Understanding Risk Europe 2019

Devastating wildfires, earthquakes and floods in Europe in recent years and a growing recognition of how climate change and aging infrastructure and buildings will exacerbate risk have highlighted a need to accelerate action towards the identification and management of disaster and climate risks. The Understanding Risk Europe forum will provide a platform for the public and private sector, non-governmental organizations, academia, media and local, national and regional institutions to build partnerships and to share knowledge and best practices.

Topics

The agenda will be available soon. Topics under consideration to be included are:

1. Assessing the fiscal and economic impact of disasters and innovations for financial resilience
2. Building urban resilience – integrating climate and disaster risks into urban development
3. Challenges and opportunities for assessing flood risks
4. Assessing and forecasting storm, drought, flood and wildfire risks in a changing climate
5. Challenges and successes with national approaches to assessing and reducing earthquake risk
6. Emerging disaster threats – cyber, pandemics, extreme heat, etc
7. Approaches to rapid collection of data before and after disaster – disruptive innovations, satellite imagery, drone technology
8. Community engagement, raising awareness and driving action
9. Determining disaster and climate impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable and optimising solutions for resilience
10. Critical infrastructure risks and why investing in resilience makes financial sense
11. Managing seismic risk in housing, especially in aging multi-family apartments, and opportunities to integrate energy efficiency alongside resilience improvements
12. Safer and resilient schools
13. Assessing and managing risk to cultural heritage buildings

What is Understanding Risk?

UR is a global community of 9,000+ experts and practitioners active in the creation, communication and use of disaster risk information. Members share knowledge and experience, collaborate and discuss innovations and best practice in risk assessment. The community convenes every two years at UR Forums – five-day events that highlight groundbreaking work, facilitate nontraditional partnerships and showcase new technical know-how in disaster risk identification.