Natural Hazard Mitigation Association Practitioners Symposium
Tuesday, July 16 through Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Omni Interlocken Resort
Broomfield, Colorado
From Grassroots to Global: Reducing Disaster Losses through Mitigation and Adaptation
The NHMA Practitioners Meeting, a partnership between the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association and the Natural Hazards Center, follows the main Hazards Workshop. For more information on the NHMA, please visit the NHMA Web site.
Register for the NHMA Practitioners Meeting using the Natural Hazards Workshop online registration. An welcoming reception, continental breakfast, and lunch are included in the registration cost.
Program Theme
The theme of the 2013 International Hazard Mitigation Practitioners Symposium is From Grassroots to Global: Reducing Disaster Losses through Mitigation and Adaptation. This year's theme is designed to provide insight into innovative best practices for mitigation. The program sessions and training workshops will focus on fresh insights, broad visions, and inclusive management techniques that are fundamentally changing communities at home and abroad in terms of long-term resilience to embedded hazards such as climate change.
Grassroots mitigation means mitigating at the community level and inherent in that is a need to increase participation or involve the "whole community." Toward that end, the 2013 Symposium will include discussion of:
- effective mitigation management techniques;
- participatory and broad-based approaches to mitigation;
- useful lessons learned at the individual and community levels;
- creative collaboration ideas that integrate bottom-up and top down-approaches to mitigation.
While mitigation begins at the local level, we can encourage shifts in focus and attitudes by learning from global success stories. Encouraging changes in practices locally requires education, awareness, and commitment, which is optimal when practices are globally accepted and inspired through affective and rational engagement.
Through the 2013 Symposium, the Natural Hazards Mitigation Association hopes to build on the momentum of mitigation through collaboration and networking. By sharing mitigation success stories, symposium participants have the opportunity to learn from each other and some of the nation's brightest and best mitigation subject matter experts as we collectively struggle with difficult issues such as increasing risk awareness, adapting to environmental uncertainty during challenging economic times, and mobilizing a constituency for sustainable recovery that does not simply reconstruct but actually reduces future risk.
Please note, this year, several of the sessions will be available via webcast.
Schedule
A more detailed schedule is available on the NHMA Web site.
Tuesday, July 16
Registration
4:00 to 4:15 p.m., Centennial E
Welcome
4:15 to 4:45 p.m., Centennial E
Overview of Natural Hazards Mitigation Association
Alessandra Jerolleman, Executive Director, NHMA
Edward Thomas, President, NHMA
Overview of the 2013 Program Agenda and Symposium Theme
Lori Peek, Colorado State University
J. Barry Hokanson, Urban Planning Consultant
Plenary 1
4:45 to 6:15 p.m., Centennial E
Identifying and Overcoming Impediments to Hazard Mitigation and Climate Adaptation
This session will continue—and expand—the conversation started as part of the closing panel at the 38th Annual Hazards Research and Applications Workshop. The panel will consider a central question: Why our society has not been more successful in implementing safer, more sustainable development and redevelopment in the aftermath of disaster?
This session is designed to help participants: (1) understand why— despite the work of dedicated individuals and organizations and the investment of billions of dollars spent on hazards mitigation— foreseeable hazard events continue to result in horrible disasters and suffering; and (2) present suggested paths towards building a safer, more just, and more sustainable society with less misery and suffering.
Joint Reception with NHMA Practitioners and International Research Committee on Disasters
6:15 to 7:30 p.m., Lobby Court and Terrace
Wednesday, July 17
Continental Breakfast
7:30 to 8:30 a.m., Centennial Foyer
Informal Meeting of NHMA Committees
7:30 to 8:15 a.m., Centennial E
Plenary 2
8:30 to 10:00 a.m., Centennial E
Mitigation and Adaptation in the Aftermath of "Superstorms" Such as Sandy and the 2013 Midwest Tornadoes
This session will focus on long-term recovery at the local level in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, with a particular emphasis on the implications of this recovery process at the state and national level. The session will address questions concerning leadership and decision making in the recovery and what has, and has not, been done to "build back better" in terms of reducing the potential for future losses and adapting to climate change.
Break
10:00 to 10:30 a.m.
Breakout Sessions
10:30 a.m. to Noon
Resilient Neighbors Network: Grassroots Collaboration on Reducing Disaster Losses through Mitigation and Adaptation
Alder
This session will describe the development and current activities of the Resilient Neighbors Network, which consists of a network of communities and advisors that support mitigation and adaptation work. The RNN connects closely with work done through the Federal Emergency Management Agency on incentivizing mitigation at the local level. Speakers will provide an overview of the ten pilot communities; explain the role that expert advisors play in the communities and as part of the RNN process; and describe how webinars are utilized to educate all communities on grassroots models and activities. Those involved in the RNN in the audience will be asked to share their experiences with other participants. The session will conclude with a discussion of next steps in the RNN project. Participants will be asked for their advice on how RNN can serve our local communities in developing strategies to reduce disaster losses.
