Power to the People: Disaster Resilience support with advance energy storage systems

The occurrence of both natural and man-made disasters is inescapable, but the consequences for the lives of vulnerable communities can be mitigated. United Nation (UN) and organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommend investing proactive rather than re-active actions in dealing with disasters. It is commonly understood that "$1 spent on risk reduction saves between $5 and $10 in economic losses from disasters." Currently Central Asian countries including Kazakhstan have weak proactive support programs and disaster mitigation plans. Most of the support activities are post disaster. Proactive actions, monitoring and prediction analysis of the potential disasters in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries require a multidisciplinary cooperative approach with applications of remote sensing sensor monitoring technologies. These require a permanent energy supply in various harsh environmental conditions. What advance energy storage systems are available and can be used for a Disaster Resilience programs? How can these energy storage systems be integrated into remote sensing sensor monitoring technologies? Our group of researchers is developing the multidisciplinary Disaster Resilience Institute (www.drinu.org) and Laboratory to Monitor Engineering Constructions (LaMEC, www.lamec.org) to work on proactive monitoring actions related to engineering facilities that are interconnected to surface and underground water resources such as bridges, dams, and reservoirs. We are looking for the cooperation in these areas and are convinced that success is presaged on a multidisciplinary approach. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.