Shillong (Meghalaya), Feb 2 : The Indian Geophysical Union (IGU) with headquarter at NGRI, Hyderabad, a 58-year-old union engaged in the service to better understand societal problems and finding feasible solution with special reference to earth, with discussion on current topics and recent phenomena required for development of sustainable society and to promote and encourage young researchers in improving their research capabilities and widen their knowledge under the guidance of eminent scientists to make use of their vast experience in the field of Geophysics, and to continue to serve the Earth Scientific Community of India is jointly organizing with North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) its 58th Annual Convention on theme “Recent Advances in Earth Sciences with Special Emphasis –Natural Hazards” from Feb 2 to 4 .
The three-day virtual convention will cover award talks and technical sessions on various disciplines of Earth Sciences such as Solid Earth Geosciences, Marine Geosciences, Atmospheric, Planetary & Space Sciences.
The Inaugural programme of 58th Annual Convention of Indian Geophysical Union (IGU) was held virtually on Wednesday .
The Inaugural Session started with the welcome address by Prof. P. S. Shukla, Vice Chancellor, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He welcomed the gathering and highlighted the importance of Earth Sciences and its influence on the exploration of natural resources, climate change and pollution control. In his address he mentioned that the earth is going to face different types of problems due to natural hazards and he reiterated that it is essential to carry out scientific research using the holistic approach to meet these challenges. This was followed by report from the Honorary Secretary’s of IGU Dr. Abhey Ram Bansal, Senior Principal Scientists, NGRI, Hyderabad where in he enumerated various activities during the year 2020 – 2021.
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Prof. Shailesh Nayak, President, IGU and Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru in his inaugural address highlighted the major challenges for the sustainability of mankind i.e., natural hazards and the climate change. He mentioned that natural hazards essentially represent the extreme fluctuations of average dynamic state of the earth system and the effective response to any such hazardous events depend on the quality of scientific knowledge about that hazard, expertise of the organizations who are responsible for responding to such extreme events and the hazard consciousness of the communities involved. He also emphasized that the building of effective resilience to natural hazards needs to be addressed at all the three levels viz. the global or the earth system, the social system comprising of infrastructure, and industrial capability and the human system. He stressed that satellite and aircraft observations along with geographic information system (GIS) are extremely powerful tool for responding to any type of hazard..
Chief Guest of the program, Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, New Delhi, in his remarks mentioned that the increasing frequency, intensity, and severity of natural hazards is one of the most pressing global environmental change problems. He stressed that from the local to the global level, governments and civil society need to increase resilience to these hazards. He advised the young researchers to achieve excellence through hard work and come out with innovations which would help in the development of India. According to him there is no way to avoid the natural hazards but to study them for resilience.
President of IGU honoured meritorious senior and young scientists with IGU National awards for the year 2021. This was followed by Prof. K.R Ramanathan Memorial Lecture by Dr. M. Ravichandran. Secretary, MoES, Government of India, New Delhi.
The Inaugural programme concluded with vote of thanks by Prof. Devesh Walia, Convenor, Local Organizing Committee, 58th Annual Convention of Indian Geophysical Union and Head, Department of Geology, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He indebted his gratitude to IGU especially Prof. Shailesh Nayak President, IGU for their unequivocal support and guidance to organize this event, acknowledged Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla, Vice Chancellor, NEHU for all the support and cooperation and Dr. M. Ravichandran. Secretary, MoES, New Delhi for accepting the invitation and delivering a talk on “Teleconnections between Poles and Tropics”.
Further, Prof. Walia highlighted that geophysics provide a tool to understand and unravel the complex processes of the earth leading to the natural hazards. Such a platform provides an opportunity to all the stakeholders including the students to interact, communicate and network with the scientists and researchers involved in deciphering the crustal configuration and help prepare the hazard prediction model and early warning systems.
After the Inaugural Session, two technical sessions with oral presentations on Previous hypotheses or hazard scenarios; Solutions for risk mitigations; Integration of Hazard Assessment in Risk Analysis and Development of New techniques and methodologies; Studies on Societal Impacts of Natural hazards; New finding to understand the triggering and propagation mechanisms were conducted. The third technical session by poster presentation was conducted using the virtual mode.
The oral and poster presentations during the technical sessions on topics of importance were presented by eminent scientists, researchers and students from various parts of the country. Altogether during the three days program there will be ten technical sessions on various topics of importance.
The Organizing Committee received more than 125 abstracts which are published in the abstract book. There were more than 200 delegates including 80 research scholars and students registered for the 58th Annual Convention.
