Setting priorities for international e-infrastructure to respond to extreme natural hazards events

Two dozen of us from 13 countries are hunkered down in San Franciso for the next two days to develop a strategy for implementing an e-infrastructure to better deal with environmental changes and extreme hazardous events, worldwide.

The workshop is organized and hosted by the National Science Foundation as part of the Belmont Forum initiative.   The Forum is a relatively new agreement among 13 countries so far, through their national science and environmental funding agencies, to carry out collaborative research projects.


A mission of the Belmont Forum is to "deliver knowledge needed for action to avoid and adapt to detrimental environmental change including extreme hazardous events."

According to the group's charter, this requires:
     Assessments of risks, impacts and vulnerabilities, through regional and decadal-scale analysis and prediction
    Information on the state of the environment, through advanced observing systems
    Interaction of natural and social sciences
    Enhanced environmental information service providers to users
    Effective international coordination mechanisms

Current members of the Belmont Forum are: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, European Commission, Germany, Japan, India, Norway, South Africa, UK, USA, International Council for Science (ICSU), and International Social Sciences Council (ISSC).

My role here is as chair of the NSF EarthCube Governance Steering Committee and co-chair of the US Geoscience Information Network (USGIN), among other responsibilities.