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DG Regional Policy organized the
workshop on “Climate Change Adaptation
and EU Cities”. The United
Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction presented the UNISDR
Campaign during this event as one
of the panellists. On 10 October,
during the same European Week of
Regions and Cities, EC DG Climate
Action and UNISDR organized the
workshop on “Community action for
disaster resilience and climate change
adaptation”. Resilience to disasters
and climate adaptation are increasingly
important concerns of urban
development policies. The implementation
of development policies
at a local level is crucial for achieving
effective climate adaptation measures
and managing new climate risks in
urban settings.
• In the context of the project Terrafirma
and PanGeo, EFG attended
on 10 October, the workshop on
“The growing use of GEMES across
Europe’s regions”, organized by the
European Parliament in Brussels.
Members of the European Parliament
together with representatives
of the European Commission discussed
concrete examples of regional
space applications to support socioeconomic
and territorial challenges.
• In the context of the Floods Directive,
EFG attended, as part of the European
Commission Working Group
on Flood (WGF), the workshop on
“Climate Change Adaptation” celebrated
on 17 October in Brussels.
Currently, there is little contribution
from Geology in the assessment and
management of floods. EFG experts
will work to fully integrate Geology in
land-use planning to avoid unnecessary
disasters. In the context of Climate
Change Adaptation, Geology
should be included in the national
report to increase flood adaptation
and to decrease uncertainty.
• Finally in the context of the 7FP and
Horizon 2020, DG Research organized
a workshop on “Social sciences
contribution to natural hazards
research: Towards better risk assessment
and risk governance”, 22-23
October, in Brussels. The scope of
the meeting was to learn from the
achievements and outcomes of EC
projects, to address remaining open
questions or barriers, future scientific
priorities and interdisciplinary
work. To move towards a better risk
assessment and risk governance it is
necessary to move from emergency
management culture to the culture
of risk management, including prevention.
Further information about the UNISDR
campaign can be obtained from Mariana
Osihn osihn@un.org.
Further information on the PanGeo project
can be obtained from David Norbury
(EFG) at david@drnorbury.co.uk.
EGU
Hanneke van den Ancker
Annual meeting 2012
The EFG – Panel of Experts on Geological
Heritage co-organized the first session
on Geodiversity in the European Geosciences
Union meeting of 2012, Vienna:
“Geodiversity and Geoheritage in University
Education and Research”.
The annual meeting of the European
Geosciences Union (EGU) - General
Assembly is one of the important conferences
for earth scientists employed by universities
and research institutes. It is organized
in Vienna, in April by the Copernicus
Office. The 2012 EGU meeting attracted
more than 11,000 participants and had
more than 4,400 oral sessions and 9,000
posters presented in 530 scientific sessions.
Participants came from 95 countries, and
more than 30 per cent of the participants
were students.
For some years we had been discussing
the organization of a session on geodiversity
and heritage in this event, to bring these
issues under the attention of young scientists.
In 2012, with support of the EFG
board and the universities of Lausanne
and Amsterdam, we submitted a proposal
that was accepted by the EGU board. We
combined the contributions under the following
topics:
• university teaching programmes
• regional geoheritage studies: inventory
and classification
• geodiversity and methods
• geoheritage, tourism and cultural
heritage
• geodiversity, nature management and
spatial planning
Abstracts of the presentations and the
posters can be downloaded from: http://
meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2012/
oral_programme/9732
The session was very lively and a success.
Thus, we decided to again try and organize a
geoheritage – geodiversity session for EGU-
2013. This time the University of Lausanne
has taken the lead, and EFG PE Geological
Heritage is one of the co-organizers. The
proposed session theme will be roughly
similar to that of the EGU-2012 meeting:
how to improve geoheritage and geodiversity
teaching and studies in universities and
research institutes, and their importance
for sustainable land management. Too few
EFG members participated in the EGU-
2012 session; we hope their number will
grow in EGU-2013.
Call for abstracts on geoheritage/geodiversity
for the EGU 2013 session
The call for papers for this session opened
on 10 October 2012. Uploading abstracts
stops on 9 January 2013. Financial support
can be requested, if one meets the requirements,
through submitting the application
form before 29 November. EGU deadlines
are strict and are not extended.
More information: www.egu2013.eu
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