International Roundtable Conference 2018 - Technologies and Innovations in Disaster Management for Developing Countries: Trends and Opportunities
Overview
Technologies and innovations could be a tool of building just and equal communities. It can be used to re build people’s lives, to increase their living standards, making them resilient towards crisis and enabling them to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. They provide an opportunity to re-imagine and innovate disaster management practices globally. Technologies have contributed immensely to the understanding of the mechanism and estimation of natural hazards of atmospherical, geological, hydrological, and biological origins. The study, the experiments, and observations of floods, severe storms, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, and their impacts on humankind have certainly helped move policy and other interventions on ground. Advancement in science is also enabling scientists capture social vulnerabilities and work on modelling or scenario building which contribute to mitigate impacts of disasters. Technology is used for various purposes like natural resource mapping, assessment and evaluation of damages, management and planning at local, regional and national level. Similarly combining innovative methods and tools of GIS and remote sensing, can help in myraid ways, not just identify the impact of complex disasters more accurately and quickly but also in providing early warnings to settlements potentially at risk.
It is widely acknowledge that disaster management requires versatility with wide range of knowledge, practices and skill sets from varied fields including science and technology. The Sendai Framework aims to promote investments in innovation and technology development in disaster risk management research. Besides, Sustainable Development Goals emphasize building resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. Innovations can be scaled up from local to regional level by simply creating awareness about the social change.
The role of communities in enhancing scientific knowledge through documenting, contributing to co-production of knowledge and collaboration is significant in democratising knowledge. The Roundtable will also help reflect on this perspective on society, science and technology. Scientists must interface with communities and bring science to people and also engage with people's science, validating it or challenging it, as the case may be. The development of various tools for early warning systems, soft wares for maintenance of disaster databases, applications for need assessment and data collection through crowd sourcing are examples of effective deployment of technology in various phases of disaster management. It is only through a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding both complexity and changes in the environment that disaster studies will grow.
While scientists are able to capture risks, hazards and vulnerabilities and also assess the impact of disasters the process of communicating these to people in the quickest manner and adapting them to indigenous methods remain a major challenge. Successful technology transfer requires not only exchange of technological solutions, but also strengthening policy and regulatory environments, and capacities to absorb, employ, and improve appropriate technologies.
The conference endeavors to deepen knowledge and insights around disaster management by demonstrating synergy across science and technology and social sciences with a focus on building people-centered, participatory approaches towards disaster risk reduction and response where issues of implementation.
Objectives
- To discuss the development and diffusion of technologies for disaster management and social innovations, especially in the context of developing countries.
- To identify challenges in the deployment of technologies and how they may be overcome.
- To discuss indigenous approaches for the application of technologies and innovations in disaster management.
Themes
- Social Innovations for building resilience
- Technologies for information and data collection, dissemination and mapping
- Early warning systems, monitoring systems and their linkages to SOPs
- Challenges of remote locales
- Technology based risk assessment and solutions
- Modeling, scenario building
- Big Data for risk assessment