Newsletter
from the Secretariat for Preparatory Activities of |
Issue No.4 March 2005 |
What's in this issue |
In this 4th issue of our periodic newsletters we continue our
focus in providing our national and international partners and colleagues with
our up to date information on the progress of the preparatory works toward the
establishment of the centre by autumn 2005. You will find in this issue: 1. Message from the Director of the Secretariat 2.
Recent Activities and Future Schedule
i) JICA Region-focused
Training Course Flood Hazard Mapping 3. Recent Topics and Research Activities i) Visits of Professor Yicheng Wang, IWHR, China. ii) World Water Assessment
Programme (WWAP) 4.
Contact Information |
Message from the Director |
On
the last day of the conference (January 22), "The Hyogo Declaration" and "The
Hyogo Framework for Action" were concluded as the final achievement of the conference.
It was clearly stated in those official announcements that disaster prevention
and reduction should be strategically addressed in cooperation with countries
throughout the world. Sharing the common understanding that each country is
primarily responsible for sustainable development, and the lives and properties
of their own people, the participating countries agreed on five specific actions
that should be given priority over the next ten years (2005-2015).
Each country should: 1) Ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national
and local priority with a strong institutional basis for implementation; 2) Identify,
assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning; 3) Use knowledge,
innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels;
4) Reduce the underlying risk factors; 5) Strengthen disaster preparedness for
effective response. ICHARM especially focuses on the second and third among the
five priority actions, and will make concrete contributions to "building disaster-resistant
communities and countries" from a global perspective. A new training
course on "Flood Hazard Mapping" was held in January in cooperation with JICA.
There were a total of 16 participants from eight countries in East and
Director
of the Secretariat |
Recent Activities and Future Schedule - Part 1- | |
This training course was designed to include various lectures in relation to the science and technology of flood hazard mapping. The lectures included those on the objective and procedures of producing flood hazard maps and the advanced research topics in this field. As for the invited lecturers and professional researchers they were not only from Japanese research organizations but also from other international organization such as the Mekong River Commission and China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR). The program included practical application exercises sessions, which engaged the participants in a real case study a Town Watching (On-site inspection) guided by Prof. Ogawa (Fuji-Tokoha University). The "Town Watching" was conducted in the middle reach of the Tonegawa River which has been historically most flood-affected such as due to Typhoon Kathleen in 1947. On the assumption that actual flood disasters are about to occur, all the participants conducted the field survey and tried to identify critical points and barriers for smooth and safe evacuation. They also made interviews to the local people/community on their awareness of flood disasters. This activity was followed by two complementary field trips on "flood hazard mapping": the first to the Fukushima Office of River and National Highway , Koriyama City Office, and the second to the Kanto Regional Development Bureau, Arakawa River Downstream Work Office. This training course was wrapped up with a great success on February 18, and PWRI is very much willing to create networking and to keep good relationships with all the participants in exchanging information hereinafter. At this opportunity we would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to all the lecturers for this training course as well as to those concerned in conducting the field survey and the field trip. |
Opening
with CEO Dr. Sakamoto and Director Terakawa Lecture
on flood hazard mapping Trainees
in Field Survey MRC, JICA and PWRI Staff helping trainees conduct citizen interview. |
Recent Activities and Future Schedule - Part 2 - |
The
United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) , Hyogo, Kobe The United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR)
was held from Tuesday, January 18 through Saturday, January 22 at the International
Conference Center Kobe and its adjoining hotel, Kobe Portopia Hotel. There were
three different types of meetings, and more than ten meetings were held simultaneously
at the conference center and hotel. In some meetings,
governmental officials of the participating countries got together and worked
on consensus documents for every member country to agree upon.
Other meetings were dedicated to discuss specific themes and provided additional
opinions and information to support the results of the meetings among governmental
officials. There were still other meetings, so-called
"public forums", where not only experts but also the general public could participate
to voice their opinions. The Public Works Research Institute (PWRI) co-hosted
a theme-specific session entitled "Research on Floods and Landslides and A New
International Initiative for Risk Reduction" (January 19) with UNESCO and WMO.
At the beginning of the session, chaired by Prof. Ginkel, President of United
Nations University, Dr. Sakamoto, Chief Executive of PWRI, explained the preparatory
activities for ICHARM (International Center for Water Hazard and Risk Management
under the auspices of UNESCO) as part of his opening words, accompanied by Dr.
Matsuura, Secretary-General of UNESCO, Dr. Jeraud, Secretary-General of WMO and
Prof. Inoue, Director of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University.
In the first half of the session, Mr. Terakawa, Director of the Secretariat, introduced
the discussion topic by making a presentation entitled "Comprehensive Flood Risk
Management and the Role of ICHARM". The official launch of the International
Flood Initiative (IFI) was also declared in this session with consensus among
related organizations. IFI is an international initiative of inter-organ efforts
at the global level that expected to contribute to flood disaster prevention and
reduction. ICHARM is expected to be a global facility contributing to the Initiative.
Senior Researcher Yoshitani of the Secretariat for Preparatory Activities of ICHARM
is nominated as a member of the IFI task force that is responsible for preparing
a draft action plan of the Initiative. The
River Bureau of the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) co-hosted
(on January 20) a theme-specific session entitled "Knowledge Sharing and Comprehensive
Flood Risk Management through Educational Training" with WMO and the Australian
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Mr. Terakawa co-chaired
the session with Mr. Bruce Stewart, Deputy-Director of BOM.
After seven presentations and the discussion following, the session suggested
in its proposal that ICHARM should play a key role in research and capacity building
in order to transfer technologies for flood disaster reduction to developing countries. On
the last day of the conference (January 22), based on the results of each meeting
held up to the day before, "The
Hyogo Declaration" and "Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015" were concluded
as the final achievement of the conference. It was
clearly stated in those official announcements that disaster prevention and reduction
should be strategically addressed in cooperation with countries throughout the
world. Future
Conferences Preparatory
Meeting on International Flood Initiative (IFI/P) The task force members of the IFI programme will meet in Switzerland, Geneva, on March 20-23, 2004. The objective of this fourth meeting is to discuss the details of the action plan after the official launch of the initiative at the Kobe World Disaster Conference. The outcome of this meeting will be communicated in our coming issue. For the complete list of our ongoing and future activities please visit our home page http://www.unesco.pwri.go.jp |
Recent Topics and Research Activities |
Recent
Topics Visit of Professor Yicheng Wang, IWHR, China
Research
Activities World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP)
We would like to use this opportunity to call for your scientific cooperation in this global application. For details please contact Mr. Junichi Yoshitani or Dr. Tarek Merabtene at our secretariat.
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Information:This newsletter is distributed via e-mail. It can also be downloaded from our website. Those of you who wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to our mailing list, please contact us by e-mail. We welcome any comments or requests from you to help us make this newsletter more effective and informative. Issued by: Secretariat for Preparatory Activities of UNESCO-PWRI Centre, Public
Works Research Institute (PWRI) |
Copyright (c) 2008 Public Works Research Institute
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