As they reflect the complex interactions between various phenomena, cascading effects are a critical, yet often unknown, aspect of the risk management procedure. As it may turn initial event to a catastrophic sequence, they crucially need to be better understood and modelled for managing the risk and mitigating their consequences.

Organized by the RISK project, this half-day seminar is intended to gather the members of the risk management community in order to discuss the following questions:

• What is a cascading effect and why is it important for risk management?

• What are the critical interactions, and at which time and space scales are they acting?

• How studying this type of effect?

• How to avoid cascading effects, and how manage it?

• Can a cascading effect be useful?

• What is stability/unstability of a cascading effect?

The objectives of this seminar are:

• sharing experiences on cascading events for risk and catastrophe management

• looking through study cases and systems of human, natural or technological origin

• discussing about the weaknesses and strengths of an inter-disciplinary approach.

Scientists and risk managers are welcome to present their work regarding the above-mentioned questions and objectives. The presentations are intended to fit in a 20 minutes slot, including 15 minutes for talk plus 5 minutes for questions-answers.

Please send by February 7th your abstract (1 page maximum including 1 figure) describing briefly the main content of the work you would like to present.