University College London in collaborations with TDMRC of Universitas Syiah Kuala and TU-Delft of the Netherland successfully conducted the 17 th Aceh International Workshop and Expo on Sustainable Disaster Recovery (AIWEST-DR 2025) in London. The event was chaired by Professor Tiziana Rossetto who is a professor at Faculty of Engineering Sciences of the UCL and at TU-Delft. A day before the event, Chairs of the AIWEST-DR 2025, Prof. Tiziana Rossetto and Prof. Syamsidik, and speakers and participants of the event paid a courtesy visit to Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia for the United Kingdom. The delegate was received by Prof. Agus Mochammad Ramdan, the attache’ of Education and Culture at the Embassy of Indonesia (see Figure 1). The 17 th AIWEST-DR was also co-hosted by International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) of Tohoku University, University of Sydney-Australia, National Defense University of Malaysia (UPNM), and Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM)- Indonesia. This event was also supported by UNESCO Chair on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Engineering.
Figure 1. A courtesy visit from the organizing committee of the AIWEST-DR 2025 led by Prof. Tiziana Rossetto (UCL) and Prof. Syamsidik (TDMRC USK) to the Attache’ of Education and Culture of the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia to the UK – Prof. Agus Mochammad Ramdan.
Figure 2. A photo session of all participants (offline) and the committee with the Attache’ of the Republic Indonesia after the opening ceremony and the first day keynote speeches.
The AIWEST-DR 2025 has presented 79 presentations where 55 of them presented offline. The presenters come from 17 countries where the largest number of participants come from Japan, followed by Indonesia. Some offline participants and the committee can be seen in Figure 2. The AIWEST-DR was officially open by Professor Mochammad Agus Ramdan, the Attache of Education and Culture at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia for the United Kingdom. Prof. Tao Cheng, Vice Dean International of Faculty of Engineering Sciences of UCL also gave a welcome remark in the opening ceremony. The Rector of Universitas Syiah Kuala, Prof. Dr. Ir. Marwan, thank to the UCL, TU-Delft and London South Bank University who hade been working hard to prepare the AIWEST-DR since early 2025. The rector delivered his remarks online (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Prof. Dr. Marwan (the Rector of USK) delivered his welcome remarks to all participants and the committee of the AIWEST-DR 2025 by online.
Keynote speeches in this AIWEST were delivered by Prof. Helene Joffe from UCL, Prof. Ella Meilianda from TDMRC USK, Prof. Shinichi Kuriyama from IRIDeS of Tohoku University, Prof. Nizam from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Prof. Dwikorita Karnawati from Indonesia BMKG, and Prof. Yasemin Diktas from UCL (see Figures 4 and 5). Prof. Helene Joffe highlighted the important of local knowledge as demonstrated in the Smong generated in Aceh for changing behavior of children toward disaster risk reduction. She also shared some lessons learned from Palu-Central Sulawesi 2018 event, and from some Latin America cases.
Figure 4. (A) an opening remark from the Attache’ of Education and Culture at the Embassy of Indonesia for the UK and Ireland, Prof. Agus Mochammad Ramdan, (B) A remark from Prof. Tao Cheng, the Vice Dean International of Faculty of Engineering Sciences of UCL, (C) A diplomatic remark from the Embassy of Japan for the UK, read by Prof. Anawat Suppasri from IRIDeS, and (D) a keynote speech session from Prof. Ella Meilianda from TDMRC USK.
Prof Ella Meilianda shared her findings of the coastal morphology in Aceh post 2004 Aceh Tsunami event and from Aceh Singkil coastal-land subsidence impacts on community there. On the second day, Prof. Shinichi Kuriyama presented the case from Japan where of Japanese change a lot toward healthier lifestyle in recent decades. This contributes to a more resilient generation toward disasters. Prof Kuriyama, who is also Director of International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University, highlighted an important aspect of having healthier lifestyles to ensure a sustainable community.
Figure 5. Among the keynote speakers: (A) Prof. Helene Joffee (UCL), (B) Prof. Shinichi Kuriyama (IRIDeS of Tohoku University), (C) Prof. Nizam (UGM), and (D) Prof. Yasemin Diktas (UCL) received tokens from Prof. Tiziana Rossetto and Prof. Syamsidik.
During the second day technical sessions, some interesting findings and disaster- related research development were presented from Indonesia, Japan, the UK, Peru, Greece, Malaysia, Chile, China, and India. Among them was a presentation from a London South Bank University where they have developed a method to assess hydrodynamic characteristics of tsunami flume generator produced by HR Wallingford of the UK. A student from IRIDeS of Tohoku University also presented their works on a research on probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment in Japan area. From Indonesia, some works were presented from Aceh-Ambon case, Yogyakarta post-resettlement interventions, and on urban relocations and adaptation. The second day of the conference was closed with a field trip to Crossness Pumping Station and Engines (see Figure 6). The station is located at the River Thames and it started to operate in 1865. The facilities were among important historical evidences to eradicate bad sanitation problems that caused “the Great Stinks” in London between 1837 until 1901. Participants of the field visit received detailed presentations from the operator of the station. Now, the station has turned into a museum where it preserves over 400 artefacts related to the eradication of sewer problems in London from time to time.
