01 October 2016 - 05 October 2016
Isfahan, Iran

IIASA leadership and researchers in Iran: Risk management conference and workshop

IIASA Director General and CEO Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat, Simon Langan, director of the IIASA Water (WAT) Program, and research staff from the IIASA Risk and Resilience (RISK) Program attended the 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management. During their time in Iran, the IIASA delegation also held a Water-Risk workshop, and discussed research collaborations with the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF).

© Aliaksandr Mazurkevich | Dreamstime.com

© Aliaksandr Mazurkevich | Dreamstime.com

Iran is the newest member of IIASA, joining 23 other countries that guide and support IIASA research. It is the first member of IIASA in the Middle East and is represented by INSF on the IIASA council.

The IIASA delegation attended the 7th Annual Conference of the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM 2016), held in Isfahan, Iran from October 1- 3, which was hosted by the Iranian Earthquake Engineering Association (IEEA) in collaboration with multiple national and international organizations, including IIASA. This year, this 3-day collaborative event focused particularly on “Natural Hazards and Disasters, Water and Climate Change", with an overarching goal of determining how theory and implementation impact the future of dealing with disasters globally. IIASA RISK researchers Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler, Junko Mochizuki, and Nadejda Komendantova-Amann participated as speakers, panelists, and chairpersons. Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat gave a keynote speech, titled "Benefit of Systems Science, The Case of Global Energy and Water Security". Water Program director Simon Langan will presented research highlights of the IIASA Water Program at the event, and participated in a panel discussion on water security.     

Conference Overview

One of the key aims of IDRiM 2016 was to bring the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action forward, followed by the Sendai framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in the next few years. The main themes of the conference were:

  1. Resilient Societies, Cities and Infrastructures
  2. Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development
  3. Climate Change and Environment
  4. Risk Governance Frameworks for Disaster Risk Management
  5. Integrated Disaster Risk Management: Emerging Tools and Implementation Cases
  6. Economic Loss Estimation and Disaster Insurance
  7. Disaster Response

Key topic areas included earthquakes, floods, water, climate change, and their multi-fold linkages with natural hazards, risk and disasters. The event had special emphasis on implementation oriented panel discussions, parallel sessions, and oral/ poster presentations as well as the Young Scientists Session (YSS).

Water and Risk Workshop

Immediately following IDRiM 2016, the IIASA delegation met with colleagues from Iran in a collaborative 2-day workshop on 4 and 5 October. The purpose and objective of the workshop was to discuss national priorities of Iran relating to risk and water issues and to determine research needs underlying these issues as related to policy development, implementation and capacity development. There were keynote speeches by Kabat, Professor Nosratollah Zargham, INSF President, and Deputy Minister for Planning and Economic Affairs, Alireza Daemi, Ministry of Energy. 


High-level Meetings to Strengthen Cooperation between IIASA and Iran

As part of the official visit to Iran and along with Professor Chin-min Lee, Special Advisor to the IIASA Director General and CEO, Kabat also met with Professor Nosratollah Zargham, President of INSF and senior government officials to discuss strengthening research collaborations with Iran. 

At the IDRiM 2016 conference © Seyed Benyamin Adibzadeh

The IDRiM Society

The IDRiM Society and its Journal (IDRiM Journal) were officially launched on October 15, 2009 in Kyoto, Japan, at the 9th IIASA-DPRI Forum on Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM Forum). The founding members of the IDRiM Society include Dr. Joanne Bayer (IIASA), Dr. Reinhard Mechler (IIASA), Prof. Norio Okada (DPRI), Dr. Aniello Amendola (IIASA), Dr. Peijun Shi (Beijing Normal University), Prof. Hirokazu Tatano (DPRI), Dr. Mohsen Ghafory-Ashtiani (International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology), and Dr. Ana Maria Cruz (DPRI).

IIASA Activities with Iran

The Iran National Science Foundation represents Iran’s membership of IIASA. In 2016, Iran via the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) became IIASA’s twenty-fourth member country.

Even prior to the membership application from Iran, for the past ten years researchers from IIASA and Iran have collaborated on a range of activities, including:

  • Studies into how insurance schemes can help reduce the risks and losses to property owners in Iran in the event of an earthquake
  • Analyses into water management and governance in Iran
  • Projections of Iran’s future population


                                                                                            


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Last edited: 09 February 2017

CONTACT DETAILS

Simon Langan

Senior Guest Research Scholar Water Security Research Group - Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program

Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler

Senior Research Scholar Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Nadejda Komendantova

Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar Cooperation and Transformative Governance Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Junko Mochizuki

Senior Research Scholar Water Security Research Group - Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program

IIASA Activities with Iran

IIASA Futures Initiative

Water Futures and Solutions

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
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Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313