Examining responses to natural disasters

The emergency management response to some of the world’s most devastating disasters of the past 18 months is the subject of a university-led conference at Te Papa, Wellington, from tomorrow.

The Fourth Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference, which is being co-hosted by the University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research, has attracted a range of international speakers, who specialise in the response to natural hazards such as tsunami, bushfires and volcanic eruptions.

Centre director Associate Professor David Johnston says those three natural hazards have been experienced on major scales since early 2009 and will be given extensive analysis at the conference, which runs till Friday.

Bob Cechet from Geoscience Australia will talk about a residential building damage survey arising from the Victoria’s black Saturday bush fires of February last year; NIWA scientists Dr Stefan Reese and Dr Emily Lane will examine lessons learned from last year’s tsunami in Samoa; while volcanologist Professor Shane Cronin from Massey will analyse the disruption caused in Europe by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano.

On Friday, the centre, jointly run by the University and the crown research institute GNS Science, will hold a seminar on the issues and risks of living in cities that are considered at high risk of natural hazards, such as those on active fault lines, low-lying cities in the paths of regular storms or tsunamis, and cities prone to forest fires.

The seminar coincides with the 20th anniversary of teaching and research of emergency management at Massey.