Dialogue Session: Beyond Death, Dollars and Downtime: Exploring Functional Recovery

September 29, 1-2:30 pm

With David Bonowitz (EERI Distinguished Lecturer 2020), Angie Woo (Fraser Health), John Sherstobitoff (John Sherstobitoff, Principal- Seismic & Structures at Ausenco, Chair of NBCC Standing Committee on Earthquake Design and Founding President of EERI-BC), moderated by Micah Hilt (City of Vancouver) 

• Hear from a panel of practitioners, local and US-based, how they are thinking about and implementing performance-based approaches to enhancing resilience in the built environment and how this influences recovery trajectories. This session is hosted in collaboration with the local chapter of EERI (EERI-BC), featuring this year’s distinguished lecturer, David Bonowitz. 

Understanding Risk (UR) BC 2020 (www.urbc.ca) is an online, collaborative symposium and event series that will foster place-based risk reduction strategies to proactively enhance resilience and improve disaster recovery pathways in BC.

URBC 2020 will feature online events from summer to fall- 2020:

• Summer Webinars: Hear from local and international experts on the holistic understanding of disaster impacts
• Pre-symposium Workshops: Interactive sessions to learn and contribute to understanding risk in BC
• Launch Events: September and November sessions that merge art, knowledge, practice and policy to share key updates, and offer a sneak-peek at upcoming themes and sessions.
• Initiatives-in-focus Workshops: Step into the shoes of leading practitioners and policy makers in BC to wrestle with emerging issues that aim to reduce disaster risk and build resilience
• Dialogue Panels: Tune into exciting conversations that examine key tensions, challenges and opportunities to improve disaster recovery pathways in BC   
• Closing: Connect, reflect, celebrate and initiate next steps

Event Objectives

• Reporting on progress of actionable strategies and outcomes from previous and ongoing UR Symposiums as well as related DRR/CCA efforts
• Demonstrate components of the BC Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Hub, identify opportunities for its short-term priorities and advance its long term financial and governance model
• Advance essential and non-traditional partnerships across the science-policy-action interface to reduce risk and build resilience
• Make connections across projects and initiatives towards enhanced collaboration and reduced duplication
• Support advancement and implementation of existing recommendations and commitments that have been made in BC and Canada in relation to climate and disaster risk management by fostering generative dialogue across disciplines and cultures