A day in the life at the University of Pretoria. 14 November 2008

On this "Day in the life of the University of Pretoria" UP launched the Benfield Natural Centre for Africa. The aim of this centre was to act as a multidisciplinary platform where postgraduate students and researchers could find solutions for the African continent that have been greatly impacted by natural and human-induced hazards.

Prof Anton Ströh, Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, explained on this day, that the centre aimed to bring different disciplines together to work on innovative solutions for natural hazards. “It is usually at the intersection of such disciplines that innovative explosions take place. The centre will draw the expertise from Geology, Geography, Statistics, Geoinformatics and Metereology, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Insurance and Actuarial Sciences,” Prof Ströh said. The Benfield Natural Hazard Centre, Africa, was led by the University’s Professor Andrzej Kijko in close conjunction with Benfield’s South African office and the Benfield ReMetrics team. Professor Kijko had extensive skills in earthquake hazard modelling, mining catastrophe, flood and meteorological risk. UP’s 2008 newsletter explained that the establishment of the Centre at the University of Pretoria formalizes a long-standing relationship between Benfield and Professor Kijko, which began during the development of Benfield’s GAPQuake South Africa model in 2003. As well as continuing to improve and enhance the quality of GAPQuake South Africa, the Centre assisted Benfield to extend its suite of GAP models. This included a South African hail model like those developed by Benfield for European storms.

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