradshaw: WOMEN, GIRLS AND DISASTERS: A review for DFID (pdf download available from
the UCL IRDR website)
She is currently Scientific Coordinator of the EU FP7 project emBRACE: Building Resilience
Amongst Communities in Europe www.embrace-eu.org.
After receiving her PhD in 1992, Maureen remained at Middlesex University Flood Hazard
Research Centre, where she became the Centre Manager. In 1995 she went to Anglia Ruskin
University where her last post was as Head of Geography (Acting). She moved to Northumbria
University in 2002 primarily to teach on the MSc Disaster Management and Sustainable
Development and to continue her research and outreach interests. She has more than 20 years
experience of delivering training on various aspects of gender, disaster and environmental
management.
Fatemah (Farnaz) Arefian, UCL Development Planning Unit
Fatemah Arefian, Dip Arch, MSc Town planning and Urban Design, PG (Dip) Strategic
Management and Leadership, Prince 2 Project Management, PhD Candidate at The Bartlett
Development Planning Unit, UCL.
Farnaz is an academic-practitioner with 20 years of experience in private sector management,
urban design and architecture, as well as research in Iran and UK. Her professional experience
includes new-towns, post disaster reconstruction and large-scale urban development plans and
regeneration in historic fabrics and mixed-use architectural projects, housing development projects
that were delivered through her architecture and urban design practices in Iran and UK, Aseman
Naghshineh and Civitas Phoenix group. She returned to academia related to one of her
professional experiences on disaster management. She is conducting a multidisciplinary research
project: Looking at Organisation theory in order to understand organisation design and
management for reconstruction programmes, which concern people's participation and future
disaster risk reduction. During her doctoral studies, she was the lead coordinator for an
international conference on Urban Change in Iran at UCL in November 2012, for which UCL was
praised by UNESCO Director General. She founded Silk Cities as the follow up initiative as a
contextual connective platform and an ongoing project. Farnaz served as a member of the board of
the Society of Iranian Town Planners. She is a fellow member of Chartered Management Institute
and International Development Network at RTPI.
Farnaz will speak in the session on the Role of Women in Disaster Risk Reduction, talking about
the role that she and other women have in improving the built environment in disaster prone
regions, and how reconstruction activities can contribute to women’s awareness of DRR.
Daniel Morchain, Oxfam, Global Adviser, Climate Change Adaptation
Daniel has worked with local authorities, and smallholder farmers in developing and implementing
strategies to adapt to climate change and to increase resilience. With Oxfam, he is global adviser
on climate change adaptation and works on a number of initiatives around climate change
adaptation, as well as gender justice, such as the Gendered Enterprise and Markets (GEM)
initiative. Recently he's been working on a participatory, multi-hazard Vulnerability and Risk
Assessment methodology, which helps identify the way hazards impact different social groups
within communities - each faced with different constraints and a set of capabilities -; groups which
include women and sub-sets of groups of women. Based on this analysis and the result of
subsequent steps in the methodology, focus areas of interventions are identified and prioritised for
the development of community risk reduction & resilience building action plans.
Before joining Oxfam, Daniel worked with the Stockholm Environment Institute and with ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability on climate change adaptation research and projects. Daniel
has a Master's degree in Environment Management and Policy from Lund University's International
Institute for Industrial Environment Economics (IIIEE),Sweden and has completed postgraduate
courses on resilience and climate change adaptation at the UN University in Japan.
Daniel will give a talk on, "Women's role in identifying and prioritising action in risk reduction and
resilience building plans in rural communities' in the session on the Role of Women in DIsaster
Risk Reduction.
Paola Albrito, Head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
Regional Office for Europe.
Paola Albrito is the Head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)
Regional Office for Europe and has covered disaster risk reduction activities in the European
region since 2007. She joined UNISDR in 2004 during the preparations for the World Conference
on Disaster Reduction in 2004 analyzing the national progress reports received from national
authorities in feeding the Conference with the Outcome Analysis Document on the status on DRR
implementation at the global level. She assisted the inter-governmental Drafting Committee and
Main Committee of the Conference in charge of developing the Hyogo Declaration and the Hyogo
Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly with resolution 60/195 endorsed by the World
Conference on Disaster Reduction, held in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, in January 2005.
In March 2005 she worked on Policy Issues related topics particularly related to the follow-up to the
Hyogo Framework for Action, including development of guidelines related to indicators towards
assessing disaster risk reduction issues and how to mainstream disaster risk reduction in
sustainable development policy and programme.
