Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) is an applied science, information and technology center, working to reduce disaster risks and impacts on life, property, and the economies worldwide. PDC’s ultimate goal is to foster the disaster resilience of communities through evidenced-based and informed decision making. To this end, PDC promotes the disaster risk reduction (DRR) agenda and concepts as defined and promulgated by the United Nations, by engaging in partnerships that help share knowledge, build capacities, and bridge the divide between scientific communities and disaster management professionals.
PDC's products and services are used to support sound decision making in disaster response and civil-military humanitarian assistance operations, as well as in disaster risk reduction, mitigation and planning. The Center is primarily engaged in:
- - Enhance Disaster early warning and decision support capabilities and technologies;
- - Advancing risk and vulnerability assessment (RVA), including socio-cultural analyses of risk;
- - Cultivating international working partnerships to support capacity building in developing countries through training and technical assistance;
- - Supporting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations.
PDC was established by the U.S. Congress following Hurricane Iniki's devastation of the Hawaiian Island of Kauai in 1992, and became operational in 1996. Originally created to use information resources to mitigate the impacts of natural disasters in Hawai‘i, today PDC resources are used locally and globally by disaster and crisis management professionals, planners and executive decision makers, national governments, regional organizations, and International- and Non-Governmental Organizations (I/NGO).
Read more about Pacific Disaster Center: Major Projects and Activities of PDC
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