5th International symposium on wind effects on buildings and urban environment (ISWE5)

Symposium objective

Wind-related events account for a large percentage of the world’s economic losses caused by natural disasters. Damage caused by extreme winds such as typhoons and tornadoes is clearly increasing. The number of severe wind induced damage incidents causing loss of life, serious societal impact and threats to national as well as regional security is also increasing, for instance, Hurricane Katrina in the USA in 2005, and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, which caused a death toll of as many as 140,000 people in May 2008. The effects of rapid urbanization, global warming and climate change are now regarded as indirect causes of these disasters.

Rapid urbanization and population concentration from the burgeoning economic development in the Pacific-rim countries increase energy consumption and worsen air quality as well as thermal comfort in urban environments. In order to tackle these problems, it is essential to reduce energy consumption by utilizing building ventilation and also to reduce air pollution as well as heat pollution by actively promoting urban ventilation.

The primary purpose of this symposium is to provide an ideal venue for exchanging and sharing information through discussion, so that serious wind-related problems regarding wind hazard risk due to meteorological turbulence such as typhoons and tornadoes, urban air pollution and increase of environmental load can be solved. The forum aims at contributing to the development and construction of sustainable urban environments with low energy built environment and hence to achieve wind hazard resilient cities.

Programme

The symposium is divided into three parts: Invited Session, Organized Session and General Session. In the invited session, several distinguished researchers in the fields of city strong wind hazard and climate change will be invited as keynote speakers. In the organized session, issues of urban climate change, damage recognition method with satellite images and gust front will be discussed. Papers from individuals or groups are most welcome. The main theme of the forum is focused on wind hazard risks. Thus, contributions to the organized session as well as the general session are stressed to fit into the objective of this symposium.