Monday 15 January (Indoor Meeting): 'A Recipe for Disaster'. Speaker: Dr. Ekbal Hussein (Remote Sensing Geoscientist at the British Geological Survey).
Globally, two thirds of deaths arising from natural hazards in recent decades were caused by geological hazards. But how and why do natural hazards turn into disasters? In this talk Ekbal will explore this question through the lens of one particularly troublesome hazard: earthquakes. The death toll for a given earthquake magnitude (and mechanism) will depend not only on geographic location, but also the social vulnerability of communities and the quality of the building stock. But these are dynamic features of evolving societies, which means earthquake risk varies in time and space. This talk will compare and contrast global trends in earthquake fatalities and aim to extract common themes that exacerbate the impact of natural hazards, and consider where and why these turn into disasters. Ekbal's research focuses on the use of satellite imagery to understand earth processes, particularly those related to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides and subsidence. Ekbal is an advocate for holistic multi-hazard approaches to understanding and managing the impact of disasters to society.
Click here for a Google map of the location.