The interdisciplinary Institute of Spatial and Regional planning (IREUS) at University of Stuttgart, Germany, who are the founding coordinator and host of the IRDR ICoE on Critical Infrastructures and Strategic Planning (CI&SP) convened on 15 to 17 June 2015 an international workshop to discuss methodical approaches for risk assessment in major coastal cities.

The event, which is part of the Belmont-project Transformation and Resilience on Urban Coasts (TRUC), heard contributions from 10 scientists hailing from Nigeria, Japan, India, England, USA and Germany. Work presented focused on Tokyo, New York, London, Kolkata and Lagos – the five investigation areas. Among the panelists discussing the topic: New challenges: urbanization, emerging risk and risk communication were researchers from the Kings College London-based IRDR ICoE on Risk Interpretation and Action.

“Transformation opens new opportunities for living with risk where existing systems are generative of vulnerability and hazard or where preventing systems failure is impossible, it also recognizes the cultural specificity of resilience and transformation where change or stability may benefit some actors more than others, now and in the future. The relationship between resilience and transformation is arguably most acute on highly urbanized coasts where interactions between concentrated human activity and environmental dynamics are at their most intensive and transformations can be observed. TRUC is focussed on this relationship in five coastal megacities: Kolkata, Lagos, London, New York and Tokyo (with Shanghai also being studied in a funded sister project).”