21 December 2017
IIASA Alumnus Norio Okada
"When I first came to IIASA 40 years ago, I was in the Water Resources & Management Program with Janusz Kindler and during this time collaborated with Peyton Young and Tsuyoshi Hashimoto on game theory. Sweden had just joined as a National Member Organization. My time at IIASA was a very rewarding experience, filled with many good memories. I recommended many colleagues, especially young researchers, from Japan to spend some time at the institute.
Then 18 years ago, a collaboration began between the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) of Kyoto University, of which I was a professor and later then Director of, and the IIASA Risk and Resilience Program (RISK). This collaboration resulted in the creation of the Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM) Society. Our goal was to form a network that brought together people from various backgrounds, for example engineers, social scientists, and risk researchers, to address the emerging issues on how to cope with major disasters. In 2019, IDRiM will celebrate its 20th Anniversary. Since February 2017 I have been working as senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainable Studies (IASS), Potsdam, Germany.
On this occasion, I am very pleased to be back at IIASA. My current visit to IIASA is to explore how IDRiM, IIASA and other leading organizations can further collaborate and take on today's challenges."
Prof. Nario Okada and his wife visit with IIASA Director General & CEO Prof. Dr. Pavel Kabat, Dr. Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler, and Dr. Reinhard Mechler
About Norio Okada
Norio Okada was Director of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), at Kyoto University from 2009 to 2011 and is now Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University. He currently acts as an adviser to a disaster governance research institute (IDiARRG) at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan. Norio Okada studied infrastructure planning, water resource management, and systems methodology at Kyoto University, gaining a B. Eng (1970), an M. Eng (1972), and a Dr. Eng (1977).
As a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria from 1978 to 1980, he carried out conflict analysis of water resource development and published widely on cost allocation methods with reference to cooperative game theory. Since then, conflict analysis and game theory have been his major research interests, particularly in relation to urban planning, environmental management, and water resource development.
Okada has long been engaged in scientific support for citizen-led participatory community management, especially in rural areas of Japan. During his time at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) from 1991 to 2012 he participated in several initiatives to explore a new cross-disciplinary research area called Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM). In the context of leading an extensive international research initiative to promote IDRiM, he has organized a series of international conferences and workshops in collaboration with IIASA. This research initiative resulted in the formation of the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM Society). Okada was president of this Society until April 2017.
Norio Okada is currently attempting to extend the scope of integrated disaster risk management, by taking governance, systemic risks, sustainable management, and climate change into account.
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