Paola holds a Masters in International Relations and Political Science, University of Turin, with
research conducted at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), London. She worked,
at the beginning of her career, at the United Nations Staff System College (UNSSC) in Turin, Italy,
where she supported UN country teams in developing sustainable development policies. In 2000
she joined the UN Resident Coordinator Office in Djibouti as Coordinator/Programme Analyst
coordinating the development of the Common Country Assessment and United Nations
Development Assistance Framework (programmes addressing sustainable development issues).
She also worked as an independent consultant with programme evaluations within the International
Labor Organization.
Keynote: Dr Robert Macfarlane, Assistant Director, Resilience Training & Doctrine, Civil
Contingencies Secretariat, Cabinet Office.
Rob Macfarlane is Assistant Director (Training and Doctrine) in the Civil Contingencies Secretariat,
National Security Secretariat, Cabinet Office. Within the Cabinet Office, Rob has a range of
responsibilities, including supporting doctrinal coherence in UK civil protection and assurance of
the content of all courses run by the Serco-managed Emergency Planning College (EPC).
Additionally he is responsible for the programme of Central Government Emergency Response
Training in Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR), established following the London Bombings in
2005, supports the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP), and has
oversight of research engagement in the field of civil protection. Rob has a PhD from the University
of Aberdeen and is currently studying part time, sponsored by the Cabinet Office, for a Doctorate in
Business Administration at the University of Durham, focusing on decision support for strategic
crisis management in COBR.
Dr Dougal Goodman, Foundation for Science and Technology
Dr Dougal Goodman OBE FREng, is Chief Executive of The Foundation for Science and
Technology, a charity that works between both Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, business and the
research community to promote debate about policy issues that have a science, engineering,
technology or medical element (www.foundation.org.uk).
He is also non-executive Chairman of the Lighthill Risk Network, a consortium of insurance
companies working to bridge the gap between the insurance market and the research community
and does consulting work on strategy and risk for the marine insurance market. He is a former
Deputy Director of the British Antarctic Survey and a general manager for BP where he also
worked as head of safety for the company, in the insurance department, as operations manager for
the Magnus oil field and in strategy and planning.
He has served on a wide range of committees including currently the Advisory Board of the
Financial Services Knowledge Transfer Network and the Public Affairs Committee of The Royal
Academy of Engineering. He is a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal
Statistical Society, the Institute of Physics, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institute of
Materials, Minerals and Mining. He is a visiting professor at UCL IRDR. He was awarded the OBE
in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2012.
Dougal will be in conversation with Pallab Ghosh on "Managing Risks in Business and
Government" at 4pm.
Pallab Ghosh, BBC Science correspondent
Pallab Ghosh is currently a science correspondent for BBC news, reporting on scientific advances
in areas of public interest. He joined the BBC in 1989 after beginning his journalism career in 1984.
Upon joining the BBC he worked as a general news producer on BBC Radio’s The World at One
and then became a senior producer on the Today Programme.
Ghosh has previously been named the BT Technology Journalist of the Year. He was President of
the World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ) from 2007 to 2009, a not-for-profit and nongovernmental organisation, representing global science journalists’ associations. He is a former
Chairman of the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW). He was part of the BBC News
science team that won a Sir Arthur C Clarke award for their coverage of stories relating to space in
2009.
Pallab will be in conversation with Dougal Goodman on "Managing Risks in Business and
Government" at 4pm.
Fukushima Kimonos Exhibition
During the conference, the UCL South Cloisters will host an exhibition of the provocative and
critically acclaimed Fukushima Kimonos--a triptique of ceramic sculptures first produced by the
Japanese artist Yuki Yamaguchi in response to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan. The
Kimonos challenge us to reflect upon the role played by tradition in contemporary life, especially
when disasters, both man-made and natural, impact on society and culture. Yamaguchi’s
sculptures are internationally celebrated for their organic forms, refined palette, and balance of the
Japanese spirit of Zen with influences from around the world.
Members of the Public are welcome to view this exhibit for free from 09:00 until 17:30. From 17:30
the area will be restricted to conference delegates during the conference research poster session
and IRDR summer party, giving conference delegates the chance to admire this exhibit.
