cee200: Structural & Geotechnical Engineering Seminar

UCLA Civil & Environmental Engineering Department

Measuring, Monitoring and Evaluating Community
Resilience using Remote Sensing Technologies

Ronald T. Eguchi

President & CEO

ImageCat, California                                                                             rte@imagecatinc.com |    www.imagecatinc.com

In many instances, disasters act as catalysts in the adoption of new and emerging technologies.  Spawned by the need to rapidly collect vital information for disaster management, technology innovations have often helped emergency responders to assess the impact of large disasters more efficiently and rapidly, and to track and monitor progress in critical response and recovery operations.  All of these events underscore the opportunities that emerge when time-critical information can be delivered more efficiently to users making critical decisions during the disaster. One technology which has had an enormous impact on disaster management has been remote sensing.  In the past several decades, this technology has been used extensively to explain the extent of impacts caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, wildfires and terrorist attacks. Remote sensing technologies are also playing a major role in helping to understand the vulnerability and resilience of many emerging economies around the world. This presentation will show through examples how remote sensing technologies have changed the way in which we measure, monitor and evaluate community resilience to natural hazards worldwide.

Where:   Haines Hall 220

When:    4 – 6 PM, Tuesday, May 8

Mr. Eguchi is President and CEO of ImageCat, Inc., an international risk management company that supports the global risk and catastrophe management needs of the insurance industry, governments and NGOs.  Mr. Eguchi has over 30 years of experience in risk analysis and risk reduction studies.  He currently serves or has served on several editorial boards including EERI’s Journal SPECTRA.  In 1997, he was awarded the ASCE C. Martin Duke Award.  In 2006, he accepted an ATC Award of Excellence on behalf of the ATC-61 project team for work that showed that a dollar spent on hazard mitigation saves the nation about $4 in future benefits. He was recognized by EERI as the 2008 Distinguished Lecturer. He currently chairs the Technical Committee on Advances in Information Technologies for the SEI Division of ASCE.  He has authored over 300 publications. He was awarded the 2017 Civil & Environmental Engineering Department Distinguished Alumnus Award from UCLA.