The 4th Expert Meeting of the IRDR Working Group DATA (Disaster Loss Data) last 23-25 February in Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), in the Netherlands, resulted to the publication of Guidelines on Measuring Losses from Disasters: Human and Economic Impact Indicators.  The publication was presented  in the IRDR public forum event last 15 March by DATA Chair Susan Cutter at the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan.

At the Delft meeting, IRDR SC Sisi Zlatanova gave a short presentation on TU Delft. Pieter van Gelder, Director of Safety and Security Institute of TU Delft, acknowledged the importance of the work of IRDR DATA group as he shared some of the most significant disasters in Netherlands.

The group discussed ways on how to make Peril Classification and Hazard Glossary and the Human and Economic Impact Indicators known to the Open Geospatial Consortium, a standardization body developing standards for exchange of spatially located information. The Domain Working Group (DWG) on Emergency Response and Disaster Management serves as one of the working groups within the OGC.

Sisi Zlatanova was invited to present the two documents in Barcelona, Spain during a technical meeting with DWG of OGC on 10 March. The DATA presentation triggered a lot of questions and interests such as ideas to organise a test bed and test the classifications and further develop them into an ontology (for query and exchange of information).

In June 2015, the IRDR DATA Working Group will be headed by Sisi Zlatanova as the Chair and Daniele Ehrlich as Co-Chair to replace outgoing SC member Susan Cutter who has chaired the DATA Working Group for years now.

In 2014, IRDR SC Member and DATA Co-Chair Susan Cutter had prepared, as part of IRDR’s contributions and background research for GAR 2015, a paper: University of South Carolina. 2014. Who needs loss data? Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: UNISDR.