Research Posters
1: High temperature pressurization, fracturing and permeability in volcanic systems
Amy Chadderton (UCL, IRDR), Peter Sammonds (UCL, IRDR), Phillip Meredith (UCL), Rosanna
Smith (UCL, IRDR), Hugh Tuffen (Lancaster University)
2: Investigation of different hypothetical earthquake scenarios triggering tsunamis on the
Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Andria Sarri, (UCL, IRDR) Serge Guillas, Department of Statistical Science, (UCL)
Simon Day, (UCL, IRDR)
3: Communities, institutions and flood risk: mobilising social capital to enhance community
resilience
Andrew Fox (Plymouth University)
4: The thermal expansion of sea ice
Ben Lishman, (UCL IRDR), Aleksey Marchenko, (UCL IRDR)
5: The development of a vulnerabilities indicator library for coastal flood risk management at a
European scale
Christophe Viavattene, Sally Priest, Paula Micou, Damon Owen (Flood Hazard Research Centre,
Middlesex University)
6: The importance of engagement for community resilience.
Genevieve Goatcher (postgraduate student at Coventry University)
7: Are Earthquakes in Corinth rift random in time?
Georgios Michas (UCL, IRDR) Filippos Vallianatos (UCL, IRDR -Technological Educational Institute
of Crete, Greece), Peter Sammonds (UCL, IRDR)
8: Decoding the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, a nonextesive statistical physics approach
Giorgos Papadakis, (UCL, RDR) Filippos Vallianatos (UCL, IRDR, Technological Educational
Institute of Crete, Greece), Peter Sammonds (UCL, IRDR)
9: Optimizing the role of critical facilities and infrastructures in cascading disasters: from physical
damages to effective social resilience
Gianluca Pescaroli, David Alexander (UCL, IRDR)
10: Self-protective behaviour during earthquake shaking
Gillian Dacey (UCL, IRDR)
11: Many strong voices: dealing with change in the Arctic and on small island developing states
(SIDS)
Ilan Kelman (UCL, IRDR), John Crump GRID-Arendal, Norway Tiina Kurvits, Stavros Mavrogenis
(Panteion University of Athens, Greece)
12: Fukushima, "calamity prevention wheel rediscovery ", and transfer research.
John Skoyles (UCL,CoMPLEX)
13: Etas Model and Tsallis statistics: far or close?
Katerina Stavrianaki (UCL, IRDR), Filippos Vallianatos (UCL, IRDR -Technological Educational
Institute of Crete, Greece) Peter Sammonds (UCL, IRDR)
14: Coulomb stress driven earthquake sequences in the central Apennines
Luke Wedmore (UCL, IRDR) Joanna Faure Walker (UCL, IRDR) Gerald Roberts (Dept. of Earth
Sciences Brikbeck College, UCL) Peter Sammonds (UCL, IRDR) Ken McCaffrey (Dept. of Earth
Sciences, Durham University)
15: Water Risk and its Management in the Poopó Basin,
Bolivian Altiplano
Megan French (UCL, IRDR), Stephen Edwards (Aon Benfield, UCL, IRDR), Natalie Alem (Bolivia
Rural, CENDA.), Efrain Blanco Coariti (UMSA Bolivia), Helga Cauthin, Karen Hudson-Edwards
(Birkbeck UCL), Karen Luyck (CAFOD), Oscar Miranda Sanchez (Bolivia Rural - CENDA), Jorge
Quintanilla (UMSA Bolivia)
16: Security of deep groundwater against arsenic contamination in Bangladesh: a numerical
modelling approach
Mohammad Shamsudduha (UCL, IRDR) Anwar Zahid (Ground Water Hydrology, Bangladesh
Water Development Board) William Burgess(UCL, Dept. Earth Sciences)
17: Integrating the disaster risk reduction concept into senior high school chemistry curriculum in
Indonesia
Nurmalahayati Nurdin (UCL, IRDR)
18: The consolidation and deformation of brash ice
Sally Scourfield (UCL, IRDR), Peter Sammonds (UCL,IRDR,) Ben Lishman (UCL IRDR),
Kaj Riska (TOTAL S.A)
19: Psychosocial issues and lived experiences of (adolescent) young women and girls after
October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
Seema Ahmed (Northumbria University)
20: Community engagement in disaster recovery: which tools?
Serena Tagliacozzo (UCL, IRDR)
21: Women capacity, community resilience and sustainable post disaster reconstruction: case
study from Indonesia
Tri Yumarni, Dilanthi Amaratunga, Richard Haigh (Disaster Resilience, University of Salford)
22: Why detailed structural mapping is important for the understanding of the seismic hazard in
the central Apennines, Italy.
Zoë K. Watson (UCL, IRDR), Joanna Faure Walker (UCL, IRDR), Peter Sammonds (UCL,IRDR),
Gerald P.Roberts (UCL, Birbeck )
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