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Type
Conference

The Indian Ocean Tsunami 20 years on: driving change and changing lives

Event organised by Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics

Date
06 December 2024
Time
14:00 - 21:00 GMT
Location
Institution of Civil Engineers
One Great George Street
Westminster
London, SW1P 3AA
United Kingdom

This event has now ended

Overview

Twenty years ago, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, killed over 225,000 people and devastated the coastlines of 14 countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. This tragic event kickstarted a worldwide effort in advancing knowledge toward mitigating the catastrophic effects of future tsunami.

The resulting research has significantly increased our understanding of the science of tsunami, how we can better design buildings and infrastructure to mitigate tsunami effects as well as what preparedness actions are needed for communities to become more resilient.

This symposium brings together world-leading tsunami scientists, engineers, and disaster managers to share and reflect on what has been achieved in the last twenty years and on what challenges still exist in achieving tsunami resilience. It will include four thematic sessions.

  • Theme 1: What happened? will delve into comprehensive analyses of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, understanding its causes, impacts, and lessons learned.
  • Theme 2: Advances in tsunami science will take us on a journey through the latest scientific advances in tsunami science, including laboratory and numerical studies that provide a better understanding of the physics of these waves and their interaction with buildings and critical infrastructure.
  • Theme 3: System vulnerability and resilience explores advances in tsunami engineering and strategies for improving resilience through physical interventions.
  • Theme 4: Disaster risk reduction looks at different approaches to reducing tsunami impact through organisational and community based approaches.

To allow for interaction and for exchanges between the participants and the speakers, the sessions are interspersed with discussion sessions.

Please note: attendance at the symposium is free, followed by an optional networking reception. Join us for the drinks reception at £15 per person and connect with fellow attendees in a relaxed setting.

Event Sponsors

EPICentre, University College London

EPICentre, University College London

EPICentre is a Dynamic Multidisciplinary Research Centre that investigates risks from natural hazards to society and the built and natural environments.

The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT)

The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT)

The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) is a joint venture between industry and universities that conducts field investigations following major earthquakes.

GFDRR

GFDRR

Established in 2006, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) is a multi-donor partnership that supports low and middle-income countries to understand, manage, and reduce their risks from natural hazards and climate change.

Guy Carpenter

Guy Carpenter

Driven by innovation. Powered by purpose. Guy Carpenter brings together unique perspectives with actionable solutions to help clients meet the challenges of our time and proceed with confidence.

Renew Risk

Renew Risk

We serve renewable energy developers, insurers, and financiers, all seeking enhanced insights into risks associated with renewable energy assets.

HR Wallingford

HR Wallingford

Our focus is entirely on water. The complex challenges it brings. The innovative, practical solutions it takes to solve them. As an independent civil engineering and environmental hydraulics organisation it's what we deliver. The world over.

WTW

WTW

At WTW, we provide data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital that make your organization more resilient, motivate your workforce, and maximize performance.

Organised by

Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics

Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics

SECED promotes the study and practice of earthquake engineering, dynamics, and vibration issues like blast and impact.

HR Wallingford

HR Wallingford

Living and working sustainably with water we are experts in how water moves, behaves and influences communities and industries.

London South Bank University

London South Bank University

London South Bank University is known for its professional links and high graduate salaries. We are university of the year for graduate employment.

University College London

University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world and is no.2 in the UK for research power.

Arup

Arup

Arup is a world class firm of designers, planners, engineers, architects, consultants and technical specialists.

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology

Delft University of Technology provides scientific education, conducting scientific research, transferring knowledge and promoting social responsibility.

University of Naples Federico II

University of Naples Federico II

Founded in 1224 in Naples, Italy, the University of Naples Federico II is the world’s oldest public, secular university, named after its founder, Frederick II.

Programme

14:00 - 14:15

Welcome and opening talks

14:15 - 14:45

Theme 1: Tsunami impacts

14:45 - 16:00

Theme 2: Tsunami science

16:00 - 16:30

Coffee break in Council Room

16:30 - 17:30

Theme 3: Tsunami risk and resilience

17:30 - 18:30

Theme 4: Disaster risk reduction

18:40 - 21:00

Drinks reception in the Council Room (ticket needed - £15 per person)

Speakers

Professor William Allsop

Professor William Allsop

University College London and at University of Edinburgh

honorary professor

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Professor William Allsop

William Allsop is honorary professor at UCL and at University of Edinburgh. He worked at HR Wallingford for more than 48 years and headed William Allsop Consulting since 2017.  

A specialist in coastal engineering, particularly seawalls and breakwaters, his team at Wallingford invented the first pneumatic Tsunami Simulator in 2008, later versions of which have been successfully used by the MAKEWAVES research consortium led by Professor Rossetto at UCL. 

Dr Keith Adams

Dr Keith Adams

london south bank university

lecturer, department of civil and building services engineering

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Dr Keith Adams

Keith is a lecturer in the Department of Civil and Building Services Engineering at London South Bank University. He is an earthquake engineer with interest in disaster risk management and has conducted research in tsunami engineering and risk.

