CODATA Task Group on FAIR Data for Disaster Risk Research Enters Sixth Implementation Cycle

At the Executive Committee Meeting of the International Scientific Data Committee (CODATA), the CODATA Task Group on Fair Data for Disaster Risk Research (Fair-DRR) won unanimous support and successfully entered its sixth implementation cycle (2022-2024), marking it one of the longest-lasting working groups of CODATA.

This working group was established on the basis of the CODATA Task Group on Linked Open Data for Global Disaster Risk Research (LODGD), which was initiated in 2012 by Prof.LI Guoqing from the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and its name was changed to the "Disaster Risk Research Data Working Group" in 2018.

The working group aims to call on scientists around the world to pay attention to the data problems in disaster risk and disaster emergency research, and exchange and discuss the resource characteristics, setting up regulations, analysis methods, policy mechanisms, cultural ethics, development trends and so on of disaster data through multi-disciplinary dialogues of nature, engineering, humanities and people's livelihood.

The working group currently includes more than 60 members from more than 30 countries around the world. Five co-chairs are from China, New Zealand, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom. Prof. LI Guoqing serves as co-chair.

Since its inception, China has been playing a leading role by offering secretariat and financial support for the annual meeting of the working group, and more importantly, putting forward new working ideas and research directions in every implementation cycle.

Since 2018 the Task Group has produced a series of White Papers addressing key issues relating to data in disaster risk reduction research. Three white papers have been published, High-cited papers has led the relevant international research on related disaster data topics.

Secondly, the working group has been actively participating in the international communities for governance of related disaster risk research (DRR), in close partnership with the United Nations Sendai disaster reduction mechanism, the Earth Observation Organization (GEO), the scientific disaster reduction plan (IRDR), etc., and play an active role in related major policy research.

The task group actively the practice of disaster emergency and disaster risk management based on data sharing. The task group has won a 2020 GEO SDG Award in support of UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 for the work on the Rapid Damage Mapping tool.

In June2021, China, New Zealand, Japan and Russia jointly launched a brand-new international disaster reduction data cooperation mechanism Vordm (Voluntary Rapid Disaster Mapping), which promoted the construction of a brand-new flat, intelligent and voluntary global disaster data partnership based on the concept of Open Science.