Disaster prevention is one of the three topics covered by the Knowledge for Action in Prevention and Preparedness (KAPP) funding opportunity.
The 2023 KAPP call resulted in funding for seven projects under the topic of prevention. On 12 March 2024, civil protection practitioners gathered in Brussels to kick-off these seven new projects.
Project kick-off
The KAPP Call aims to support cooperation between public and private civil protection and disaster risk management actors across the UCPM and the EU neighbourhood, by funding activities that improve their knowledge, skills, and cooperation on disaster risk prevention and preparedness. This call also aims to contribute to the implementation of the Union disaster resilience goals.
The focal point of the kick-off day was a brief presentation of each of the new projects. The projects were presented by participants from Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. The session also included financial, legal, and other administrative remarks from DG ECHO staff.
One newcomer noted that the entry into the KAPP world was ‘exciting’ due to the international nature of the projects. Another participant with previous experience in the UCPM calls said they were ‘delighted’ to meet colleagues in person after working in the previous project predominantly online due the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am fascinated by each of these projects. There are clear synergies and intersections between all of them. This meeting today is a great opportunity for exchange and cross-fertilisation between projects and I hope it will be followed by further exchanges. The Civil Protection practitioners’ community needs to develop interactions, and this applies to Commission as well as Member and Participating States colleagues.”
CRISAFE: Critical infrastructure early warning system and population awareness for multi hazard cascading events
The CRISAFE project was motivated by the unpredictable nature of climate change. The project will work towards the development of a harmonised and quantified risk assessment methodology to assess the vulnerability of urban infrastructure and population to cascading multi-hazard scenarios common in Croatia, the Netherlands, and Italy.
BORIS2: Cross BOrder RISk assessment for increased prevention and preparedness in Europe: way forward
The goal of BORIS2 is to deliver a shared-methodology and tool to support stakeholders in transboundary regions to undertake strategic decisions to improve emergency planning, building on the findings of BORIS. Reaching additional stakeholders in the UCPM network would greatly support the project goals. This project intends to create a platform for single and multi-risk assessment.
EMMERA: East Med Cross-border Marine Environmental Risk Assessment through E-Platform Integrated Data Management
The projects will bring together partners from the area of the Eastern Mediterranean to share knowledge and expertise and develop a methodology that can support and develop cross-border risk assessments. It will also involve the roll out of an E-platform and aerial drone technology to cooperatively share information, process and analyse data in real time on marine environmental incidents, and provide warnings for detecting marine pollution events. This presents a novel proposal for the Eastern Mediterranean region to establish joint action plans for identifying, assessing, and communicating marine pollution hazards.
FIREPRIME: European Program for Wildfire-Prepared Communities
FIREPRIME will establish the foundations of an EU-wide programme that promotes a culture of fire resilience among wildland-urban communities in Spain, Sweden, and Austria. The project will design a pilot architecture and governance programme and will develop and implement a comprehensive toolkit of resources that includes a smartphone app, guidelines, checklists, and educational materials aimed at enhancing wildfire resilience in three critical targets: households, communities, and infrastructure.
SAFE-LAND: Mitigating the risk of flooding and landslides via artificial intelligence with a view to extreme climate events
The project will propose a tool that uses trustworthy artificial intelligence to assess hydrogeological risk and generate guidelines on risk management planning and increasing risk awareness. The tool will then provide tailored guidelines that can help experts find the best actions to reduce disasters risks and implement personalised guidelines to raise risk awareness, prioritising vulnerable groups and people with disabilities.
PreparEU: PreparEU pilot project
PreparEU will explore and then recommend ways to implement a European dimension on all different national risk information activities that take place in most EU Member States/UCPM Participating States (MS/PS), through work strands focusing on deepening knowledge about how MS/PS work to increase national risk awareness and preparedness. In addition, it will facilitate the sharing of national best practices, risk information material, project recommendations and guidelines among all MS/PS in conclusions and recommendations.
VERA: Vulnerable Elements and Risk Assessment
VERA will develop a harmonised cross-border catalogue and platform for collecting risk assessments in transboundary domains, and a decision-making tool for four hazards (meteorological, industrial, nuclear and forest fires). VERA aims to improve cross-border risk management mechanisms, with an improved multi-risk approach, by taking advantage of existing data from European services (Copernicus, Galileo or JRC) and extending the analysis to the entire Spanish-Portuguese and Spanish-French border. Its operation and usefulness will be applied in real demonstrations carried out in-situ and integrate early warning systems into decision-making at various levels.
The way forward
All participants were excited about the next steps in relation to the launch of their respective projects. The consensus in the room was hopeful in terms of future collaboration and communication between the different participants. The UCP Knowledge Network Platform and the upcoming European Civil Protection Forum (4-5 June 2024) were also mentioned as relevant tools and opportunities for learning and exchange between the projects.
Further information In addition to Prevention, KAPP also funds Projects in Preparedness and Full-scale field exercises, that are carried under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). To find out more, go to the official KAPP page, or contact ECHO-CP-KNOWLEDGE-NETWORK-PLATFORM@ec.europa.eu.
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