This award supports a cooperative pilot project on multiple-natural hazard mitigation between the US and Taiwan. The effort will be divided into four tasks. Task I is to inventory information on available natural hazard reduction technologies and organizations responsible for natural hazards mitigation; design the data base format, and enter the information. In Task II, a site in Taiwan will be selected as the demonstration locale and comprehensive data, e.g., nature of natural hazards, historical records on frequency of occurrence, population at risk, building inventory, economic vulnerability, etc., will be compiled. Similar information but in more general terms will be collected for the US. During Task III, the bilateral program will be designed taking into account the existing coping mechanisms for the most frequent hazards and integrating them with the measures taken for less frequent recurring natural disasters. Three key areas will be addressed: 1) education and training of specifically identified audiences on strategies to minimize effects of natural disasters; 2) ways and means to implement available mitigation techniques, e.g., building codes for new structures and upgrading for old ones; and 3) research needed for better dealing with multiple hazard vulnerability. Task IV will consist of the evaluation of the preceding activities at a workshop, where findings and recommendations for multiple hazard reduction program implementation will be presented. The US PI is Dr. George Lee, SUNY, Buffalo, and the Taiwan PI is Dr. Chao-Shiuan Liu, National Taiwan University.
