Disaster-stricken region hosts hazards conference
Just ten days after the state of emergency was lifted in Whakatane, the Bay of Plenty is to host a major conference on the management of natural hazards.
The conference will be held at Baycourt in Tauranga, Tuesday 10th – Wednesday 11th August.
“It could hardly have been more timely,” says Dr Warren Gray of NIWA. “Delegates will hear about the practical implications of the latest science on flooding, coastal hazards, landslides, volcanoes, and earthquakes.”
Topics include the impact of climate change, tools for managing hazards, and an in-depth look at the impacts of the February floods. “No doubt people will be swapping observations about the Bay of Plenty flooding and earthquakes too,” says Dr David Johnston from the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS).
More than 140 delegates have registered so far. They include staff from emergency services, civil defence, local authorities, public health units, and infrastructure companies.
The conference is sponsored by GNS and NIWA, along with Environment Bay of Plenty, the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, Tauranga City, Wellington City Council, EQC, and the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.
Bio: Professor Dennis Mileti
Keynote address: 0845-0930, Wednesday 11 August
“Towards a resilient society: turning research into policy and programmes for sustainable hazard mitigation”
Professor Mileti chairs the Department of Sociology, and is the Director Emeritus of the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Centre, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA.
He headed the landmark study on natural hazards risks for the US National Science Foundation, titled “Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States” (1999). Professor Mileti argues that the really big disasters will continue to get bigger, partly because of previous attempts to reduce risk. For example, stop banks may protect communities from medium-sized floods but also stimulate development, which means higher losses in a large flood.
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Professor Mileti called for communities to consider all the risks they may face and prepare a disaster plan that could be used to address any type of disaster. “What use is a terrorist-safe Los Angeles if everyone is killed in an earthquake,” he asked. The Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Centre, which he directed at the time, funded researchers from across the US to study the social and behavioural aspects of September 11 within weeks of the attacks. This was part of its Quick Response Research Program, which enables researchers to conduct field work during the immediate aftermath of a disaster.
Dr Mileti is the author of over 100 publications, most of which focus on societal aspects of emergency preparedness and natural and technological hazards mitigation.
He also has a variety of practical experiences related to hazards mitigation and preparedness including the development of emergency response plans for nuclear power plants, and he has been a staff member of the California Seismic Safety Commission.