Karen Sudmeier-Rieux

Karen Sudmeier-Rieux -

Karen Sudmeier-Rieux has been leading disaster risk reduction work for the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management since 2006. During this time, she published several IUCN books on the topic of ecosystems, livelihoods and disasters and completed her PhD at the University of Lausanne, Institute of Earth Sciences and Risk Analysis on landslide risk, resilience and vulnerability of mountain communities in Central-Eastern Nepal. For this, she obtained a two-year interdisciplinary grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to lead an interdisciplinary team of researchers for studying landslide risk due to vulnerability, natural resources management, governance and geological /hydrological conditions. She has published a number of articles on the Pakistan 2005 earthquake and the relation between deforestation, land tenure and landslides, and interdisciplinary research on landslides and community forestry in Nepal. She holds Masters degrees in international development and forest ecology.

Employer:

She is now working as an independent researcher and consultant, assisting PEDRR partners with a number of projects: coordinating MSc curriculum “Environment, Disasters and Risk Reduction” with an international consortium of universities; drafting a special publication for Council of Europe, “Ecosystem Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction: basic concepts, with a special focus to Europe”; Conducting PEDRR training workshops on “Ecosystems and disaster risk reduction” and drafting numerous scientific papers, as well as a PEDRR book “Ecosystems for DRR, Challenges and Opportunities” (title TBD) in collaboration with UNEP and UNU-EHS, to be published by UNU Press.

Karen Sudmeier-Rieux -

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