Understanding Risks Forum 2016

The Understanding Risks Forum 2016 was held on the 16-20th May in Venice, Italy. The 4th event in the series was well attended by 650 members from 100 countries, representing over 350 organisations. Participants had the same goal of better understanding of risks and how to better incorporate science and technology knowledge for policy and decision making at a higher level.

Themes emerged from some sessions I attended, some of which were, 1) an all-hazards approach must be employed when working with natural hazards due to cascading risks; 2) scientific knowledge must be useful, useable and used to benefit the wider populations; and 3) there should be a conversion of research focus from natural hazards to vulnerability, as natural hazards are inevitable, but human behaviour can be changed.

Much of the discussion was about on one hand producing scientific knowledge that is useful, usable and used by the wider community (such as policy makers), but also empowering local communities in areas of disaster preparedness so they would have better resilience. It was raised by many speakers that the traditionally perceived vulnerable groups, such as women and aboriginal communities, actually have a lot of knowledge in locally adapted disaster resilience measures that are often ignored by scientists. NGOs and scientists might go into a community and teach them ‘evidence-based’ methods of disaster preparedness but often forget that these natural hazards has been faced by such communities for decades, even centuries. A better approach is to learn from traditional values and practices and incorporating them to our research.

Disaster risk is constantly evolving due to changes in hazard, exposure, and vulnerability; these complex dynamics have led to an increase in disaster-losses over recent decades. Urbanization and population growth are among the key drivers of this risk increase. Decisions on urban design and land use planning all contribute to future levels of risk and resilience. [excerpt taken from here]

Hong Kong is a densely populated city where every decision of land use is closely monitored to reach maximum benefit for the community. Yet land use planning in Hong Kong rarely take into account building a sustainable environment that is resilient towards natural hazards. Hong Kong is a city blessed to not experience a lot of different kinds of natural hazards, but with such rapid changes, it is important to be prepared to minimize impact.