Understanding Risk (UR) British Columbia 2020

Understanding Risk (UR) BC 2020 was an online, collaborative symposium and event series that fostered place-based risk reduction strategies to proactively enhance resilience and improve disaster recovery pathways in BC.

URBC 2020 featured online events from summer to fall 2020:

• Summer Webinars: Local and international experts on the holistic understanding of disaster impacts
• Pre-symposium Workshops: Interactive sessions that contributed to understanding risk in BC
• Launch Events: September and November sessions that merged art, knowledge, practice and policy to share key updates, and offered a sneak peek at upcoming themes and sessions.
• Initiatives-in-focus Workshops: Sessions showing how leading practitioners and policy makers in BC wrestle with emerging issues that aim to reduce disaster risk and build resilience
• Dialogue Panels: Exciting conversations that examined key tensions, challenges and opportunities to improve disaster recovery pathways in BC
• Closing: Connecting, reflecting, celebrating and initiating next steps

Event Objectives

• Reporting on progress of actionable strategies and outcomes from previous and ongoing UR Symposiums as well as related DRR/CCA efforts
• Demonstrate components of the BC Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Hub, identify opportunities for its short-term priorities and advance its long term financial and governance model
• Advance essential and non-traditional partnerships across the science-policy-action interface to reduce risk and build resilience
• Make connections across projects and initiatives towards enhanced collaboration and reduced duplication
• Support advancement and implementation of existing recommendations and commitments that have been made in BC and Canada in relation to climate and disaster risk management by fostering generative dialogue across disciplines and cultures

Rationale

With a significant portion of our built environment constructed after the introduction of seismic code, a changing hazard environment as a result of climate change and national code requirements focused on life safety rather than business continuity/functionality, there is enormous scope for integrated policy change and associated actions that will improve resilience in our built environment over time. Developing such integrated policy requires unprecedented coordination across disciplines and between the analytics (or science and technology) community and the policy/ planning/ finance communities.

The first two UR symposiums focused on convening stakeholders across hazards, across disciplines and from across the science- policy-action spectrum to enhance collaboration and develop actionable strategies that will reduce risk and build resilience in BC. The symposiums have also aimed to encourage engagement with First Nations and youth as key constituents in building momentum in this space. The UR BC symposium continued to build off these efforts and the generous contributions of key stakeholders from across Southwest BC to apply a common operating picture of natural hazard and climate risk in Southwest BC in support of place-based strategies for risk reduction and recovery. This common operating picture can support prioritization of areas (thematic and geospatial) for adaptation investments.

The Understanding Risk Community

Understanding Risk (UR) is an open and global community of over 6,500 experts and practitioners interested and active in disaster risk identification. UR community members share knowledge and experience, collaborate, and discuss innovation and best practice in risk assessment and risk communication. In BC, the community of practice has furthered this by focusing on how to apply risk assessment and analysis in service of risk reduction and building resilience.