European Geosciences Union
Division on Natural Hazards
President: Ira Didenkulova
(nh@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Paolo Tarolli
(paolo.tarolli@unipd.it)
The Natural Hazards (NH) Division of the EGU covers all the geological and geophysical processes that can be hazardous and can produce damage to the environment and to the society. Therefore it is a place where scientists and researchers of various geo-disciplines meet with sociologists, economists and people responsible for territorial and urban defense and planning policies. The aim is to improve the understanding of the evolution of the processes and to discuss new technologies, methods and strategies to mitigate their disastrous effects. The Division is structured in nine Subdivisions covering specific hazards. Of these seven are listed here: hydro-meteorological, volcanic, landslide, earthquake-, sea and ocean, remote sensing and hazards, wildfire hazards. The eighth Subdivision covers biological and environmental hazards and in addition hazards not included in the previous ones. The ninth (natural hazards and society) focuses on the social aspects of the hazards, including development sustainability, emergency, warning, after-disaster resilience, etc. Most of the topics that are treated in the NH Division are also treated in other EGU Divisions, which is expected due to the intrinsic transversal nature of the NH Division. For example, earthquakes are the main interest of the Seismology Division, but they are also of interest here where the chief topics are, among others, how to evaluate vulnerability and risk, how to reduce the impact on human lives and society, how geo-scientists can contribute to a prompt recovery of a community affected by disasters.
The NH Division is one the historical Divisions of the EGU that was established since when EGU was founded and has been and is one of the largest divisions to which many geo-scientists provide steadily contributions of papers and ideas over the years.
As for all EGU Divisions, an Early Career Scientist Award is established also for the NH Division and is given to young researchers who obtain outstanding results in the assessment and mitigation of natural hazard adopting a multidisciplinary approach. In addition, the NH Division awards the Plinius Medal devoted since 2012 to mid-career researchers and the Soloviev Medal for scientists who give outstanding contributions in fundamental aspects of research on natural hazards.
The 2021 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to Fausto Guzzetti for his fundamental contributions to the field of natural hazards and his remarkable efforts to link the scientific community and civil protection authorities to mitigate risk for exposed populations.
The 2021 Plinius Medal is awarded to Giuliano Di Baldassarre for outstanding research on the interplay between hydrological hazards and society, and significant contributions to the development of policy for the mitigation of floods and droughts.
The 2021 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Maria Pregnolato for her outstanding research in the field of flood impacts, flood risk assessment, and infrastructure resilience.
The 2021 Virtual Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (vOSPP) Award is awarded to Bixen Telletxea Identification and characterization of rockfalls using seismic signals, LiDAR, and imagery. Advances on real-time detection
The 2021 Virtual Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (vOSPP) Award is awarded to Dion Häfner Real-World Rogue Wave Probabilities
The 2021 Virtual Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (vOSPP) Award is awarded to Janneke van Ginkel An approach to construct a Netherlands-wide ground-motion amplification model
The 2021 Virtual Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (vOSPP) Award is awarded to Matthew Hayward Numerical simulations of tsunami generation in caldera lakes by subaqueous explosive volcanism
We are thrilled to present the last episode of the EGU WEBINARS: Digitalk: online (geo)science communication series. In this episode, we will explore the light and the dark sides of using social media for science communication by a special guest, Roberto Guardo. Roberto wished to engage in science communication just after completing his PhD. “I have never liked writing scientific papers,” he said, “I like talking about science, and I thought that doing science communication would have been easy. Well, …
Last year, we left you with an inspiring post about scientific blogging, where Giulia Roder, one of the authors of the EGU-NH blog, shared her ‘blogging survival kit’. Today we continue the series of EGU WEBINARS: Digitalk: online (geo)science communication exploring ‘the best vlogging recipe’ with Iris van Zelst, a researcher at the German Aerospace Center with a great passion for geoscience communication and creator of the “Science Sisters” interview series on YouTube. YouTube is the most popular social media …
Science communication is the practice of informing and inspiring the public about scientific knowledge. It comes in different forms, from documentaries, books, academic publishing, mass media journalism, to public talks. These days, digital communication, including blogging, vlogging, podcasting, and social media, has become an increasingly popular form of science communication, reaching a wide audience. But how to make good science communication online? Three early-career scientists, Dr Giulia Roder, Dr Iris van Zelst, and Dr Roberto Guardo, have shared experiences and …
The frequency and intensity of drought periods have increased since the 1950s over most land areas [1]. In fact, between 1998 and 2017, drought was the sixth natural hazard associated with disasters (4.8% of the total number of disasters) but the second in terms of the total number of affected people (33% of the total number of affected people), causing more than 21,000 deaths [2]. For example, in 1992, an intense and prolonged drought devastated a region of more than …
In the December issue of The Loupe we learn about the vital importance of mountain glaciers with Harry Zekollari in this month’s special webinar Vanishing Glaciers and seak to ECS Cryosphere Division blogger Larissa van der Laan about her work on glaciers and how she uses science-art in her career as a researcher and artist.
You can also watch the free recording of our special webinar about Digitalk:online (geo)science communication, available now on our YouTube channel.
Don’t forget to submit your abstract for EGU22, which is still intended to be held as a hybrid event 3 – 8 April 2022! Find out more here as well as information about the registration fees and submit your abstract by 12 January 2022 at 13.00 CET.
In addition this issue also shares the latest Journal Watch and GeoRoundup of December EGU journal highlights.