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 2020 Plinius Medal is awarded to Claire J. Horwell for her outstanding interdisciplinary research on the respiratory health implications of volcanic aerosols, including ash, minerals and liquid droplets.
The 2020 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to John J. Clague for his remarkable scientific contributions in fundamental and applied research on earthquakes, tsunamis, outburst floods and landslides, directed towards risk reduction for the benefit of societies.
The 2020 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Vitor Silva for his fundamental contributions to the research on earthquake risk assessment.
Do you know that there is a Natural Hazards team of clever, fun and friendly early career scientists? This team takes care of the blog you are reading (and we hope enjoying) and organises and helps with sessions, short courses and great debates during the EGU General Assembly. Moreover, we created a network of early to mid-career scientists from different disciplines and backgrounds of the Natural Hazards that serves as support and contact point. Do you need someone with skills …
Even though significant epidemics and pandemics have been recorded many times throughout human history, the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated how vulnerable our societies still are. While the consequences of the pandemic are still ongoing, the global response so far can potentially offer some insights to support climate change response. Undoubtedly, the world is already experiencing a wide range of changes in the climate, from slow onset events, like sea-level rise, desertification and loss of biodiversity to climate extremes like deadly heatwaves, …
On the 23rd of June, I participated in the Second Workshop for AI (Artificial Intelligence) for Natural Disaster Management that hosted around 400 scientists, UN advisors, practitioners and policymakers from all over the world interested in machine learning for supporting disaster prediction and early warning. AI is not my research area; however, I have always been interested in the new advances that technology offers us in disaster risk identification and management. I discovered that AI is not yet part of …
Rising global temperature and melting of glaciers in the Himalaya are changing the Himalayan cryospheric dynamics and causing a dramatic increase in the frequency and magnitude of the natural and anthropogenic hazards. One such example was the 7th February 2021 Uttrakhand Landslide induced floods which killed almost 200 people and washed away two hydropower dams, amidst when India was dealing with the current global Covid-19 situation. On the morning of the 7th February 2021, a catastrophic flooding event took place …
The June issue of The Loupe is all about Oceans! With both World Oceans Day and the International Day of the Seafarer falling in June, we thought what better month to focus on the work of EGU researcher studying the Oceans. We spoke with Ocean Science Division Early Career Scientist Rep Meriel Bittner on how to get involved in the Division and learned about the reality of research onboard a research vessel for LGBTQIA+ people from guest blogger Huw Griffiths.
The Loupe also shares some vital information for scientists concerned about their work being misrepresented by policymakers, either accidentally or on purpose, from EGU’s Policy Officer Chloe Hill for the GeoPolicy blog, and features a call for new members to be nominated to the Equality Diversity and Inclusion Working Group.
In addition to the latest Journal Watch and GeoRoundup of June EGU journal highlights, this issue also highlights the opening of the call for EGU22 scientific session submissions, the deadline for which is 6 September 2021.