The IUGG Electronic JournalVolume 6 No. 5 (May 1, 2006)This short, informal newsletter is intended to keep IUGG Member National Committees informed about the activities of the IUGG Associations, and actions of the IUGG Secretariat. Past issues are posted on the IUGG Web site. Please forward this message to those who will benefit from the information. Your comments are welcome. Contents
1. Announcement of IUGG General Assembly Union Lecturers IUGG President Uri Shamir has selected the 4 Union Lecturers for the 2007 General Assembly in Perugia, Italy. These lecturers, and the dates of each presentation, are as follows. Dr. Robert Corell; Senior Policy Fellow, American Meteorology Society; Monday, 2 July Prof. Maria Zuber; Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Thursday 5 July Prof. Claudio Faccenna; Geological Sciences, University of Rome; Tuesday 10 July Dr. Kenji Satake; National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Geological Survey of Japan; Friday 13 July. 2. Reminder: Nominations for IUGG Officers and the Finance Committee are open An important matter for the IUGG Council at its meeting in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 will be the election of officers (President, Vice-President, Secretary-General, Treasurer, and 3 Members), and the 4 members of the Finance Committee. The Nominations Committee has the task of collecting the nominations and preparing the ballot, following the rules regarding nominations and elections for these positions (IUGG By-Laws, Section 10). The members of the Nominations Committee are as follows: Chair: Dr. Søren Gregersen (Denmark) sg@geus.dk Members: Prof. Attia Ashour (Egypt), Prof. Robert Duce (USA), and Prof. Seiya Uyeda (Japan)Instructions regarding the procedures to be used to submit nominations in accordance with IUGG Statute 11 and By-law 10 are posted on the IUGG Web site and have been mailed to all IUGG officers and Adhering Bodies. The first deadline for nominations is 30 September 2006. For further information, contact Dr. Gregersen or the IUGG Secretariat. 3. New International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management Professor Kuniyoshi Takeuchi, past-President of IAHS (2001-2005) and Vice-Chair of the IUGG Union Commission on Geophysical Risk and Sustainability, has been appointed as the Founding Director of the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM), inaugurated under the auspices of UNESCO on 6 March 2006. The Centre is an outcome of the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto in 2002 and is hosted by the Public Works Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan. The goal of the Centre is to provide practicable strategies to localities, regions, and nations to manage the risk of water-related disasters including floods, drought, landslide, debris flow, storm surge, tsunamis, and water contamination. For example, ICHARM will develop inundation models and distribute them to countries to help forecast and mitigate damage, and will train researchers from developing countries to create flood-hazard maps. The ICHARM Newsletter No.1 is posted on their website: www.icharm.pwri.go.jp. The ICSU Scientific Committee on Solar Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) held a Bureau meeting on 5 March 2006 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in association with the STP-11 Symposium. At that time, it was announced that Joe Allen was retiring as Scientific Secretary, and that Gang Lu, a research scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will take over from Joe and locate the Secretariat at NCAR in Boulder, Colorado (USA). It was further announced Susan Avery, Interim Provost of the University of Colorado, will become the Co-chair of the SCOSTEP international program on Climate and Weather of the Sun-Earth System (CAWSES) on 1 April. She will share the duties of the Chair with Sunanda Basu, who has been instrumental in initiating this five-year program and has chaired it since 2004, until August 1 when Sunanda will retire and Susan will become the Chair. The next meeting of the SCOSTEP Bureau will take place in conjunction with the IUGG General Assembly in Perugia, Italy, 2-13 July 2007. For additional information about CAWSES and its 5 scientific themes, please read their March newsletter posted on the website www.bu.edu/cawses. 5. Recent Advances toward an International Year of Planet Earth Dr. Eduardo F.J. deMulder reports that steady progress is being made toward The Year, which was proclaimed for 2008 by the UN General Assembly. 2008 is the central year is a triennium that will begin in January 2007 and end in December 2008. Fund-raising is in progress to support the Science and Outreach programmes that are already in place. For additional information, visit the website www.yearofplanetearth.org. 6. IUGG-Related Meetings Occurring during May - July 2006 A calendar of meetings of interest to IUGG disciplines (especially those organized or sponsored by IUGG Associations) is posted on the IUGG Web Site [ www.iugg.org ]. Specific information about these meetings, including web links, can be found there. Individual Associations also list more meetings on their web sites appropriate to their disciplines. May 14 - May 18, 2006 May 15 - May 19, 2006 May 21 - May 24, 2006 May 22 - May 24, 2006 May 23 - May 26, 2006 May 23 - May 26, 2006 May 29 - June 2, 2006 May 30 - June 3, 2006 June 1 - June 2, 2006 June 4 - June 8, 2006 June 6 - June 8, 2006 June 6 - June 9, 2006 June 8 - June 10, 2006 June 8 - June 10, 2006 June 14 - June 16, 2006 June 16, 2006 June 17 - June 21, 2006 June 19 - June 23, 2006 June 19 - June 24, 2006 June 30 - July 1, 2006 July 3 - 7, 2006 July 8 - 15, 2006 July 9 - 14, 2006 July 9 - 15, 2006 July 10 - 14, 2006 July 15 - 19, 2006 July 16 - 23, 2006 July 17 - 19, 2006 July 25 - August 3, 2006 End of IUGG Electronic Journal Volume 6 Number 5 (May 1, 2006) |
