4. Natural Hazards
RESEARCH PROGRAMME
NATURAL HAZARDS
COORDINATOR
RNDr. Josef Stemberk, CSc.
Institute of Rock Structure and Mechanics of the CAS
GOALS
- To acquire deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the processes in the Earth‘s interior, on the surface, and in the atmosphere and space, which lead to natural hazards and risks
- To explore possibilities for their predictions by broad-based interdisciplinary research
- To significantly reduce or completely mitigate their negative impact on the society
Participating CAS Institutes
Astronomical Institute
Global Change Research Institute
GeoInstitute of Physics
Institute of Geology
Institute of Psychology
Institute of Atmospheric Physics
Institute of Geonics
Institute of Hydrodynamics
Institute of Computer Science
Institute of Rock Structure and Mechanics
Institute of State and Law
Institute of Thermomechanics
Institute of Inorganic Chemistry
Cooperating partners
Czech Geology Survey
Radioactive Waste Repository Authority
Czech Hydrometeorological Institute
Arcadis CZ, a. s.
GB-geodézie, spol. s r. o.
Geodis, a. s.
CHEMCOMEX, a. s.
ROCKNET, spol. s r. o.
STRIX Chomutov, a. s.
Czech and foreign universities and other institutes
Earth’s surface is permanently affected by the activity of natural exogenous and endogenous processes. Their dynamics and interactions lead to occurrence of dangerous natural phenomena, which endanger the human society at different scales and may eventually result in its decay or even downfall. Some phenomena (earthquakes, landslides, floods, geomagnetic storms) are in the scope of a permanent public interest. However, beside them there are many other processes and phenomena with less publicity, nevertheless capable of causing serious problems to the whole human civilization or its fundamental part. Extreme droughts, soil degradation or erosion, and water and atmosphere pollution can be named as examples.
In the Czech Republic, generally a country with low occurrence of natural disasters, the direct property losses exceeded 113 billion CZK during last 20 years. Besides that, there were 509 casualties, and about 1.6 million people were affected by the consequences of natural disasters. And this excludes the indirect losses, which generally exceed the direct ones several times. However, no systematic and reliable inventory of indirect losses has ever been compiled.
Our knowledge gradually gathered across individual scientific areas indicates that research of most processes and phenomena call for interdisciplinary collaboration between individual scientific areas, ranging from studies of Earth’s interior, through landscape formation processes to studies of cosmic influences. Therefore, this program is aimed on deeper and complex understanding of natural hazards and finding possibilities of their prediction in order to reduce considerably the negative impact on the human society.
Website of the programme