Currently visiting: Cees van Westen

03.06.2023

During the summer term, Cees van Westen is teaching as visiting professor at the Department of Geography and Regional Research. In his research, the Professor at the University of Twente concentrates on Multi-Hazard Risk Dynamics like the Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

 

  • What is so fascinating about your research area?

My research focuses on the analysis of how extreme events, such as earthquakes, floods and landslides may cause an impact on society, how hazards interact and how they cause impact chains of cascading events. Multi-hazard risk assessment aims to describe such impact chains, characterise the individual components and, where possible, quantify them. This is done in order to be able to better plan for risk reduction options, and to analyse how risk may change over time resulting from climate change, and socio-economic changes. The estimation of the impact of compounding events is a major research challenge, with many uncertainties. Compounding events are multiple events that worsen the impact, such as the occurrence of the earthquake in Syria in an area that is already heavily affected by war. I work together with NGO’s, international organizations and national and local authorities to provide better baseline information to estimate how multi-hazard risk changes through time. This can be related to long-term trends, such as climate change, or short-term ones, such as the changes occurring after major disasters.

  • Which central message should your students remember?

Working in an organization for international capacity development in the field of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), which has become a faculty of the University of Twente since 2010, I have been working with many PhD and MSc students from all over the world. I like to share my experience in using spatial data for disaster risk management in different environments, in terms of physical environment and data availability. With the UN I am teaching courses internationally on the use of ICT for Disaster Management. I am teaching a course, together with a number of colleagues from an EU research project PARATUS. I would like the students to remember that they can make a difference in providing better information on how disaster risk can be reduced, and that they can apply this information to reduce human suffering and deterioration of the earth’s environment.

  • Why did you decide to do research and teach at our Faculty?

I have been working together with Prof. Thomas Glade and his research group for over two decades now. We have collaborated in several EU projects, and in projects in Asia, which focused on the establishment of a University network for disaster risk management. Within Europe we collaborated in several EU Marie Curie Doctoral networks (Mountain Risk, and Changes)  which aimed to develop an advanced understanding of how global changes (related to environmental and climate change as well as socio-economical change) will affect the temporal and spatial patterns of hydro-meteorological hazards and associated risks in Europe; how these changes can be assessed, modelled, and incorporated in sustainable risk management strategies, focusing on spatial planning, emergency preparedness and risk communication.

 

  • Which three publications characterise your work?

- Caribbean: CHARIM project. Caribbean Handbook on Disaster Information Management,. This Worl Bank projectwith funding from ACP-EU Natural Disaster REduction Programme developed an on-line handbook  to support the generation and application of landslide and flood hazard and risk information to inform projects and program of planning and infrastructure sectors, specifically targeted to small countries in the Caribbean region. The methodology centers around a series of use cases, which are practical examples. National scale datasets were organized and stored in the CHARIM GEoNode platform. National scale landslide and flood hazard maps were made for Belize, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.

- Tang, C. , & van Westen, C. J. (2018). Atlas of Wenchuan-Earthquake Geohazards: Analysis of co-seismic and post-seismic Geohazards in the area affected by the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. Science Press 

- van Westen, C. J. , Straatsma, M. , Turdukulov, U., Feringa, W. F., Sijmons, K., Bakhtadze, K., ... Kheladze, N. (2012). Atlas of natural hazards and risks of Georgia : e-book. Tbilisi: Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN). 

 

Thank you & welcome to our Faculty!

 

  • Prof. Dr. Cees van Westen is Full professor for Multi-Hazard Risk Dynamics at the Earth System Analysis Department of the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Twente University, the Netherlands. He obtained his Ph.D. in Engineering Geology from the Technical University of Delft in 1993, with research on "Geographic Information Systems for Landslide Hazard Zonation". He is working in the Department of Earth Systems Analysis, and contributes to the research theme 4D-Earth, specifically to Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Management. Cees van Westen was involved in projects related to the development of open source GIS software and developed many training materials on the use of GIS for hazard and risk assessment. He has carried out research on different hazard and risk related aspects in many different countries, among them Austria. His current research interest is to develop methods for the analysis of changing multi-hazard risk.

  • Working group / host professor: Department of Geography and Regional Research, Prof. Thomas Glade

  • Courses in the summer term:
    https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/course.html?lv=280100&semester=2023S

In the summer term 2023, Cees van Westen is visiting professor at the ENGAGE Working group at the Department of Geography and Regional Research. In his research, the Professor at the University of Twente concentrates on Multi-Hazard Risk Dynamics like the Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

Cees van Westen hiking in the mountains. Photo: (C) Cees van Westen

Multi-hazard risk assessment aims to describe how extreme events interact: "Compounding events are multiple events that worsen the impact, such as the occurrence of the earthquake in Syria in an area that is already heavily affected by war", he explains. Photo: (C) Cees van Westen

Cees van Westen with colleagues. Photo: (C) Cees van Westen

He works together with NGO’s, international organizations and national and local authorities to provide better baseline information to estimate how multi-hazard risk changes through time. This can be related to long-term trends, such as climate change, or short-term ones, such as the changes occurring after major disasters.

 

Photo: (C) Cees van Westen in the field with students

His students he would like to remember that "they can make a difference in providing better information on how disaster risk can be reduced, and that they can apply this information to reduce human suffering and deterioration of the earth’s environment." Photo: (C) Cees van Westen