Severe Cold Climate Workshop

The workshop, organized jointly by the Center for Excellence in Disaster Response (Hawai'i) and the Northern Forum, was held April 10-12 at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage. It was attended by a delegation from Sakha, a representative from Lapland, several delegates from Canada and numerous delegates from Alaska. The delegates participated in case studies on floods and oil spills and visited the State and the municipal emergency centers in Anchorage.

The working groups were dedicated to floods and oil spills and produced a range of recommendations to be transmitted to the EPPR and the Arctic Council SAO and Ministerial meetings. The recommendations include the creation of working groups both for natural catastrophes like flooding and man-made catastrophes like oil spills: the role of these working groups would be to share expertise, develop catalogs of best practices and research training opportunities.

The flood workshop also recommended developing plans for prevention and response, joint rescue exercises in Northern regions, while the oil spill working group recognized that a large amount of information is available in all the regions, and therefore it might be advisable to use a site like the Northern Forum's to advertise existing resources.