Brenda Marie Rivers
Jason Bird, head of the U.S. south water resources solutions segment and Florida resilience practice at Jacobs Engineering Group, has been named U.S. network chair of the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s ARISE network.
He is responsible for promoting public and private sector partnerships for infrastructure resiliency and risk reduction initiatives, Jacobs said Friday.
Risk reduction efforts involve a range of subject matters such as climate change, resource demands, social values, extreme events and other environmental issues.
“With climate change approaching more quickly than ever, it is critical that we use our risk and resiliency experience to create a strong framework to evaluate, plan, adapt and mitigate to the growing threat so that we can sustain our infrastructure and communities today and into the future,†Bird said.
His nearly 20-year civil engineering career includes time leading water resource and infrastructure resiliency projects as well as facility evaluation efforts for U.S. military bases worldwide.
The ARISE international network has 140 member companies working to mitigate economic risks that may result from disasters.
U.N. adopted the network in 2015 ahead of the UNISDR’s establishment in a push to coordinate disaster risk reduction functions within and beyond the organization.
