A global disaster book series is now available free-of-charge in Hong Kong for our kids!
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Publications & Research
Publications & Research
We provide a platform between researchers, disaster practitioners, healthcare professionals and students for expertise exchange, collaboration and policy discussion.
Publications & Research
The HKJCDPRI Publications Section contains collaborative researches and publications with our partners and renowned academic institutions, and other research and development projects related to disaster preparedness and response.
The Guidelines section contains our selected collection of technical information, operational guidelines and useful tools for disaster management.
The Blog sub-section provides a platform where our team and peers share news and updates, as well as opinions and experiences in building disaster preparedness for the communities.
The blog posts are written by the author in his own personal capacity / affiliation stated. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the post belong solely to the author and does not necessarily represent those of Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute.
All resources listed here are freely and publicly available, unless specified otherwise. We ask users to use them with respect and credit the authors as appropriate.
2019
11/10/2019
A global disaster book series is now available free-of-charge in Hong Kong for our kids!
The COPE Squad from the picture book series, COPE, is here to teach all Hong Kong kids how to Get Ready and Be Prepared in face of disasters! Under the guidance of Grand Mistress Fu, the four main characters of the series, namely Candy, Ollie, Ping and Eddy form the COPE Squad and undergo intensive training on natural disasters and how to be prepared. COPE's mission is to educate children from all over the world, so they can become COPE Champions to act as disaster role models in their community.
COPE is a series of fun, innovative and beautifully illustrated children’s books intended for global distribution to increase the disaster resilience of children. According to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), which was adopted at the third United Nations (UN) World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015, children have a vital role to play in reducing risk, strengthening community resilience and shaping legislation to better protect against disasters. COPE’s touching and humorous illustrations will capture children’s imagination to teach them simple steps for disaster preparedness, which may one day save their lives.
The book targets at young readers aged 9-11 and parents reading to their children, aged 4-8. While the COPE books are written primarily in English with collaborative efforts from various contributors, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute (HKJCDPRI), together with the Hong Kong Observatory, Dr Loretta Tam and Dr Kwan Che Ying, Associate Professor, Centre for Advancement of Chinese Language Education and Research, The University of Hong Kong, have localised the contents of the book for Hong Kong readers. Today, five books, the Earthquake! (“地震!”) ,Get Up To High Ground (“走上高地”) (for Tsunami), COVID-19 (“新冠病毒病”), Flood (“水災”) and Cyclone (熱帶氣旋), have been localised and translated in Chinese.
Click and join the COPE Squad’s cyclone mission to Queensland, Australia.
Let’s embark on journeys of discovery into the world of disasters with COPE. Make a difference today! Get Prepared and Be Ready!
Please click the graphic below to download the PDF file of the book:
Click and join the COPE Squad’s Floods mission to Kelantan State, Malaysia
Click and join the COPE Squad’s COVID-19
Click and join the COPE Squad’s earthquake mission to Colima, Mexico
Click and join the COPE Squad’s tsunami mission to Matsushima, Japan.
Click and join the COPE Squad’s cyclone mission to Queensland, Australia.
The global COPE Disaster Book Series Website:
https://cope-disaster-champions.com/disaster-book-series/
The Global Author, Illustrator and Editor Team of the COPE:
- Martha Keswick is the author of the popular bilingual Max and Mei picture book series, the factual Zhongguo Mingren Series about famous people of China and the action-packed Pangu comic book series. Martha’s work for the Keswick Foundation often supports disaster related projects in China.
- Mariko Jesse, the illustrator, studied at Central St Martins, where she was also an Associate Lecturer. She is a highly acclaimed freelance commercial illustrator, children’s book illustrator and printmaker specializing in Japanese woodblock printing.
- Dr Timothy Sim, the editor, started out as a social worker, specializing in family therapy and started focusing on disaster risk reduction, writing many books in Chinese and English since working with children, their families, schools, and communities affected by the horrific Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. Tim is currently a professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
The Contents Localisation and Adaptation Team for Hong Kong Editions:
- Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute (HKJCDPRI)
- Hong Kong Observatory
- Dr Loretta Tam
- Dr Kwan Che-ying, Associate Professor, Centre for Advancement of Chinese Language Education and Research, The University of Hong Kong
Acknowledgement of Support:
WHO Collaborating Center for Community Health Services, School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
29/09/2019
New Indicators of Resilience added to the Safe Cities Index 2019. Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka ranked top 3.
