Project Overview
Title: Disaster and Health Emergency Urban Systemic Risk (DHEUSeR) Transformation Cluster
Funding Agency: DHEUSeR (Disaster and Health Emergency Urban Systemic Risk Transformation Cluster)
Goal: To develop interdisciplinary methods and digital tools to assess and mitigate the impact of solar storms on power systems, enhancing infrastructure resilience and public safety.
Project Summary
Complex hazards and systemic vulnerabilities are converging, leading to disruptive disaster and health emergency events that can escalate in frequency and severity while reverberating and cascading across multiple scales. The idea of systemic risk has been on the global health, financial crisis and sustainability agenda since the turn of the century. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgent need and demand for a transformative approach to the interconnected and systemic factors and processes in order to safeguard and enhance health and sustainability in urban contexts. Systemic risk events are predominantly urban, and urban demographic, socioeconomic, technological and environmental forces play a decisive role in defining vulnerability and inequity.
Transformative changes are needed in concepts, models, policy, governance, and operational tools to identify and manage systemic risks of disaster and health emergencies in urban contexts. "Disaster and Health Emergency Urban Systemic Risk (DHEUSeR) Transformation Cluster” responds to this set of needs.
Key Research Areas
Thematic areas:
- I. Risk Analysis: Identification, Monitoring, Forecasting, Modelling and Measurements
- II. Social, Psychological, and Behavioural Dimensions:
- III. Policy, Ethics, and Society
- IV. Risk Transferring, Sharing and Financing V.Digital Tools and Platforms:
- VI. Scenario and Simulation Drills
- VII. Governance, Civil Society Action Strategy: Equity-Plus Networks; Transformative Change workshops.
Subprojects include:
- Risk Transferring, Sharing & Financing - Leads: Ida Ferrara and Eduard Furman (Theme IV)
- Disasters and Health Emergency Management - Policy and Ethics - Leads: Jennifer Spinney and Eric Kennedy (Themes II & III)
- Computational Methods for Mitigation of Solar Storm Effects - Leads: Afshin Rezaei-Zare and Maleknaz Nayebi (Themes V & VI)
- Disaster & Emergency Operations and Management Modeling, Series Game, and Exercise - Leads: Ali Asgary and Jianhong Wu (Theme VI)
Key Contributors
Principal Investigator: Professor Jianhong Wu
Co- Principal Investigator: Dr. Afshin Rezaei-Zare
Funding and Resources
- NSERC Alliance – Mitacs
- SSHRC PEG
- Ontario Wildfire Program
- Fields-Sanofi Collaboration (Fields Institute)
- NSERC Alliance (separate from Mitacs)
Impact and Future Goals
To develop advanced computational tools and methods that assess the impact of solar storms on power systems—specifically focusing on geomagnetically induced currents (GIC)—with the broader aim of contributing to national and international research initiatives. This project supports the long-term sustainability goals of the DHEUSeR Cluster by aligning with external funding strategies, such as NSERC Alliance, NFRF, and SSHRC, and advancing Canada’s resilience against space weather threats through digital innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration.