Centre for Natural Hazards relaunched - a new model

Attending the relaunch of the function were (from left to right) Prof Anton Ströh (Vice-Principal at UP); Mr Simon Chikumbu, (Chief Executive Officer at Aon Benfield); Prof Andrzej Kijko, (Director of the Natural Hazards Centre, Africa, at UP); Mr Rudolf Britz (Chief Actuary at MMI Short-term Insurance); Prof Cheryl de la Rey (Vice-Chancellor and Principal at UP) and Mr Colin van der Meulen (Munich RE Insurance Company).

A new model of the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Natural Hazards in Africa (formerly known as Aon Benfield Natural Hazard Centre, Africa) was recently launched with the objective of accommodating the changes in its strategy. The Centre was established in July 2008 and is a multi-sponsorship collaboration between the University of Pretoria and partners from the industry. The partners include Aon Benfield, MMI Holdings and Munich RE.

The Centre conducts excellent work in the field of natural hazards and risk modelling. However, under the new sponsorship model, the Centre will be able to expand and extend its focus to include a broader spectrum of natural hazards that are relevant to the whole continent of Africa. It will also continue to play its dual role of research and education in the field of natural hazards and will serve as a hub of information for the engineering, disaster management and insurance industries.

Prof Andrej Kijko said neighbourhoods in Haiti and Indonesia that were recently destroyed by natural hazards, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, remained like that because of a lack of professional insurance. He said this was what prompted the Centre to cooperate with the insurance industry, which plays a vital role in disaster recovery by managing funds and directing them to those who have been affected.

Prof Kijko said the expansion of the Centre into Africa is indicative of its growth. The Centre has been called upon to calculate the earthquake hazard and risk in Northern Africa, to develop a synthetic seismic event catalogue for the whole of Eastern Africa and to assess the seismic hazard for Harare, Zimbabwe. The Centre has also taken great strides in the tsunami hazard assessment for Chile and the Mediterranean region. ‘These projects, amongst others, were completed with great success. We were privileged to have played a small role in these financial expansions into Africa and we are looking forward to do so much more in the years to come,’ he said. 

Prof De la Rey, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Pretoria, said the reconceptualisation of the Centre is aligned with the key principles of the University’s long-term strategy, UP 2025, which takes cognisance of the national priorities of South Africa. She said the Centre will still be committed to the promotion of research by postgraduate students and will also involve various other academic departments. 

‘The Centre has developed expertise in relation to the needs of the mining industry, and the insurance, risk and disaster management industries. Therefore, the goals of the reconceptualised Centre take it to the future, not only for the University of Pretoria but also for the country and the African region as a whole,’ she said.

According to her, it is important for South Africa and the whole of the African region to have expertise that focuses on managing natural hazards, for instance drought or floods. 

The Chief Executive Officer of Aon, Simon Chikumbu, said they had been doing a number of projects with the Centre in South Africa and even beyond its borders. He said that Aon Bensfield would like to also focus on flooding and hail in the non-seismology areas. ‘We have done quite a lot with regard to seismology cases and we would like to move into other areas, including considering the social side. We have, for instance, recently seen how 2 000 families at Kya Sands, Johannesburg were displaced following the massive destruction of shacks by fire. These people did not have insurance and I think that is where we would like to assist in future,’ he said. 

In South Africa the Centre has also done significant work on assessing the effect of mining and acid water on the largest dams in the country. 

The Centre, in partnership with academics from 12 different universities and institutions in five countries, has published 14 research papers in some of the most prestigious journals around the world. 

In fulfilling its academic duties for the past six years here at the University of Pretoria, the Centre has hosted 18 postgraduate students, inclusive of PhD students.  The students are from a wide variety of backgrounds, for instance geology, insurance and actuarial science, physics and geoinformatics.