Towards a Global Geoscience Initiative – EGU 2010 Town Hall Meeting

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Meeting Summary

EGU Town Hall Meeting: Tuesday 4 May 2010 at 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Austria Center Vienna, Room D, Vienna, Austria.

Speakers:

• Maarten de Wit (University of Cape Town) — Africa Alive Corrridors
• Slides prepared by Rui Pinho (GEM) — The GEM Project: Towards a Global Earthquake Model
• Robert Missotten (UNESCO) —The UNESCO Earth science initiatives

The Global Geoscience initiative at the European Geoscience Union (EGU) Vienna, 4th May 2010

The third in a series on Townhall meetings was held at the European Geoscience Union’s (EGU) AGM in Vienna on the 4th May 2010. The focus of the meeting was to discuss the topic that has been framed in various ways over the past year at GSA 2009, Fall AGU 2009.

“Do we need? How can we create? What should be a global geosciences initiative?”

This followed on from a movement spawned from the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) in which the board felt that the final year of IYPE could provide an opportunity for Earth scientists to crystallise the concept of “Global Geosciences Initiatives”. Such initiatives would offer an opportunity across the planet for Earth scientists to address challenging pressing problems and would build a sense of community behind science initiatives that could then be funded through national international agencies.

The EGU meeting focussed on three presentations

Africa Alive Corridors,
presented by Maarten de Wit (University of Cape Town)

A network of 21 selected corridors across the length and breadth of Africa spell out its autobiography. Each, a belt of territory some 1-3,000 km in length and 50km in width, tells a chapter in the epic 4-billion-year story, and each draws the people of the region into co-curatorship.

The project invites all 900,000 Africans into interpreting and promoting the story of their continent. It is about the synergy between Africa and her people, past, present and future. In merging with the story of their continent and her people, all her people, gain dignity from the soul of the land—as they incorporate the prodigious diversity of all other species of life.

These corridors cover geological, economical and social issues of Africa and are focused on key targets. They offer an outstanding opportunity to focus science initiatives on world-class problems, to include the broader aspects of science and to reach out to young earth scientists in schools.

This project has considerable momentum in Africa and globally including through UNESCO and IYPE, and given the need to underpin the development of Africa science this was seen as a prime opportunity for global Earth science.

The GEM Project “Towards a Global Earthquake Model”
Slides provided by Rui Pinho (Secretary General, GEM)

http://www.globalquakemodel.org/
GEM is a public/private partnership initiated and approved by the Global Science Forum of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD-GSF). GEM aims to establish a uniform, independent standard to calculate and communicate earthquake risk worldwide. With committed backing from academia, governments, and industry, GEM will contribute to achieving profound, lasting reductions in earthquake risk worldwide.

GEM will be a critical instrument to support decisions and actions that help to reduce earthquake losses worldwide. All who face risk, from homeowners to governments, need accurate and transparent risk information before they will take mitigating action. By providing the information in a manner that is understandable to all users, GEM aims to raise awareness, lead to adoption and enforcement of building codes, promote seismic mitigation, and stimulate insurance use.

GEM will be the first global, open and dynamic model for seismic risk assessment at a national and regional scale, and aims to achieve broad scientific participation and independence. It will be conducted in three integrated modules: Hazard, Risk, and Socio-Economic Impact.

The UNESCO Earth science initiatives presented by Robert Missotten (Chief of Earth Observation Section, UNESCO) This involved a presentation of how UNESCO was focusing its science delivery through a more effective organisation and prioritisation of its science programme and the general evolution towards an international platform for development of global Earth sciences.

The talk from UNESCO provided an important focus for the discussion on what should be the next steps in the preparation and delivery of a Global Earth Science Initiative.

Discussion points

Those attending the meeting included working Earth scientists, funding organisations, national associations and a large group from the YES (Young Earth Scientists ) network.

• All think that the concept is worth pursuing

• The YES network intend to focus their attention on pushing this initiative within their structure

• Specifically the Africa Alive Corridor initiative was strongly supported and the thought was that this could be extended to other corridors on other continents or to continuations of the African Corridors to the adjacent continents

• UNESCO proposes to ensure that the development of the next generation of Earth scientists in Africa who are equipped with the necessary tools, networks and perspectives to apply sound science to solving and benefiting from the challenges and opportunities of sustainable development

• The underlying question at this and all other Townhall meetings has been:

  • How do we take this to the next step?
  • How do we find funding?
  • How do we continue to build momentum?

• The fact that UNESCO was represented was important as they have been instrumental in encouraging the fora to discuss a global initiative. UNESCO specifically asked those involved in the initiative to summarise that current level of support and define the scope and deliverable of a Global Geoscience Initiative. It was agreed that a draft paper summarising the steps taken, views expressed and identifying a number of possible themes which had attracted support at the various Townhall meetings would be prepared and widely circulated before being presented to UNESCO by the fall 2010.

John Ludden, Director of the British Geological Survey 16 July 2010

Presentations