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Geoscience Australia (GA), a long-time supporter and public sponsor of GEM, recently held its Public Talks Series 2022 where GEM Secretary General, John Schneider was invited to discuss GEM's contribution to improving the state of knowledge of earthquake risk and the broader objectives of the disaster risk reduction community through its global collaboration network and development of open, global databases and software for application to earthquake and multi-hazard risk assessment.

John highlighted GEM’s key achievements particularly its two flagship products: the hazard and risk calculation software - the OpenQuake engine, and the global mosaic of earthquake hazard and risk maps released in 2018, where Australia’s national hazard and risk model was prepared by Geoscience Australia. To date, these flagship products have accumulated combined downloads of close to 4000 times since GEM started tracking this metric in late 2019.

On the topic of the GEM-Geoscience Australia partnership since 2010, John said that the impact was on the complementation of GEM’s tools and software with GA’s need to focus more on earthquake science and data analysis instead of software development. The result, he added, was a great improvement in the earthquake hazard model development for Australia, and OpenQuake engine’s hazard and risk calculators.

As part of GEM’s roadmap to 2030, John reiterated that GEM will continue to strive to maintain its leadership in earthquake risk assessment and knowledge dissemination, and at the same time further develop into a global leader in integrated, multi-hazard risk assessment and resilience planning.

Presenting the evolutionary process from hazard data to integrated risk solutions, John pointed out that GEM’s research and applications are gradually moving toward the assessment of systemic risks, integrated risk assessments and risk reduction solutions.

He added that GEM’s substantial contribution to the broader objectives of the disaster risk reduction community was through the acceleration of the merging of the public and private sectors to work together to fully assess risk and incorporate risk-based decisions into planning and sustainable development. He said that to this end, GEM spearheaded the development of common tools and solutions, and provided a range of products and services for the disaster risk management and reduction community.

The webinar - joined by about 70 online and on-site individuals - was held on March 2 and organized by Geoscience Australia - a GEM supporter and public sponsor since 2010.

Watch John’s presentation at .