Dr. Ana Petrovic
On the occasion of International Youth Day, we spoke to Dr. Ana Petrovic about her research on torrential floods in Serbia. Her work focuses on analysing historical flood data to improve flood education and risk management.
What are the key insights from your study on torrential floods in Serbia, and how can these lessons inform better flood education and awareness programs?
According to the analysis of the data on damages, death toll, and affected area contained in the Inventory, the May 2014 torrential floods were the floods with the most severe impact in the last ten years. My cooperation with an economist expert , which has just started, will reveal the place of the May 2014 torrential floods in the Inventory. Before the final results, I would claim that the May 2014 torrential floods are among the first three to five torrential flood events with the most severe impact for the entire Inventory period. These data can be used for communication and learning lessons with vulnerable populations and are already used in education programs on natural hazards for geography teachers One of the future perspectives of my research will be an exhibition on past torrential floods as a means of communication with civilians.
What were the key insights or lessons you gained from attending the 3rd International Conference on Natural Hazards and Risk?
The main takeaway message I gained from the conference is that researchers in Serbia should better cooperate to enhance and develop a multi-hazard approach as those presented in the conference.
Fostering communication with the emergency centres and vulnerable populations is one of my future pieces of work and research directions.
What message would you like to convey to the CP community regarding the importance of historical data in flood risk management, and how can your research be utilised to develop effective preventive and mitigation measures?
Civil protection in Serbia is provided by the Emergency Centres of each municipality in Serbia. During the process of building the Inventory, many emergency centres in Central Serbia were contacted to gather data. However, the response was very limited in terms of the data provided. Fostering communication with the emergency centres and vulnerable populations is one of my future pieces of work and research directions. It would be very useful to turn the inventory data into open data.
I am currently looking to support the initiative of building the website of the Inventory of Torrential Floods in Serbia as an interactive and open data platform that would be useful to insurance companies, citizens, emergency centres, researchers, and decision-makers