Faculty of Mining, Safety Engineering and Industrial Automation

On 18-22 July 2022, trainings, workshops and a project managers' meeting were held in Svay Rieng University and Phnom Penh (Cambodia) as part of the implemented project 'Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction' (GeoDRR, Erasmus+).

The project 'Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction' has been implemented since December 2020 and is planned to be completed in November 2023. 10 Partners are participating in the project. The project leader is the Silesian University of Technology. The aim of the project is to launch a new degree specialisation "Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction" at 6 Asian universities (Cambodia - Svay Rieng University, National University of Battambang, Malaysia - Universiti Sains Malaysia, University Utara Malaysia, Philippines - University of the Cordilleras, Xavier University). Graduates of this-, 2nd degree specialisation will be competent in predicting, controlling and dealing with natural disasters. Southeast Asia is the most natural disasters-prone continent in the world. The biggest natural hazards are, among others: earthquakes, floods, landslides and typhoons. European Partners: 3 universities from Poland (Silesian University of Technology), Greece (University of West Attica) and Spain (University of Alicante), and a consultancy-IT group from Luxembourg (Novel Group) are responsible for providing didactic, scientific and research support and helping to ready the staff of Asian universities for the start of the educational process.

The Silesian University of Technology was represented by the project coordinator, Krzysztof Tomiczek, PhD, from the Department of Geoengineering and Raw Materials Extraction (RG4), and the co-implementers of the project, Katarzyna Tobór - Osadnik, DSc, Prof. at SUT, and Anna Bluszcz, DSc, Prof. of SUT, from the Department of Safety Engineering (RG3).

The Polish team prepared and delivered 5 training papers and 1 briefing paper for workshop participants. The topics of the papers were: GIS systems, teaching pedagogy, selected problems of soil stability and ECTS credits in the European Union. Other European universities prepared training courses on: methodologies for using LIDAR in slope monitoring, geoinformatics in slope monitoring, photometry systems, earthquake forecasting, cloud data analysis systems, examples of flood phenomenon analysis, the impact of earthquakes on structures and earthquake monitoring.

As part of the activities underway in Cambodia, a meeting was held on Friday 22nd with the rectoral authorities of Svay Rieng University, Prof Tum Saravuth and the director of the Cambodian National Committee for Disaster Management, HE Hang Samoeun. The hosts of the meeting presented in a seminar format the key facts about natural disasters in Cambodia, methods of predicting and combating them. The seminar was accompanied by a panel discussion, which was also a summary of the week-long workshop.