American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting

3rd Symposium on Policy and Socio-Economic Research

January 20-24, 2008 New Orleans

The National Academies' Disasters Roundtable

The Disasters Roundtable, created by the National Academies of Sciences Division of Earth and Life Studies, facilitates and enhances communication and the exchange of ideas among scientists, practitioners, and policy-makers in order to identify urgent and important issues related to the understanding and mitigation of natural, technological, and other disasters.

Since its inception in 2001, the National Academies has hosted 21 workshops, meeting approximately quarterly for one-day sessions at the Academies' headquarters in Washington, D.C. In most cases, discussion is summarized in a report issued pursuant to the workshop. Further information is online at http://dels.nas.edu/dr including agendas and presentation materials.

Topics covered by the Roundtables include urban/wildland fire interface, energy policy, sea level rise, terrorism and technological disasters, risk communication, impacts of weather and climate, lessons learned from earthquake hazards reduction, the emergency management practice, flood losses, public health, hurricanes, tsunamis, legal aspects of disasters, community resiliency, citizen engagement, coastal issues, and disaster recovery.

Reports such as these and others published by the Division of Earth and Life Studies have been used in enacting legislation, influencing policy decisions, establishing government programs, enabling new research, reference resources, and providing science advice for regional and local decision-makers. In addition, the Disasters Roundtable has a connection to the International Council for Science (ICSU), is helping formulate a ten-year international program of research on natural and human-induced environmental hazards and disasters. That ICSU Program will address the central question: “Why, despite the fact that we know so much more about the natural and social causes of disasters, do losses continue to mount?”