Integrated Disaster Risk Reduction for extreme climate events: from early warning systems to long term adaptation and resilience building

Expected Outcome:

Projects’ results are expected to contribute to some of the following outcomes:

• Improved dialogue and cooperation among scientific and technical communities, stakeholders, policy-makers and local communities in the field of extreme climate events and associated events (e.g. forest fires, droughts, floods, heatwaves and storms) and disaster risk reduction.
• Enhanced community engagement for prevention, preparedness, response, recovery and learning to extreme climate events by strengthening knowledge and involvement of volunteers linked to recognised organisations into the planning, design and implementation of prevention, including building with nature, preparedness and emergency response activities.
• Strengthening of disaster risk reduction and resilience building through innovative use of media means, namely by examining the potential of new communication tools and apps for better preparedness and response.
• Overview of existing knowledge, tools and development of new tools (innovative data collection, satellite data, data harmonisation, artificial-intelligence tools, algorithms, sensors and decision-aid approaches) for early warning, response and resilience / adaptation to be demonstrated in the framework of real-case scenarios designed for training addressed to first and second responders, (national, regional, local) authorities and populations. The overview should document how legal and ethical rules of operation as well as fundamental rights such as privacy and protection of personal data are taken into account.
• Based on the demonstrations, development of new governance strategies and robust decision-support methodologies for integrated risk reduction and improved adaptation to climate extreme events.
• Improved understanding of enablers and barriers to multi-risk governance frameworks and multi-risk thinking, by involving interdisciplinary teams in different fields, particularly the social and behavioural sciences.
• Cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness analyses of investment and regulatory strategies to protect people and nature in vulnerable areas.
• Identification of production/livelihood practices (goods, services, activities etc.) at community and national level that contribute to increased local/global climate risks, and explore how these can be adapted so that they are both economically and environmentally sustainable.

Scope:

In contemporary society, the capacity of communities and governments to manage expected and/or unexpected extreme climate events depends heavily on effective governance throughout the entire Disaster Risk Management cycle. This covers operational mechanisms ranging from short-term actions (e.g. early warning and forecast-based actions) to long-term adaptation strategies and resilience building, including nature-based solutions. A coherent integration between Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Adaptation policies and Sustainable Development Goals as fostered by the European Green Deal and major UN initiatives should result in a comprehensive resilience framework, while improving synergies and coherence among the institutions and international agencies involved.

The effective implementation of global and European risk governance and policies to enable integrated disaster risk reduction for extreme climate events requires a collaborative involvement in risk assessment and information sharing across involved institutions, including the civil and private sector and the population.

Cross-regional, cross-border and cross-sector agreements covering all phases of Disaster Risk Management can improve the knowledge about extreme climate events such as forest fires, droughts, floods, heatwaves, storms and storm surges. In addition, improving effective prevention, preparedness and response rely upon specific national or local expertise and experience. It is important to overcome silos between technical and political authorities at all levels and advocate integration among involved actors. Multi-risk governance frameworks related to climate extremes, shifting from single to multi-risk thinking in governmental agencies, represents the key challenge for the future, considering how measures to improve the resilience of the built environment and communities may provide effective solutions to strengthen adaptation measures.

Creating an overview of existing knowledge, integrating tools and developing new ones for resilience and emergency management should include careful planning for interoperability amongst many actors. It is important that solutions pay attention to societal side-effects of integrating data about emergencies, for instance Apps, where persons concerned tend to share more willingly, but do not reflect consequences of that. Thus, the development of data management tools for emergencies need to respect fundamental rights, data protection and avoid function creep.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Where possible and relevant, synergy-building and clustering initiatives with successful proposals in the same area should be considered, including the organisation of international conferences in close coordination with the Community for European Research and Innovation for Security (CERIS) activities and/or other international events.