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The GEM Hazard and Risk teams represented by Marco Pagani, Vitor Silva, Anirudh Rao and Robin Gee visited China and Singapore from September 26 to October 1 to participate in Nat Cat Risks Workshops co-organized by GEM and the Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management, Nanyang Technological University (ICRM-NTU), Singapore.

The first leg of the natcat risks workshop was held in Guangzhou, China from September 26-27. Robin and Marco of Hazard Team presented the seismic hazard for the Pearl River Delta Region. They also presented the OpenQuake suite - engine, hazard library and model building toolkits, and presented fragility and vulnerability models, with a focus on the PRD.

In addition, Jian Ma of Beijing Normal University (BNU) presented GEM's work on exposure modelling for the Pearl River Delta in China with assistance from GEM’s Anirudh and Robin.

The Pearl River Delta also known as the Golden Delta of Guangdong, is formed by three major rivers, the Xi Jiang (West River), Bei Jiang (North River), and Dong Jiang (East River). It is considered as a megalopolis with an estimated population of 120 million people, and rapidly urbanizing.(Wiki) The high population, rapid urbanization and other socio-economic factors underpin the interest in assessing the changing nature of earthquake and flood risk of the river delta.

In the second leg of the journey, GEM Hazard and Risk teams had productive discussions on seismic risk assessment for the ASEAN countries at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore from September 30-October 1. 

Anirudh presented the development of exposure models for the ASEAN countries, and Vitor presented GEM’s seismic risk assessment for the same countries. Vitor and Anirudh also presented fragility and vulnerability models for the ASEAN countries with a focus on Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Colleagues from Singapore, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines participated in the two-day event.

The NATCAT risks workshops aimed to share and improve on Asia’s catastrophe insurance and reinsurance through data exchange; and how the ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance – Phase 2 (ADRFI-2) program can help equip Member States with risk management and risk transfer capabilities that will enable them to overcome financial burdens caused by disasters. (asean.org)