New Indicators of Resilience added to the Safe Cities Index 2019. Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka ranked top 3.
11/09/2019
The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) is a biennial global assessment of disaster risk reduction highlighting latest updates, emerging trends, disaster patterns and progress in reducing risk. It aims to focus international attention on the issue of disaster risk and encourage political and economic support for disaster risk reduction. The GAR is produced by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in collaboration and consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, with thinkers, practitioners, experts and innovators to investigate the state of risk across the globe.
The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) is a biennial global assessment of disaster risk reduction highlighting latest updates, emerging trends, disaster patterns and progress in reducing risk. It aims to focus international attention on the issue of disaster risk and encourage political and economic support for disaster risk reduction. The GAR is produced by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in collaboration and consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, with thinkers, practitioners, experts and innovators to investigate the state of risk across the globe.
The GAR19 (the GAR 2019) moves beyond disaster risk to consider the pluralistic nature of risk: in multiple dimensions, at multiple scales and with multiple impacts. It provides an update on how we – as governments, as communities and individuals – understand our relationship with risk and its reduction.
The Full Report and a guided tour are available at the GAR19 Website: https://gar.unisdr.org/report-2019
Want some quick take-home messages from the detailed full report? The GAR19 Distilled collates 10 take-home observations from GAR19. Each observation is linked to the relevant section in the GAR19 main report. The link to GAR19 Distilled: https://gar.unisdr.org/sites/default/files/gar19distilled.pdf
The GAR19 Distilled offers 10 take-home messages from the full report.
An illustration showing evolution of the global policy agenda for disaster risk reduction: A journey through time and space.
An illustration showing how systemic risks are assessed and analysed: Mapping the topology of risk through time.
by HKJCDPRI
14/06/2019
A megacity facing high risks from natural hazards
Megacities can be seriously susceptible to various natural hazards potentially posing negative impacts on human health, economy and sustainability. With the global population living in urban cities projected to increase to 66% by 2050, building disaster resilient in big cities has become a global focus in the last decade.
A megacity facing high risks from natural hazards
Megacities can be seriously susceptible to various natural hazards potentially posing negative impacts on human health, economy and sustainability. With the global population living in urban cities projected to increase to 66% by 2050, building disaster resilient in big cities has become a global focus in the last decade.
Hong Kong is considered a megacity and faces high risks from natural hazards such as heavy rainfall, storm surges, and tropical cyclones. These events often trigger floods and landslides and could cause critical damage to the city. As these consequences are still rare, the researchers believed that disaster preparedness and risk recognition might be underestimated in Hong Kong. Nevertheless in the wake of climate change, Hong Kong may face unpredictable future climate.
The team of researchers used Hong Kong as a case study to demonstrate how to analyse a megacity’s disaster resilience and to show how the findings could be interpreted into practice.
What did the research involve?
This study used the Sendai Framework Local Urban Indicators (LUI) Tools developed by the United Nation Office for Disaster Risk Reduction for the evaluation. LUI helps local stakeholders to evaluate a city’s disaster resilience performance and to help them implement appropriate policies. 31 LUI indicators were selected and categorised into 10 essential components from the ‘Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient’ framework. Answers to the indicator questions highlighted levels of disaster resilience and gaps.
Findings and interpretations
Hong Kong’s integrated disaster resilience scored 4.2 out of 5, indicating a satisfactory performance of the integrated performance of disaster resilience.
These findings indicated that Hong Kong was largely disaster resilient in the following context:
However, this study also identified some areas for improvement. Hong Kong may need to improve institutional organisation for disaster governance between the government and society especially in regard to disaster risk identification and information sharing systems. Furthermore, Hong Kong’s disaster management system tends to focus on immediate emergency response and building physical resilience, however the city needs to develop a more comprehensive and long-term DRR strategy and vision to improve disaster resilience.
Conclusion
Building disaster resilient cities involves large amount of effort in understanding, assessing, and managing disaster risks. This type of investigation can help expand our knowledge of disaster resilience through providing in-depth analysis, by directing further studies and prompting city planners and policy makers to consider more appropriate sustainable development for cities. Finally, there is a pressing need in raising the disaster risk preparedness of Hong Kong’s general public, and a knitted society to facilitate roles in the recovery process.
This article is summarised from: Timothy Sim & Dongming Wang & Ziqiang Han, 2018. "Assessing the Disaster Resilience of Megacities: The Case of Hong Kong," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 10(4), pages 1-16, April.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1137/pdf
