Natural Hazards Research

The principal goals of the ENHANS project are (i) to improve understanding of critical phenomena associated with extreme natural events and to analyse impacts of the natural hazards on sustainable development of society; (ii) to promote studies on prediction of extreme events reducing predictive uncertainty and on natural hazards mitigation; to bring the issues into the political and economical policies; (iii) to disseminate knowledge and data on natural hazards for the advancement of research and education in general and especially in developing countries; and (iv) to establish links and networks with the international organizations involved in research on extreme natural hazards and their societal implications setting up a consortium of experts of international scientific unions and several major intergovernmental and multi-national organizations involved in the project. The goals of ENHANS will be achieved via scientific meetings and open forums bringing together research experts, decision makers, and disaster management, insurance agency and mass media practitioners. The project will place a special emphasis on importance of research on extreme natural hazards and disaster risk mitigation in the most vulnerable regions of the world, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, in sub-Sahara Africa, and in Asia and the Pacific region. The ENHANS is a project of the International Council of Science (ICSU) led by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG). ENHANS partners are the American Geophysical Union (AGU), International Geographical Union (IGU), International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM), Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Natural Hazards Focus Group will contribute to the ENHANS project. The group is involved presently in the organization of the first project event in Brazil.

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More information is available on the project webpage: http://www.enhans.org

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