The 3^rd UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction was successfully held in Sendai from Mar. 14^th to18^th after a decade. Professor Shi Peijun, Ye Qian, Li Ning, Wang Ming and Fang Weihua, and Associate Professor Xu Wei, Yang Saini and Liu Kai, and lecturer Zhang Wenjuan attended the Conference.

6500 official representatives (including 2800 government officials) from 187 member states attend the event, plus 14300 attending the public forum. The conference covers three parts, namely, intergovernmental segment (5 ministerial roundtables,  3 high level partnership dialogues, opening and closing ceremonies), multi-stakeholder segment (36 working sessions, 4 days of spark lecture, 4 days of excursions) and public forum (350 side events, 200 exhibition exchanges, 2000 poster exchange events, children and youth forum, celebration event of Hyogo Action).

Professor Shi Peijun attended the working meeting on “Lessons from Mega-Disasters” as a member of the UNISDR Scientific & Technical Consultation Committee and made presentation.

BNU and UNISDR Scientific & Technical Consultation Committee jointly organized a side event on “Global Disaster Risk Assessment and Mapping”, which was co-chaired by Professor Li Ning and Professor John Schneider from UNISDR—STAG/ GEM. The session also invited Academician Qin Dahe, Fan Weicheng and Cui Peng, Professor Shi Peijun and Dr. Anselm Smolka from Munich RE-insurance for in-depth discussion and exchange with experts on climate change and extreme disaster, disaster and public security, disaster risk assessment at mountainous area, earthquake disaster risk model, global disaster risk assessment. The session contributes greatly to disaster risk assessment and was well received by experts.

China National Commission for Disaster Reduction and UNISDR Asia-Pacific Office co-hosted a side session “Integrated Risk Governance and Government Roles”, which was jointly organized by IHDP/Future Earth-IRG of BNU and NDRCC. The session was co-chaired by Professor Ye Qian and Dr. Sujit Mohanty of UNISDR-AP. The session invited special guest speakers to discuss integrated disaster risk prevention and how to give full play to government roles, including Dr. Angelika of UNDP, Dr. Hu Junfeng of Disaster Relief Dept of MPA, Professor Norio Okada, former head of Disaster Prevention Institute of Kyoto University, Professor Wang Ming and Associate Professor Yang Saini of BNU, Professor Akay of Turkish Emergency Response Office, Professor Gajendra of Newcastle University of Australia, Dr. Yu Fujiang from S&T Dept. of State Oceanic Administration, and Director Yang Fang of UNDEP China Office. The event aroused great interest in the participants and heated discussion, with effective exchange being carried out.

During this global conference on disaster reduction, a brief release ceremony was held for “World Atlas of Natural Disaster Risk”, which was edited by Professor Shi Peijun and Professor Roger Kasperson,  and co-edited by Professor Wang Jingai, Associated Professor Xu Weifu and Ye Tao. The book was widely acclaimed, and Roger Kasperson of UNISDR and academician Qin Dahe gave their full recognition and praise in the foreword to the book. It is also recommended by UNISDR as a major S&T outcome of the conference, which was widely downloaded online during the Conference and raised global attention.

The research achievement of disaster reduction also arouses great interest among participants. Among the 350 side events, mostly are organized by international organizations. For the sessions organized by universities, in addition to those by host country Japan, BNU is the only Chinese university among the other ten universities from around the world. This shows that BNU is taking the lead both at home and abroad on disaster research, making great contribution to developing BNU into a world-leading university.