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SUMMARY:Inaugural CSIC Lecture: The New Normal for Natural Disasters - Pro
 fessor Tom O'Rourke\, Cornell University
DTSTART:20130117T180000Z
DTEND:20130117T190000Z
UID:TALK41954@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Speaker to be confirmed
DESCRIPTION:The effects of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami\, Canterbury 
 Earthquake Sequence\, and Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy are discussed with 
 respect to their impact on regional and international economics\, national
  practices for security and recovery\, and worldwide energy policy. The se
 verity and far ranging consequences of these extreme events have establish
 ed in effect a new normal for natural disasters. The lecture explains why 
 these events require a fundamental re-thinking of the way we evaluate the 
 risks of extreme events\, as well as define and protect critical infrastru
 cture. Examples of critical infrastructure at risk are discussed with resp
 ect to earthquake effects on the water supply of Southern California and h
 urricane effects on New York City. Selective lessons learned from recent e
 arthquakes are described with respect to mitigation measures. To address t
 he need for protection against rare\, high consequence events with limited
  financial resources\, a strategy for improving infrastructure resilience 
 is proposed. \n\nTom O’Rourke is the Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engin
 eering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell Uni
 versity. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fe
 llow of American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received a
  number of distinctions for his research and teaching\, some of which are 
 ASTM C.A. Hogentogler Award\, ASCE Collingwood\, Huber Research\, C. Marti
 n Duke\, Stephen D. Bechtel Pipeline Engineering\, and Ralph B. Peck Award
 s\, and the British ICE Trevithick Prize. He gave the 2009 Rankine Lecture
 . He has served as President of the Earthquake Engineering Research Instit
 ute and as the chair or member of many professional society committees. He
  has authored or co-authored over 350 technical publications. His research
  interests cover geotechnical engineering\, earthquake engineering\, under
 ground construction technologies\, engineering for large\, geographically 
 distributed systems\, and geographic information technologies and database
  management. He has served on numerous government advisory boards\, as wel
 l as the consulting boards or peer reviews for many projects associated wi
 th highway\, rapid transit\, water supply\, and energy distribution system
 s. 
LOCATION: Cambridge University Engineering Department\, Lecture Room 0
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