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 2019 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to Kyoji Sassa for outstanding scientific contributions in fundamental research in landslide hazards and in landslide risk-reduction initiatives for the benefit of societies.
The 2019 Plinius Medal is awarded to Philip J. Ward for outstanding research on flood and drought risk assessments from global to local scales.
The 2019 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Jadranka Šepić for fundamental contributions to the research on meteorological tsunamis and high-frequency sea level oscillations.
The 2018 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to Giuseppe De Natale for his fundamental contributions to the assessment and management of seismic and volcanic hazards and risk.
The 2018 Plinius Medal is awarded to Hannah L. Cloke for her outstanding research on uncertainties in modelling flood hazards and understanding risks in operational ensemble flood forecasting as well as climate impact assessments of future flood risks.
The 2018 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Thomas Wahl for his fundamental contributions to the research on assessment of coastal-flood risk.
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Benno Wachler Feedbacks of sea-level rise induced topographic changes of the Wadden Sea on tidal dynamics
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to David Bonneau The Use of Terrestrial Laser Scanning for the Characterization of Debris Accumulation Patterns in the White Canyon, British Columbia
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Emanuele Bevacqua Changing risk of compound flooding over Europe under anthropogenic climate change
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Marina Peña Gallardo The impacts of drought in agricultural productivity. An analysis at different scales for the two major rain-fed crops in Spain.
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Veronika Röthlisberger Quantifying exposure: the influence of value estimation schemes
In the last months two paroxysmal explosive eruptions took place at Stromboli volcano: the first one, totally unexpected, on 3rd July (Video 1) that sadly cost the life of a person and the second and, currently, last one about three weeks ago, on the 28th August (Video 2). Today we try to answer a couple of questions about Stromboli and its eruptions. Are these paroxysmal eruptions common or rare at Stromboli volcano? What are the hazards associated with these eruptions …
The ultimate scope of scientists is to publish their research advancement and share it with the scientific community and civil society. Researchers, whether coming from academia or research institutes, publish their results in peer-reviewed journals, that are usually highly technical and often incomprehensible to anyone except the major experts in the field. In some subjects is inevitable given the nature of the research contents. The scientific editorial world is punctuated by thousands of different highly specialized journals, although some of …
Hurricane, cyclone and typhoon are different terms for the same weather phenomenon: torrential rain and maximum sustained wind speeds (near centre) exceeding 119 km/hour (World Meteorological Organization https://public.wmo.int/en). The terminology depends on the region (e.g. in the western North Pacific, they are called typhoons; in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea they are named as cyclones, etc). The Indian sub-continent is highly vulnerable to cyclones and the losses to life are more pronounced due to high population density …
In this post I have the pleasure to interview Dr.ir. Henny A.J. van Lanen. He is Associate Professor in the Hydrology & Quantitative Water Management Group of Wageningen University and he has been involved in several EU projects. Further, he is involved in many international groups or networks: Coordinator of the European FRIEND programme (EURO-FRIEND Water, Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data; cross-cutting theme UNESCO-IHP); Past Global Coordinator of the FRIEND Inter-Group Coordination Committee (FIGCC) (cross-cutting theme UNESCO-IHP); …
This month the EGU President Alberto Montanari wrote an open letter to funding agencies with information on the assessment of presentations given at EGU scientific meetings. The letter emphasises that there is no distinction regarding the standing, quality or prestige of oral, poster, or PICO presentations at the EGU General Assembly and recommends that funding agencies do not use presentation type as a criterion for assessing the scientific value of contributions.
In other important news this month, the EGU has launched Weather and Climate Dynamics, a new open-access, two-stage journal with open review dedicated to the publication and public discussion of high-quality research on dynamical processes in the atmosphere. The journal is now open for submissions.
Next month brings two important EGU deadlines. The call for candidates for EGU Union President, General Secretary and Division Presidents is open until 15 September: we encourage EGU members to nominate themselves or propose a candidate. Before that, 5 September is the deadline to submit session proposals and short course ideas to the EGU General Assembly 2020. Contribute to the conference programme by submitting your proposals.