He is an active member of ICE and IStructE in the UK and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

He has contributed to the management committee of EEFIT, undertaken a remote mission for the Haiti Earthquake of 2021, a return mission to Banda Aceh, site of the Indian Ocean EQ and tsunami, and most recently to Morocco to evaluate cascading hazards after the recent EQ. He is a regular attendee at SECED meetings held in London at the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Prof. Andre Barbosa

Prof. Andre Barbosa

Oregon State University

professor in structural engineering

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Prof. Andre Barbosa

Professor Andre Barbosa is the Cecil and Sally Drinkward professor in structural engineering at Oregon State University (OSU). He holds an honorary professor position at the University of Bristol and an adjunct professor position at the Composite Materials & Engineering Center at the Washington State University.

His research focuses on the development of experimental testing programs and numerical tools and techniques geared towards improving structural performance and resilience of the built environment to multiple hazards.

He has received various awards, such as the 2017 State of Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce Newsmaker for contributions to the Cross-Laminated Timber Industry and the 2023 ASCE Croes Medal for work on soil-structure interaction.

Before joining OSU in 2011, Barbosa completed a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD).

Prior to starting his Ph.D. in 2005, he worked for seven years as a structural engineer in Portugal.

Jonas Cels

Jonas Cels

University College London

phd researcher in tsunami system vulnerability and resilience

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Jonas Cels

Jonas is a PhD researcher in tsunami system vulnerability and resilience at UCL.

For his PhD, Jonas has developed novel analytical tools for the tsunami vulnerability assessment of structures as well as assessing the tsunami resilience of the education system in Sri Lanka. 

As a member of MAKEWAVES, Jonas lead experiments investigating tsunami-structural and foundation interaction using the pneumatic wave simulator at HR Wallingford.

Jonas was a practicing architect before obtaining his MSc in Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Management at UCL.

Ian Chandler

Ian Chandler

HR Wallingford’s Engineering Group

senior engineer

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Ian Chandler

Ian Chandler is a Senior Engineer within HR Wallingford’s Engineering Group. He has over 10 years’ experience of physical and computational modelling of hydraulic and coastal structures. Ian has particular experience in physical modelling overtopping and of tsunami propagation and interaction with coastal defences and buildings.

Previous to joining HR Wallingford Ian completed a PhD at the University of Warwick studying the mixing of solute pollutants across the sediment-water interface, specifically the vertical variation in mixing coefficient.

Dr. Marta del Zoppo

Dr. Marta del Zoppo

University of Naples Federico II

assistant professor of structural engineering

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Dr. Marta del Zoppo

Marta Del Zoppo is assistant professor of structural engineering at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture of University of Naples Federico II (Italy), conducting research in the field of tsunami engineering and sustainable retrofit solutions for existing reinforced concrete and masonry structures.

She has been awarded a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2021) to develop a research project on tsunami resilience at EPICentre UCL (UK). She is also the Co-Chair of fib Task Group 2.13 "Design and assessment for tsunami loading".

Prof. Nils Goseberg

Prof. Nils Goseberg

Technical University of Braunschweig

professor for hydromechanics, coastal and ocean engineering

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Prof. Nils Goseberg

Dr. Nils Goseberg is full professor of Hydromechanics, Coastal and Ocean Engineering at TU Braunschweig, Germany since 2018.

He has successfully built an internationally leading and recognized research team in coastal and ocean engineering.

 He has revitalised unique coastal research facilities in the form of the saltwater wave current flume in Braunschweig and the large wave-current flume in the Coastal Research Center Hannover (GWK+).

He is currently leading his European Research Council project ‘AngryWaters – Scaling fluid-driven processes: Building Collapse in Extreme Flow Conditions‘.

Rashmin Gunasekera

Rashmin Gunasekera

World Bank/GFDRR

senior disaster risk management specialist

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Rashmin Gunasekera

Rashmin Gunasekera is a senior disaster risk management specialist working at the World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) in Washington DC. Rashmin leads the two Global Programs of Disaster Risk Analytics (GPDRA) and Disaster Risk Financing and Resilience (DRF&R) at GFDRR. Rashmin has over 20 years of work experience in disaster risk quantification extending to the public sector, re/insurance industry and academia.

He has also presented and published innovative research and operations papers on Disaster Risk Management. Under the GPDRA program, Rashmin leads the highly innovative and popular Global Rapid Damage Estimation (GRADE) assessments that has revolutionised the World Bank’s disaster response strategy and fast-tracked post disaster emergency operations. 

He currently holds an honorary lectureship at University College London (UCL) and has a MPhil in GIS and Remote Sensing (Uni. of Cambridge, UK) and a PhD in earthquake seismology (Uni. Of Durham, UK).

Dr. Denis Istrati

Dr. Denis Istrati

National Technical University

visiting professor in the laboratory of harbour works

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Dr. Denis Istrati

Dr. Denis Istrati is a visiting professor in the Laboratory of Harbour Works at NTUA and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at TUB. He works on large-scale physical experiments and cutting-edge computational fluid dynamics and fluid-structure interaction modelling that aims to decipher and quantify the effects of extreme coastal storms, tsunamis, cascading effects and multi-hazard scenarios on the built environment.

