First Notice and Call for Abstracts

1st Regional Conference

on Geoinformatics

Disaster Management and Early Warning Systems

November 24-26, 2008

State of Kuwait

The first regional conference on geoinformatics, will focus on the role of geoinformatics in disaster management and early warning systems. This conference will be organized by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) in cooperation with the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS), Egypt.

 This conference is the first one in a series that will take place in our region and will cover many different themes that could benefit from the Geoinformatics technologies. We hope it offers an opportunity for all researchers and professionals involved in the research and development of Geoinformatics and their role in the disaster management and early warning systems.

At this time, the event's scientific committee invites researchers and practitioners in the field to submit extended abstracts that address both theoretical and technical issues of integration of geoinformatics with the disaster management and early warning systems. Suggested topics include:

·        Natural and man-made disasters

­   Flash-floods

­   Sandstorms

­   Earthquakes

­   Risk assessment for epidemic diseases

­   Hurricanes

­   Droughts

­   Wars

­   Oil spills

­   Accidental /toxic gas release

­   Other

·        Disaster management and EWSs

­   Concept

­   Function

­   Applications

·        Integrated geoinformatics technologies to support decision makers before, during and after crises

·        Geoinformatics and modeling

­   Risk assessment

­   Prediction

­   Environmental sensitivity indices

­   Site suitability (optimal allocation of new developments)

­   Post-disaster monitoring (change detection)

·        National disaster management policies and plans:

-   Case studies

   -   Panel discussion

Extended abstracts with 500-1000 words are welcomed. Those selected authors will be asked to submit papers, which will be included in the conference proceeding's.

Important Dates:

·        10 June 2008: Deadline of Extended Abstract

·        01 July 2008: Acceptance Notice

·       01 November 2008: Deadline of  Final  Manuscript

All submissions should be made via email to hgamily@kisr.edu.kw (in MS Word format).