Sendai five years on: reflections on the role of international law in the creation and reduction of disaster risk

This article offers a critical examination of the position of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 within international law. It is argued that any interrogation into the role of international law must begin not with existing disaster risk reduction (DRR) laws and policies, but rather with an enquiry into the nature of disaster risk and the role of international law in its creation and reduction. It is demonstrated how, while areas such as international human rights law can be utilized to enforce obligations in support of DRR, other areas – in particular international investment law – actively work to undermine DRR efforts. In order for international law to be a productive tool in the reduction of disaster risk international lawyers must engage with critical work in disaster studies in order to explore the role that the former has played – and can play – in creating and addressing hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities

Environmental Geotechnics: Challenges and Opportunities in the Post COVID-19 World

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic not only created a health crisis across the world but is expected to negatively impact the global economy and societies at a scale that maybe larger than the 2008 financial crisis. Simultaneously, it has inevitably exerted many negative consequences on the geoenvironment upon which human beings depend. The current article articulates the role of environmental geotechnics to elucidate and mitigate the effects of the current pandemic. It is the belief of all authors that the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant challenges, but also opportunities for the development of our field. Our discipline should make full use of our professional skills and expertise to look for development opportunities from this crisis, to highlight our discipline’s irreplaceable position in the global fight against pandemics, and to contribute to the health and prosperity of our communities, so as to better serve humankind. In order to reach this goal, while taking into account the specificity of the SARS-CoV-2 and the uncertainty of its environmental effects, it is believed that more emphasis should be placed on the following research directions: pathogen-soil interactions, isolation and remediation technologies for pathogen-contaminated sites, new materials for pathogen-contaminated soil, recycling and safe disposal of medical wastes, quantification of uncertainty in geoenvironmental and epidemiological problems, emerging technologies and adaptation strategies in civil, geotechnical, and geoenvironmental infrastructure, pandemic-induced environmental risk management, and model pathogen transport and fate in geoenvironment, among others. Moreover, COVID-19 has made it clear to the environmental geotechnics community the importance of urgent international cooperation and of multidisciplinary research actions that must extend to a broad range of scientific fields, including medical and public health disciplines, in order to meet the complexities posed by the COVID-19 pandemic

Impact Forecasting to Support Emergency Management of Natural Hazards

Forecasting and early warning systems are important investments to protect lives, properties, and livelihood. While early warning systems are frequently used to predict the magnitude, location, and timing of potentially damaging events, these systems rarely provide impact estimates, such as the expected amount and distribution of physical damage, human consequences, disruption of services, or financial loss. Complementing early warning systems with impact forecasts has a twofold advantage: It would provide decision makers with richer information to take informed decisions about emergency measures and focus the attention of different disciplines on a common target. This would allow capitalizing on synergies between different disciplines and boosting the development of multihazard early warning systems. This review discusses the state of the art in impact forecasting for a wide range of natural hazards. We outline the added value of impact-based warnings compared to hazard forecasting for the emergency phase, indicate challenges and pitfalls, and synthesize the review results across hazard types most relevant for Europe