EU-NICE - Eurasian University Network for International Cooperation in Earthquakes

Despite the remarkable scientific advances of earthquake engineering and seismology in many countries, earthquake risk is still growing at a high rate in the World’s most vulnerable Countries. Succesful practice experiences have shown that a Country’s capacity to manage and reduce its earthquake risk relies on capitalization on policies as well as technology and research results, and on strengthening technical curricula for future practitioners and researchers through university and higher education programmes. Cooperative international academic research and training is always key to reducing the gap between industrialized and more vulnerable regions.

Representatives of the EU-NICE consortium from Asian and European universities at the initiative kick-off meeting.

Based on these premises, the Sapienza University of Rome has taken the lead in a major scientific cooperation effort with asian partners. Representatives from 5 European Universities, 8 Asian Univerisities, and 5 Associate organizations and NGOs gathered in Rome on October 18-19 to launch EU-NICE initiative. The meeting was attended by Rector Prof. Luigi Frati who signed the Consortium Agreement, and by the Vice President of the European Parliament Mr. Gianni Pittella who addressed the international gathering through a videoconference speech. EU-NICE (http://www.eu-nice.eu) is an international cooperation and aid project under the Erasmus Mundus mobility scheme of the European Commission. The project focuses on capacity building and curricula strengthening in the field of earthquake mitigation and is targeted to University located in Regional Asian Countries.

Researchers, future policymakers and practitioners will build up their curricula over a wide range of disciplines in the fields of engineering, seismology, disaster risk management and urban planning. Specific educational and research activities will focus on earthquake risk mitigation related topics such as: anti-seismic structural design, structural engineering, advanced computer structural collapse analysis, seismology, experimental laboratory studies, international and developmental issues in disaster risk management, social-economical impact studies, international relations and conflict resolution. Cooperation will take place between leading European and Asian universities involved in advanced research on seismic mitigation, centers of excellence for higher education training on disaster risk management.

The Eurasian consortium comprises 5 European Universities: Sapienza University of Rome (Coordinator), (Italy), University "G. D'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara (Italy), University of Basilicata (Italy), University of Partas (Greece), University of Aveiro (Portugal); 8 Asian Universities: Nangarhar University (Afghanistan), Tribhuvan University (Nepal), National Society for Earthquake Technology (Nepal), NED University of Engineering and Technology (Pakistan), University of Dhaka (Bangladesh), Prince of Songkla University (Thailand) , Hunan University (China), Chongqing University (China); and 5 Associate Organizations and NGOs: Geohazards International Society (India), Rotary Club of Jalalabad (Afghanistan), Rotary International District 2080 Lazio-Sardegna (Italy), Italian Association of Earthquake Engineering ANIDIS (Italy), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand).

Speech of the Vice President of the European Parliament Mr. Gianni Pittella.

The Erasmus Mundus Action Two Partnership programme is a cooperation and mobility scheme in the area of higher education launched by Europe Aid Cooperation Office and implemented by the Executive Agency Education, Audiovisual and Culture (EACEA).

The European Commission has launched this initiative to foster cooperation between higher education institutions. It aims to boost exchanges of students, researchers and academic staff and to support mobility, in particular from non-EU countries to EU member states. The European Commission launches call for proposals for different regions in the world and then funds partnerships between universities to implement the exchanges. Students, researchers and staff from the area can apply to the selected consortium for scholarships.

The EMA2 objective is to achieve better understanding and mutual enrichment between the European Union and Third Countries in the field of higher education through promoting the exchange of persons, knowledge and skills at higher education level. This will be achieved through the promotion of partnerships and institutional co-operation exchanges between European Higher Education Institutions and Third Country institutions and a mobility scheme addressing student and academic exchanges.

The EU-NICE scholarship programme is open to nationals from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, China, North Korea who want to study or work at one of the five European partner universities in Italy, Greece and Portugal. The project is also supported by a number of associate organizations active in earthquake risk mitigation and international development. A total number of 104 mobilities will be involved in scientific activities at the undergraduate, masters, PhD, postdoctoral and academic-staff exchange.