The Overlap Between Hazard Mitigation and Adaptation
Spruce
This session will discuss the merits of fostering connections between hazard mitigation and adaptation communities of practice. Presenters will describe hazard mitigation, its overlap with adaptation, the development of new climate information for use by hazard mitigation professionals, the economic benefits of combining adaptation and hazard mitigation, and insurance.
Creative Mitigation: Ideas, Partnerships, and Projects that Lead to Big Results
Centennial E
This session will feature creative people who are working on creative solutions to difficult mitigation and adaptation challenges. The session will emphasize bottom-up approaches from the "whole community" perspective. Further, speakers will highlight broad-based partnerships and new and innovative projects that started small and local and have led to much more widespread successes.
Lunch
Noon to 1:00 p.m., Outdoor Pavilion
Keynote Address: Brendan Nelson
1:00-1:45 p.m., Centennial E
Planning for a Stronger, More Resilient Queensland
During the summers of 2010 and 2011, Queensland, Australia, experienced unprecedented weather events that not only affected more than 130,000 homes, but also resulted in approximately 480,000 residences and businesses losing power. The series of natural disasters (flooding and tropical cyclones) resulted in the entire state (all 73 local government areas) being disaster declared for the first time in Queensland's history. Queensland has an area greater than 1.8 million square kilometers (715,000 square miles) and is almost 10 percent bigger that the state of Alaska.
Further flooding and natural disasters caused further damage during the summers of 2011 and 2012, with 65 local government areas (approximately 90 percent) again being disaster declared. In the middle of Australia's largest ever reconstruction program, further flooding and tropical cyclones caused more damage in January 2013 with 54 local government areas again being disaster activated for the third time in as many years, with many communities recording the highest ever recorded flood level (>0.5 percent or 1 in 200 year event).
This keynote presentation will provide an overview of the disaster timeline, scale, and context of the flooding and cyclone events and the associated reconstruction program. The presentation will also focus on a number of key resilience and mitigation projects that have been delivered in response to the natural disasters, and will describe how planning is playing a crucial role in making Queensland stronger and more resilient.
Breakout Sessions
1:45 to 3:15 p.m.
Ignored No More? Preparing our Families to Survive by Including Children and Animals in our Plans
Alder
The impact of natural hazards and other emergencies on youth and families is an area of disaster research that is only beginning to emerge globally. Long ignored, the reality of what happens to children and their families during and after disasters is becoming clearer as more entities, including the United Nations, examine the facts. Despite our highly organized and well-distributed government systems of preparedness and response in the United States and Australia, many important aspects of true preparedness at the individual and household level have traditionally been ignored and discounted.
This session will explore what it means for families to take the steps that government recommends, such as evacuation—and what happens when people need to move their pets and livestock as well as themselves out of harm's way. It will provide an overview of what is known about children and disasters, and how empowering youth to prepare themselves can actually benefit all those impacted by disaster in a given community. Current research by the National Fire Protection Association on youth and wildfire, by RMIT University on children and disasters, and by Oklahoma State University on emergency evacuation will be presented.
Incorporating Hazard Mitigation and Adaptation into Local Planning
Spruce
This session will focus on communicating adaptation and hazard mitigation to communities, businesses, and individuals and provide insights from local, state, and federal groups that have successfully integrating adaptation and hazard mitigation. The moderator will then hold an open discussion on ways to improve and advance the methodology behind hazard mitigation plans.
Resources and Technologies for the Practitioner's Toolbox
Centennial E
This session will showcase some readily available (and free!) online resources for hazard mitigation and climate adaptation practitioners, including NOAA's Digital Coast and The Nature Conservancy's Coastal Resiliency Tool. These resources provide visualization and analysis capabilities without the need for GIS software. The session will also demonstrate the power of applying local data and technology in planning and implementing community mitigation activities, as well as tracking success stories and lessons learned following disaster events.
Break
3:15 to 3:30 p.m., Centennial Foyer
Plenary 3
3:30 to 5:00 p.m., Centennial E
From (Practical) Research to (Informed) Action: Fostering New Partnerships and Encouraging Innovation across Borders
This final plenary session will demonstrate through presentations and discussion how bridging boundaries of all kinds can promote sustainable recovery and mitigation, with the goal of helping communities to adapt to climate hazards arising from global warming. Presenters will explain how and why they come to this work and what is most needed to sustain and deepen their efforts. They will also suggest specific strategies for collaboration, leading to a broader, more diverse, and ultimately more effective mitigation and adaptation community. The session will focus on critical research questions as well as opportunities for new and innovative ways of implementing change.
Closing and Next Steps
5:00 to 5:30 p.m., Centennial E