March and April 2021 have been busy first months for the TSUNAMI RISK project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and carried out by a consortium of German and Indonesian research institutions. The project partners, including the Disaster Research Unit (DRU) and the coordinating institution German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), could engage in exchanges during a first series of joint workshops which are set to go on over the duration of the project, until February 2023.

The TSUNAMI RISK project officially started on 1st of March 2021. It aims to improve the functioning of the tsunami Early Warning Systems (EWS) in Indonesia, which presently cannot sense the small percentage of tsunamis that can be caused by cascading events. This was demonstrated in 2018, when a major flank collapse of a volcano at Anak Krakatau led to a landslide and to meter-high tsunami waves hitting coastal areas of the islands of Java and Sumatra, without a warning being issued in time.

As one of the social science partners, the DRU observes and supports the process with a critical look at the human factor, which plays a key role all along the information and decision-making chains. By investigating the historically and socio-economically grown risk cultures and the manner in which geo-scientific knowledge evolves and translates into operational practice, the DRU moreover aims to contribute to academic debates, e.g. in the field of Science and Technology Studies. The findings will be incorporated into guidelines and recommendations for action to improve disaster risk management in Indonesia, and hopefully beyond.