He has participated as PI, co-PI and researcher in several projects during his work as a faculty in the United States, and more recently in Europe.

Currently, Dr. Istrati co-leads/participates at NTUA in multi-million European projects, like the Horizon Europe project TRIQUETRA and the Interreg project ARIANNA, which focus on natural hazard risk assessment and the development of mitigation measures including nature-based solutions

Dr. Miwako Kitamura

Dr. Miwako Kitamura

Tohoku University

researcher

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Dr. Miwako Kitamura

Dr. Miwako Kitamura is a researcher at Tohoku University’s International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS). Her career trajectory was significantly influenced by her volunteer work during the Great East Japan Earthquake, a transformative experience that led her to transition from professional photography to academia.

Dr. Kitamura’s research focuses on critical issues related to social vulnerability in disaster contexts, particularly gender, disability, and socially marginalized groups. Her work emphasizes community-driven approaches and the empowerment of women in disaster risk reduction (DRR).

In addition to her research role, Dr. Kitamura serves as the deputy director of the UCL Collaboration Centre for Gender and Disaster Research at IRIDeS. She is also a Senior Fellow (Non-Resident) at Sasakawa USA

Ziggy Lubkowski

Ziggy Lubkowski

Arup

associate director and global geo-seismic skills leader

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Ziggy Lubkowski

Ziggy is an internationally recognised natural hazard expert. He is an associate director and is the global geo-seismic skills leader at Arup with over 35 years relevant experience. He led the tsunami hazard studies for the Award winning PRES Constitución Masterplan in Chile following the 2010 Maule earthquake and contributed to the rebuilding of Aceh following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami through projects for Muslim Aid and the Disasters Emergency Committee.

Ziggy was co-author of the guide Lessons from Aceh, providing knowledge on all relevant natural hazards and siting. He has also participated and led post-earthquake field missions to USA, Türkiye, Indonesia and Chile.

He has been chair of SECED and is contributing to the PIANC seismic guidelines for ports and harbours.

In 2018, he was awarded the role of visiting professor in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering at UCL by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Tiziana Rossetto

Prof. Tiziana Rossetto

University College London

structural engineer

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Prof. Tiziana Rossetto

Professor Tiziana Rossetto is a structural engineer who is recognised for her contributions to the characterisation of building performance under natural hazards and for her multidisciplinary approach to disaster risk mitigation.

She has worked on tsunami engineering since participating in the EEFIT reconnaissance of countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and has delivered new methods for experimental tsunami simulation, for the structural analysis of buildings subjected to earthquakes, tsunami, individually and in sequence.

She is a past chair of EEFIT and SECED and current co-chair of the FIB working group on tsunami engineering. She is also currently vice dean for International partnerships and strategy for the faculty of Engineering Sciences at UCL.

Prof. Ioan Nistor

Prof. Ioan Nistor

University of Ottawa

professor of hydraulic and coastal engineering

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Prof. Ioan Nistor

Dr. Ioan NISTOR is a professor of hydraulic and coastal engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Nistor researches hazards associated with extreme coastal hazards such as tsunamis and hurricanes, coastal structures, impacts of extreme events on coastal communities and infrastructure.

His work includes several post-tsunami forensic engineering surveys – he was a member of the first scientific team who surveyed the damage induced by the 2002 Indian Ocean Tsunami and Earthquake in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

 Dr. Nistor is a voting member of the ASCE7 Tsunami Committee and member of the JSCE Tsunami Committee (Debris Group), as well as member of the Tsunami Working Group of the Federation internationale de beton (FIB).

He is an elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and Fellow of the Engineers Institute of Canada (EIC).

Prof. Liam Wotherspoon

Prof. Liam Wotherspoon

University of Auckland

professor, department of civil and environmental engineering

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Prof. Liam Wotherspoon

Liam is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland.

He has held leadership roles in a number of national research programmes in that focus on the resilience of critical infrastructure across a range of natural hazards.

He is a fellow of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering and a member of the Aotearoa New Zealand Earthquake Science Advisory Panel (AESAP).

Dr Davide Wüthrich

Dr Davide Wüthrich

Delft University of Technology

hydraulic engineer, assistant professor

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Dr Davide Wüthrich

Davide Wüthrich is a hydraulic engineer, currently assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

He has over 10 years of research and consulting experience across Switzerland, Canada, Japan, and Australia, where he is honorary lecturer at The University of Queensland.

His expertise spans across hydraulic engineering and environmental fluid mechanics, particularly on the interaction between extreme water events and structures. 

Davide is actively engaged in multiple international projects aimed at disaster prevention and post-flood forensic surveys. His current research focuses on flood protection measures, emphasizing a multiphase analysis of extreme water events and the impact of floating debris on flood risk management.

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For more information please contact:

Shelly-Ann Russell

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