Figure 6. A field trip to the Crossness Pumping Station Museum at the riverbank of the Thames.
On the third day, the conference was started with a keynote speaker from Prof. Dwikorita Karnawati. She elaborated some milestones of Indonesia in developing its tsunami early warning system and provide the services to countries around the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The second keynote speaker was Prof. Yasemin Diktas who presented her group works especially during some major earthquakes in Turkiye. A special session from SATREPS JICA Project was part of sessions on the third day. The special session was led by Prof. Anawat Suppasri from IRIDeS of Tohoku University and co-led by Dr. Rina Suryani Oktari from TDMRC Universitas Syiah Kuala. The session was named as Building Sustainable System for Resilience and Innovation in Coastal Community (BRICC). In another room, some online presentations were made by collegues from IRIDeS of Tohoku University, from Peru, from TDMRC and from UPNM Malaysia. Some offline presentations were also delivered by participants from Indonesia, the UK, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, and Australia.
Figure 7. A token of appreciation to AON Company, the sponsor of the 17th AIWEST-DR, represented by Mr. Mutahar.
The third day was the last day where the closing remarks were delivered by representatives from AON (by Mr. Mutahar as seen in Figure 7), from IRIDeS of Tohoku University (by Prof. Shunichi Koshimura), by UNPM Malaysia (by Muhaimin Ridwan Wong), and by TDMRC (by Prof. Syamsidik). The closing ceremony was also marked with an announcement for the 2026 AIWEST-DR that will be hosted by Chulalongkorn University in collaboration with Earthquake Research Center of Thailand (EARTH) in Bangkok. Figure 8 shows a short presentation on the AIWEST-DR by Dr. Natt Leelawat and Dr. Kumpol from Chulalongkorn University-Thailand.
Figure 8. An announcement for the 18th AIWEST-DR by Dr. Natt Leelawat from Chulalongkorn University-Thailand.
Prof. Tiziana Rossetto as chairperson of the AIWEST-DR 2025 offer a humble thank to AON as the sponsor, all committee members, and student volunteers who had been supporting the event. She also thanked to all participants who had been involved in the presentations and keynote speech sessions. At last but not least, Prof. Rossetto would like to see a continue collaboration among the organizing organization of the AIWEST- DR. This would be another evidence the importance of international collaborations for sustainable disaster risk reduction.
During the AIWEST-DR 2025 in London, USK sent 7 people to support the event and to present their works. The TDMRC delegates are Prof. Syamsidik (Head of TDMRC USK), Dr. dr. Syafrizal (Dean of Faculty of Medicine of USK), Prof. Ella Meilianda (Head of DRM Division of TDMRC/Secretary of Civil Engineering Department-also a keynote speaker in this event), Dr. Rina Suryani Oktari (Head of Disaster Education Division at TDMRC-also vice Dean of Faculty of Medicine of USK), Dr. Yunita Idris (Head of Disaster Resilient Infrastructure at TDMRC and also Head of Disaster Science Master Program at USK), Dr. Dedi Alfian (a researcher at Disaster Risk Management TDMRC ), and dr. Masna Dewi Abdullah, Sp. Rad (K), M.SK (a lecture at Faculty of Medicine of USK). Beside the offline participation, there are 15 other researchers from TDMRC USK presented their works online.
Figure 9. A photo session with all participants and the commitee after the closing ceremony of the AIWEST-DR 2025 at UCL, London.
The AIWEST-DR 2025 was the first time the event AIWEST-DR being held in the Europe since its first AIWEST-DR event in 2006. The AIWEST-DR 2006 was also an event to mark the establishment of TDMRC Universitas Syiah Kuala. Most of previous events were conducted in Banda Aceh. There were events where the AIWEST-DR were conducted outside of Banda Aceh. They are AIWEST-DR 2019 at Tohoku University- Japan (with IRIDeS of Tohoku University as the host), the AIWEST-DR 2022 hosted by the University of Sydney-Australia, and the AIWEST-DR 2023 hosted by Faculty of Psychology of Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta-Indonesia.
The AIWEST-DR 2025 is also parts to implement Sendai Frameworks for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) where this event attempts to Priority 1 (Understanding disaster risk) and Priority 4 (Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction). Furthermore, this would help to implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Goal No. 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), No. 13( Climate Action), No. 14 (Life Below Water), No. 15 (Life on Land), and No. 17 (Partnership for Goals).
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