Cascading hazards workshop.
Developing a coastal megacity catchment observatory
Hanoi, Vietnam
Please note new date!
May 21-25, 2018
The Workshop
Five Days for sharing research expertise and networking
21-25 May 2018
Hanoi, Vietnam
The workshop will tackle the concept of cascading human-natural hazards in the context
of a coastal megacity catchment and specifically within the Red River-Hanoi-Delta (RRHD) catchment. The RRHD provides critical supplies of food, energy, water and socio-economic resources to a population of ~30m. The potential for loss of life and livelihoods in the RRHD is significant in the face of future changes to climate, sea-level, and land-management. Multiple coupled natural and human hazards and stakeholders means that hazards may interact and cascade through the system.
The outcome will include a strategy and roadmap for the development of a RRHD catchment
observatory, new research skills and community in both countries, and a more accessible body of research expertise, data and tools. We expect to write a synthesis paper for the journal Earth's Future (AGU/Wiley) that all Workshop participants are invited to participate and co-author.
About the Workshop
The Hanoi workshop is sponsored by the British Council as part of the Newton Fund Researcher Links programme
The Newton Fund Researcher Links provides opportunities for early career researchers from the UK and Vietnam, and internationally to interact, learn from each other and explore opportunities for building long-lasting research collaborations. We are now recruiting early career researchers to participate in the Hanoi workshop.
Our vision is to enhance the economic growth of the RRHD by developing a holistic, interdisciplinary understanding of the catchment in order to provide resilience to natural-human hazards and to develop forecasts of potentially cascading hazards and
impacts.
This needs a new type of environmental observatory, co-designed by a mixture of disciplinary scientists and relevant stakeholders. The observatory will be a novel combination of hard infrastructure (data acquisition and monitoring capabilities via distributed and largely autonomous sensors) and soft infrastructure (citizen science, predictive dynamical models, human behavioural analyses).
The workshop will identify and prioritise a) the key couplings among natural- human hazards in the RRHD catchment, and b) the critical physical & socio-economic data needed to develop useful forecasts to stakeholders and the public of potential cascading hazards and impacts. Thus, the workshop has four principal themes:
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Examples of coupled natural-human hazards and the potential for cascading behaviour;
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Dynamics of complex adaptive systems and emergence of group behaviour in the
context of natural hazards; -
Human behavioural and socio-economic process in the context of coupled human-natural and potentially cascading hazards;
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Critical data needs: physical, socio-economic, and behavioural.
Themes 1-3 will start with the best understood examples from around the world and
work towards the RRHD catchment, thus motivating further examples from the RRHD
catchment. The data theme will focus on developing the RRHD catchment observatory
firmly in the context of the drivers discussed in themes 1-3.
The long-term objective will be delivered through a synthesis of these themes, development of a roadmap and an online platform to prepare research and infrastructure proposals. The observatory and participants will immediately become parts of a global network (e.g. www.czen.org, www.icsu.org).
About us
Proud to bring inspirational researchers from across the globe
Sponsors
Apply
because the workshop has been moved to May 21-25, applications from early career researchers in Vietnam are still open. We encourage researchers from any field of environmental science, but also from sociology, anthropology, economics (particularly behavioural economics), psychology (e.g. marketing), the humanities, and business.
TRAVEL GRANTS
We will cover the costs related to the participation to the workshop, including: travel (both international and local), accommodation and meals. Participants are encouraged to purchase adequate travel and medical insurance, but these costs will be at the participant's expense. The British Council accepts no responsibility for any problems that may occur when the participants are in-country.
Travel and accommodation arrangements for international participants (or international travellers) will be managed by the British Geological Survey. VNU will manage similar arrangmenets for travel within Vietnam.
UK citizens do not need advance visas (with some conditions). BGS can help with simple visa enquiries.
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Applications must be submitted using the Researcher Links application form (below);
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Application must be submitted before the above deadline;
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Participants must be Early Career Researchers (ECRs), defined as holding a PhD (or having equivalent research experience – candidates in the late stages of their PhDs will also be considered) and having up to 10 years post-PhD research experience. ECRs are equivalent to the ‘Recognised Researcher’ and sometimes ‘Experienced Researcher’ categories in the EU framework for researchers’ careers;
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Participants must have a research or academic position (a permanent post, research contract, or fellowship, PhD student etc.) at a recognised research institution either in the UK or in Vietnam.
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Participant's research area can be in any subject in Environmental, Socio-Economic and Human-Behavioural sciences or other disciplines related to the broad theme of the workshop, in particular, but not exclusively: earth-surface processes, numerical modelling of environmental change, hydrology/geohydrology, catchment observing systems, human behavioural processes, complex adaptive systems, soil science, social and economic processes in the context of natural hazards, GIS & tremote sensing, data processing;
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Participants are expected to attend and actively engage in all sessions of the workshop.
ELIGIBILITY
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Relevance of the applicant's research to the workshop;
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Motivation and contribution to the aims of the workshop;
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Description of the long term impact expected through participation in the workshop;
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Ability to disseminate workshop’s outcomes.
CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS
The selection will be competitive within each career stage. Participants will be selected in accordance with academic merit, eligibility and selection criteria set out above. We will ensure participant expertise is complementary and represents the range and depth required to address the workshop objectives.