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Rector calls for global effort on disaster risk

UN University Rector Hans van Ginkel has appealed for international cooperation to develop in depth, targeted, site-specific knowledge about natural disasters, to make it available through training and education, to improve our understanding to reduce risk and vulnerability and to strengthen coping capacities by developing appropriate response strategies.

Hans van Ginkel

Speaking at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, van Ginkel said the international community must must take immediate action to reduce both the risk inherent in the complexity of the earth systems and the vulnerability of our society to natural hazards. 

"Above all, we must engage ourselves in the sustained action needed to be successful," he said.

"The disaster along the rim of the Indian Ocean has forcefully revealed our vulnerability and lack of capacities to cope with the consequences of interlinked, multiple natural hazards. An adequate and functional early warning system could have saved many lives. But even then, public awareness of the possible hazards and knowledge of how to respond would have been crucial."

The Rector said that to help address existing knowledge deficiencies, UN University and its partners are working to model the impacts of catastrophic natural disasters on urban centres, particularly mega-cities, beginning in Asia.

"These detailed computer animations allow planners to visualize the likely impact of a tsunami, for example, under various advance warning scenarios, to aid understanding and mitigate catastrophic loss by better preparing in advance our infrastructure, our evacuation plans and our people," he said. "We are working similarly to model the effects on coastal urban centres of more gradual threats such as sea level rise due to climate change."

Van Ginkel also cited the work of the UNU Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) institute in Bonn, which is working to anticipate the cumulative effects of such long-term, creeping environmental disasters for humankind as desertification, steadily falling levels of groundwater, land degradation and other consequences of environmental neglect.

© 2005  United Nations University