The first call for applications will open in November 2010. (Please visit http://eu-nice.eu for further details)

EU-NICE consortium Kick-off meeting at University of Rome Sapienza.

Rotary Club La Jolla Golden Triangle - Afghanistan Projects by Steve Brown and Fary Moini

Steve and Fary are making a tremendous effort in the developement of Afghanistan, where they built and currently manage a school for more than 5.000 Afghan students. Other projects are on strengthening the academic curricula at the Nangarhar University focusing on IT, and engineering, (more info at http://stevebrownrotary.com/). Their latest project regards the construction of a suspended footbridge over the Kabul river in Jalalabad. The footbridge will connect a totally isolated village to the main town.

Fary Moini in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

With Fary Moini and Steve Brown.

Terremoto Abruzzo - L'Aquila Aprile 2009

Irpinia 1980 Earthquake - Documentary by Lina Wertmuller

"E' una domenica sera di novembre" (L. Wertmuller 1981). Movie director Lina Wertmuller, the first woman ever nominated for a director Academy Award, filmed this shocking documentary in the aftermath of the 1980 Irpinia Earthquake in Southern Italy. For many of us who lived through that calamity this film brings a piece of our history, indeed the most dramatic and life changing event for our generation.


This saddens even more if we think how gorgeous these little towns looked from the sky, as in the short film "Basilicata Autentica" featuring Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Michele Russo.

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL AND ITS ROLE IN INTERNATIONAL DISASTER RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT

Rotary has launched DRRAG, the new Disaster Relief Rotary Action Group. DRRAG is designed to help Rotarians contribute to preparedness in a timely and effective manner before a disaster and to participate in response, relief, recovery and rebuilding coordination after a disaster: to help save lives, alleviate suffering, stimulate recovery and mitigate hazards.

This paper by DRRAG CEO Lee Malany summarizes the vision and scope of DRRAG.

Comments by LeGrand L. Malany
Distinguished Panelist for 1st North American Rotary Disaster Workshop
A concept paper prepared for the 1st North American Rotary Disaster Workshop, New Orleans, Louisiana January 11-13, 2007

ABSTRACT: Polio Plus proved that Rotary can be a leading, catalytic and effective global force to improving world conditions. This paper explores another important and needed global focus for which Rotary is uniquely qualified and structured – Disaster Relief and Development. This paper focuses on two dynamics regarding disaster relief and development which are exceptionally suited to Rotary: (a) providing the local bonding to make international relief and development programs sustainable in developing nations; and, (b) providing the worldwide business participation management structure for effective and coordinated private sector action and capacity building assistance to developing countries.

This paper addresses the potential role of Rotary in relief and development within the context of the international arena rather that a national one. Although there are great similarities between relief and development in other countries (as the parallelisms between Katrina in the Southern United States and the October 8, 2006, earthquake in Northern Pakistan shows), I think our initial discussion should address national and international relief and development separately, at least initially [...].

Use of High-Performance parallel supercomputers to conduct probabilistic seismic response analysis of a building structure

NEESit featured my Ph.D. research (see pdf) on their website (NEESit website). We used structural analysis programs to make an earthquake collapse analysis of a building. Such software are extremely useful in the seismic assessment of existing buildings which were in many cases designed and built prior to 1980s in absence of seismic codes. In particular the so-called "non ductile" buildings represent a common practice foe many seismic prone Countries. Engineers also call them "killer" buildings. An initiative called "Concrete Coalition" (http://www.concretecoalition.org/) has been launched to identify these potential killer buildings in the Los Angeles area.

Structural model of the Bonefro building

In this research (see abstract) we made use of two powerful tools provided by NEES: the supercomputing resources of TeraGrid at the San Diego SuperComputer Center and the structural modeling capabilities of OpenSees parallel. Our goal was making a probabilistic seismic response and collapse assessment of the Bonefro Building. The structure was heavily damaged in the Molise 2002 earthquake. We used the framework developed within the PEER Performance Based Earthquake Engineering methodology (http://www.peertestbeds.net/) to practice the probabilistic assessment on this reinforced concrete structure.

