“1st International Student Symposium on selected problems of Geomatics for Disaster risk Reduction Cambodia – Malaysia – Philippines, 2024” (ISSSPGeoDRR), was one of the additional activities undertaken as part of the implementation of the international Erasmus PLUS Capacity Building project “Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction” (GeoDRR) by the Silesian University of Technology.
The aim of the project is to create a new specialization of second-cycle studies “Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction” with the necessary laboratory facilities at six Asian universities. A course will be created to train specialists in the field of forecasting, monitoring, and analysing natural disasters. The new specialisation will educate highly specialized staff prepared to forecast, monitor, and analyse natural disasters, and in the event of their occurrence, manage them, with particular emphasis on ensuring the safety of victims and infrastructure.
Silesian University of Technology is the leader of the GeoDRR project implemented by a consortium of 10 partners: Silesian University of Technology, six universities from Southeast Asia (Xavier University, Philippines, University of the Cordilleras, Philippines, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia, National University of Battambang, Cambodia, Svay Rieng University, Cambodia), and two European universities (University of Alicante, Spain, University of West Attica, Greece) and a consulting and IT company (novel Group S.à.r.l., Luxembourg).
The project has been implemented since 2020 and is conducted at the Faculty of Mining, Safety Engineering and Industrial Automation in the Department of Geoengineering and Resource Exploitation (RG4). Its coordinator, since 2022 has been Dr Eng. Krzysztof Tomiczek.
The September Student Symposium is a supplement to the GeoDRR Student Conference, which took place in February 2024 and showed the high level of substantive and visual work of students from four countries. During the last symposium, fourteen papers were presented, authored by fifty-three students from Asia.
The meeting was held under the honorary patronage of the Rector of the Silesian University of Technology, Prof. Dr Hab. Eng. Marek Pawełczyk. In the Scientific and Advisory Committee, apart from the coordinator of the project Dr Eng. Krzysztof Tomiczek, there were vice-rectors, deans, professors, and project managers from the entire Consortium.
The symposium’s papers, as from the previous conference, were at a very good substantive and presentation level. They covered issues such as geomechanics, geotechnics, geography, seismology, hydrology, numerical modelling, image analysis, geophysics, management, and information systems.
The idea of the originators was and is to build tradition and scientific integration of institutions participating in the GeoDRR project, in the field of natural disasters. The positive commitment, presence and quality of the papers give hope for the continuation of these meetings in the coming years.