The International Conference on Disaster Management is being reconvened following the success of the previous four meetings, held at Wessex Institute in the New Forest in 2009, the University of Central Florida in Orlando, USA in 2011, A Coruña, Spain in 2013 and Istanbul Technical University, Turkey 2015.

This series of conferences originated with the need for academia and practitioners to exchange knowledge and experience on the way to handle the increasing risk of natural and human-made disasters. Recent major earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and other natural phenomena have resulted in huge losses in terms of human life and property destruction. A new range of human-made disasters have afflicted humanity in modern times; terrorist activities have been added to more classical disasters such as those due to the failure of industrial installations for instance.

It is important to understand the nature of these global risks to be able to develop strategies to prepare for these events and plan effective responses in terms of disaster management and the associated human health impacts.