Urban Resilience Asia Pacific Conference

How can vulnerable neighbourhoods in fast-growing cities become more resilient to disasters and climate change?

While urbanisation brings unprecedented social and economic opportunity, it also increases the threat of disasters, with greater concentrations of people living in dangerous places, such as those living in coastal areas, on land that floods, or on marginalised land.

Asia Pacific is one of the world’s fastest urbanising regions. It is also home to the largest number of people living in low-income settlements. The region is susceptible to a wide range of natural hazards, including flood, windstorms, earthquake, volcano, tsunami and landslide. Climate change is also expected to contribute to sea level rise, stronger windstorms and higher temperatures, increasing urban risk and exacerbating migration. 

To address this, Sustainable Development Goal 11 has identified resilience as a key approach for creating inclusive, safe and sustainable cities.

This two-day conference invites practitioners, researchers and decision-makers from all disciplines to present, discuss, debate and recommend realisable social, physical, political and economic measures that build resilience in the Asia Pacific region. The guiding question is, how can vulnerable, low-income neighbourhoods in fast-growing cities in the Asia Pacific region become more resilient to disasters and climate change?

Key Themes

The conference will address four key themes and their interconnectedness:

• Innovation: Actions that improve processes and/or products either incrementally or radically; ‘game-changers’, applications, approaches or changes in understandings
• Information: Access to information and its societal benefits; using information to inform decision-making; opportunities for new media; big data and data mining
• Infrastructure: Formal and informal housing, public buildings, roads, services, power and lighting, water systems; equitable access to infrastructure; pro-poor approaches to planning
• Institutions: Effective governance structures and urban management; improving coordination and collaboration; engaging the private sector, humanitarian aid organisations and academia 

Fees

The fees for attending the conference are:

• Non-students: AUD$200 for two days, or AUD$100 per day (plus Eventbrite overhead and GST)
• Students: AUD$100 for two days, or AUD$50 per day (plus Eventbrite overhead and GST)

A small number of travel scholarships are available. The scholarships are intended primarily for those from low- and middle-income countries in the Asia Pacific region who will be presenting a paper or are part of a session, and who may not be able to attend otherwise.

To apply for a scholarship, please email urapconf2018@unsw.edu.au, briefly outlining your reasons for applying. 

For all conference inquiries please contact Laura Bruce at urapconf2018@unsw.edu.au