Towards Disaster Resilient Cities
The next City Series event will take place on the 9th August 2018 and features a pair of talks on the causes of disasters impacting on urban environments around the world, and detail ways in which risk can be reduced.
Leicester like many other benefits from beautiful and well used waterways. However the city is one of the UK’s more exposed urban locations in terms of flood risk. Much work is underway locally to safeguard the city’s future, and to build ecological as well as flood capacity into local resilience work.
The global threat will be set out by Dr Ksenia Chmutina is a Lecturer in Sustainable and Resilient Urbanism at the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, Loughborough University, UK. Her research explores whether cities can be simultaneously sustainable and resilience under the pressures of urbanisation and climate change in the context of both natural hazards and human-induced threats. Ksenia has an extensive experience of conducting research in developing countries, in particular Nepal, India, China, Indonesia, and the Caribbean. She is a co-author (with Dr Lee Bosher) of a recently published book “Disaster Risk Reduction for the Built Environment’ (2017, Wiley Blackwell).
Jonathan Vann will provide a more localised perspective. He is a Chartered Geographer, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Managing Director of Riverscape Environmental Consultants, having previously worked as a Senior Flood Risk Management Advisor for the Environment Agency. His talk will provide an insight into recent infrastructure investment which has reduced the risk of flooding, as well as the future direction of flood risk management in the local area. The wider benefits of blue-green infrastructure will be explored in relation to biodiversity enhancement, public access and riverside regeneration.
The first talk will start at 5:30pm on Thursday 9th August and will take place at Central Baptist Church. Places can be booked: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leicester-city-series-towards-disaster-resilient-cities-tickets-46755638373