Urban Disaster Risk Management

The project aims at institutionalizing graduate and postgraduate courses on the application of modern IT&C tools in curricula at university level. As a follow-up to the CASITA project Phase I, several universities requested assistance from ITC, the Netherlands for the development of a course on the applications of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for hazard assessment and risk mitigation. The target group consists primarily of faculty members of the respective universities but eventually will consist of urban planners, geographers and other professionals knowledgeable of modern disaster mitigation tools. To achieve cost effectiveness in sharing knowledge the Internet-based e-learning platform developed under the CASITA project, will now be extended into joint research and postgraduate course development on the use of RS & GIS for natural hazard and risk management.

The project will take place in collaboration with three partners, (Asian Disaster Preparedness Center - ADPC) Thailand, (International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation - ITC) The Netherlands and ( Bonn University - BU) Germany. Within the project, collaboration is planned with university partners in four Asian countries, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. They are all members of the CASITA network, established as a result of the CASITA project funded by EU Asia IT&C program in 2003-2004. CASITA phase I ended in March 2004 and helped in establishing network between 14 universities in Asia. The proposed project is a follow-up action to the earlier project. These universities are also partners of the existing Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program (AUDMP), implemented by the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), Bangkok.

To develop a cadre of young university professionals in Asian countries with competence in applications of modern IT&C tools in hazard mapping and mitigation for spatial planning and development to facilitate natural disaster vulnerability reduction of populations, infrastructure, critical facilities and shelters in human settlements in Asia.

To promote research and develop a postgraduate program in the field of GIS/RS applications in natural hazard and risk assessment in several universities in Asia
To develop a distance education course at ADPC to help practitioners aspiring to advance the knowledge and skills in application of modern disaster mitigation tools
To advocate for increased collaboration between European and Asian academic institutions for joint academic programs, courses and distance education using modern IT&C techniques.

CASITA I | CASITA II | UDRM | ADPC