San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD (http://www.sdsc.org).

Structural analysis software helps seismic evaluation of non-engineered buildings in developing countries

Source: Computers and Structures International http://www.csiberkeley.com/images/article_img1.jpg

The Great Southern California Shakeout & the Los Angeles International Earthquake Conference

The conference was organized by Dr. Fuad Bendimerad, leader of EMI-Earthquake Megacities Initiative (http://www.emi-megacities.org). In the picture Ellis Stanley, LA Councilman Greig Smith, LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Dr. Fouad Bendimerad. The conference organizers and participants announced the Great Southern California Shakeout Drill for the next day www.shakeout.org.

"Addressing Earthquake risk of Developing Countries", Brian Tucker presents at Torrey Pines La Jolla Rotary Club

Torrey Pines (La Jolla) Rotary Club - Brian Tucker of GHI - Geohazards International (www.geohaz.org)

"The earthquake risk in developing countries is large and growing rapidly. Unless something is done to reduce it, developing countries will suffer human and economic losses far greater than these countries have experienced in the past. Given the “shrinking” of the world, these losses will affect developed countries as well. GeoHazards International (GHI) is a Palo Alto-based, nonprofit organization that has attempted to reduce the death and suffering caused by earthquakes in the world’s most vulnerable communities, through advocacy, preparedness, and mitigation. Disaster response, recovery and reconstruction, which attract so much attention and resources after earthquakes strike, are not the work of GHI. Instead, GHI works before earthquakes to raise awareness, strengthen local institutions, and launch various mitigation activities, particularly in schools and hospitals. This is how to reduce death, suffering and economic losses. GHI and its partners around the world have achieved some success: because of our work, thousands of school children are safer, hundreds of cities are now aware of their risk, the seismic hazard of dozens of cities have been assessed, and numerous local organizations are more capable to manage their communities’ earthquake risk. But there is disturbing evidence that the rate at which earthquake risk management is improving, globally, is woefully inadequate. As GHI continues its work to improve risk management in developing countries, it has launched an effort to recruit new allies, such as the Rotary Clubs, for ideas and support." (Brian Tucker).


Brian Tucker received a B.A. in Physics, a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University. He headed the Geological Hazards Programs of the California Geological Survey from 1982 to1991. In 1991, he founded GeoHazards International (www.geohaz.org), a nonprofit organization working to reduce the risk of natural hazards in the world’s most vulnerable communities through preparedness, mitigation and advocacy. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America. In 2000, he was honored for his service to the people of Nepal by the King of Nepal, and, in 2002, was named a MacArthur Fellow. In 2007, he received the U.S. Civilian Research and Defense Foundation’s George Brown Award for International Science and Technology Cooperation and was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.

Breakfast with Brian Tucker and rotarians Steve Brown and Fary Moini of La Jolla Golden Triangle RC.

Rotary - Peace is possible

I am officially one of the 60 recipients of a Rotary World Peace Fellowship (link). "What do peace and international relations have in common with earthquake science and engineering structures?". How can a science background fit into international relations and development? This idea has developed in several conversations with different people from the Academia and the industry involved in earthquake engineering, and also many Rotarians from Italy as well as from San Diego. Among others, the work of Brian Tucker of GeoHazards International who is leading a passionate crusade against seismic disasters, has been extremely inspirational. I recommend reading this ARTICLE. The experience as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in San Diego, stimulated my interest in humanitarian programs, and the Rotary leadership of District 2120 and District 5340 (thanks to Gaetano Laguardia, Riccardo Mancini and Vito Casarano, who encouraged and sponsored my candidature, and also to Philippe Lamoise and Donald Yeckel) made me find out about the program. This helped me think how modern earthquake engineering technology and international relations could work together towards global seismic mitigation.

Rotary District 5340 - Pathways to Peace committee