The APEC Workshop on Scientific Decision Supports for Emergency Preparedness of Natural Hazards

The APEC Workshop on Scientific Decision Supports for Emergency Preparedness of Natural Hazards was convened from 27 July – July 31, 2015. APEC priority for year 2015 is “Investment in Human Capacity Development”, to meet the APEC priority, the workshop is conducted by APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation (PPSTI) and APEC Emergency Preparedness Working Group Executive (EPWG). Also to strengthen APEC cross fora cooperation, the workshop is jointly organized with APEC Small and Medium Enterprise Working Group (SMEWG)’s “APEC Summit and Training Workshop on Promoting SME Business Continuity Planning”, opening ceremony was held at the international conference hall of National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR), Chinese Taipei in the morning of July 27.

The theme of the workshop is “Scientific Decision Supports for Emergency Preparedness of Natural Hazards”, Chinese Taipei is at high-risk of natural disasters as Chinese Taipei is affected by an average of 3.7 typhoons each year, the gust and heavy rainfall associated with typhoon usually induce flooding, debris flow and slope-land disasters, which leads to casualty and economic losses. Chinese Taipei is also under intensive threats from earthquakes as it is at the boundary of the active convergence zone between the Eurasian and Philippine Sea plates. These natural hazards may severely impact the society. To effectively use science and technology to support the decision making of disaster emergency operation and disaster management may help the government and the public to prepare better before, during, and after the disaster events and, subsequently, help reduce the economic losses and casualties.

In the last few years, along the rising wave of open data, the disaster reduction and prevention community of Chinese Taipei has been making efforts to effectively disseminate disaster prevention information and to integrate the interdisciplinary disaster monitoring, warning, and impact assessment information and tools. In addition, the community has developed and established integrated display platforms. These actions have significantly improved the disaster emergency operation and brought new advances to the disaster management technology

The workshop invited experts and professionals from local and foreign disaster management agencies and research institutes to exchange and share best practices and experiences. There are 48 international delegates from 13 countries including Chile, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam, India, and Nepal. The workshop aims that through the interaction, participants’ capacity of identifying problems as well as solving problems would be enhanced through intensive discussion, case study, field visit and experience sharing.

Welcome remarks were giving by Mr. Chung-Liang Chien, Deputy Minister of Ministry of Science and Technology of Chinese Taipei and Mr. Pei-Yung Hsu, APEC Senior Official of Chinese Taipei. Opening remarks were giving by Mr. Syamsul Maarif, Head of National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) of Indonesia, Mr. Alexander P. Pama, Undersecretary of Administrator of Office of Civil Defense and Executive Director of National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council of the Philippines, and Mr. Johnny Yun-Lung Yeh, Director General of Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of Ministry of Economic Affairs of Chinese Taipei.

The field trip was to the Training Center of National Fire Agency and Chelungpu Fault Preservation Park, which would provide best practices to observe issues related to Emergency Preparedness of Natural Hazards. 

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