GLADE

Extreme natural events pose escalating risks to human health, increasing? mortality and morbidity particularly among older adults, children, low-income communities, and individuals with pre-existing health conditions. The frequency and severity of these events has been increasing putting health systems under pressure.? Health promotion must be continuous and life-course oriented, supporting maternal and child health, safeguarding working populations, and promoting healthy ageing. Lifelong wellbeing emphasises prevention, preparedness, and the creation of environments that reduce vulnerability before disasters occur. This session welcomes the submission of works on the human health impacts of extreme events, health promotion initiatives towards better individual and societal preparedness and health system resilience.

VISCC

As urbanization continues to grow, extreme events present significant challenges to cities and communities worldwide. Heat waves, heavy rains, or unusual storms and wind gusts in typically moderate climate regions are some examples that recently devastated some EC2U cities, making a reality of what is often perceived as distant. Consequences as floods, landslides or extreme heat islands exacerbate health risks, stress energy resources and infrastructures, and worsen urban liveability. Thus, understanding the causes of extreme events and their consequences in urban environments has become even more urgent. We welcome works that discuss the impacts of such climate change phenomena in the urban built environment and, especially, that contribute to developing effective mitigation and/or resilience strategies in urban contexts. We welcome all the approaches that, together, contribute to the multidisciplinarity of SDG11 – architecture, engineering, geography, urban planning, climate modelling, urban energy systems, sustainability economics, social sciences.

VIQE - ML

Under the theme “Languaging and Communicating Extreme Events”, we encourage analyses of how extreme natural events are framed and narrated across media, institutional, scientific, and activist/grassroots contexts. Particular attention is given to discursive practices of warning, alert, and critical awareness of danger and disaster, among other languaging, rhetorical or communicative strategies, exploring how urgency, responsibility, and vulnerability are discursively constructed and represented. Beyond representations, we welcome analyses on how linguistic and communicative practices — shaped by both human and more-than-human agencies, including bodies, technologies, infrastructures, data systems, and urban environments — participate in producing, sensing, embodying, and circulating perceptions and affective responses to extreme events, also mediated by language and cultural diversity. Finally, we welcome reflections on the methods and theories mobilised to address risk and extreme events, considering how scientific discourses, technical vocabularies, and other knowledge regimes mediate action and intervention. The session fosters interdisciplinary dialogue on how language and communication do not merely describe a world of risk and extreme phenomena, but actively co-constructs how it is experienced, governed, and collectively responded to.

VIPJSI

Under the topic “Strong(er) Public Institutions in Responding to Extreme Events”, we invite submissions that critically examine the role of public institutions in the anticipation, management, and aftermath of extreme events, and explore ways in which this role may be consistently strengthened. Emphasis is placed on the refinement of the legal-juridical frameworks within which those institutions operate, with the aim of enhancing institutional capacity across multiple levels of governance – from local to national and supranational authorities. Assessments of the political dynamics underpinning the actions of public institutions and resulting from their intervention are also strongly encouraged. Special attention will be given to identifying barriers that constrain the ability of public institutions to respond effectively to extreme events, as well as to proposing practical, theoretically grounded, solutions to ensure preparedness and beneficial responses for all. For example, this includes improvements in decision-making and coordination processes, while upholding fundamental values such as legitimacy, accountability, transparency, trust, and inclusiveness, which are critical in democratic contexts. Also, we encourage analyses of how institutional responses under conditions of urgency and uncertainty can be designed to safeguard human rights, especially those of vulnerable groups, as well as democratic participation and oversight. Contributions should consider how to ensure that emergency measures do not inadvertently undermine these rights, examining potential tensions between emergency interventions and rights- based frameworks, as well as mechanisms capable of mitigating or resolving such tensions. Finally, we also welcome abstracts that focus on Human Security/Insecurity, protection of vulnerable populations and ways to foster solidarity in responses to natural disasters.