New Foresight project: Improving Future Disaster Anticipation and Resilience

The UKCDS disasters group is working closely with Foresight on a new project investigating how to improve anticipation of and resilience to disasters: Improving Future Disaster Anticipation and Resilience.

The project will identify actions that could be taken within the next 10 years to reduce the impacts of disasters arising from hazards up to 2040. It will call on industry and academic expertise from the UK and explore how emerging science and technology might improve our ability to prepare for and respond to these impacts.

Sean Lewis, Director of the Consortium of British Humanitarian

Agencies and Professor John Rees, Theme Leader - Natural hazards,

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), speaking at the

conference 'Disasters: Improving the evidence base for prevention,

resilience and emergency responses', October 2010

Its findings will help UK and international policy-makers navigate a challenging and uncertain future.

This work is part of the government’s response to Lord Ashdown’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Review commissioned by the Department for International Development. It is focused on disasters that occur outside of developed countries, particularly in politically or economically fragile states, and will look at hazards including earthquakes, floods and droughts.

The project will be guided by a group of experts from a range of disciplines, and will be informed by the best current research across the physical sciences, health, social sciences and economics. Professor John Rees, NERC theme leader for Natural Hazards, is chair of the UKCDS disasters group and Professor Mark Pelling, Kings College London, representing the ICSU core project Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) is also in both groups.

The report is expected by the end of 2012.