RiskPACC

Hazard Settings: Wildfires and Flood Events

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION

The case study focuses on assessing and enhancing risk awareness and perception with respect to wildfires and flooding including vulnerability patterns related to wildland-urban interfaces as well as the interconnectedness between wildfires and flood risk. It furthermore deals with the enhancement of evacuation planning and communication of respective routes that will be explored through the use of VGI and crowd-sourcing and gamification approaches.
Also the challenges related to collaborative image-based damage mapping, both in terms of suitable bi-directional ICT solutions and regarding better understanding how to instruct and guide volunteers will be addressed. Finally, it addresses the interaction between citizens and CPAs and citizens during different disaster resilience phases.

Hazard Settings: Multi-Hazard, including terrorism

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION

The case study will address the translation of risk assessments into interaction and communication with the general population. It will evaluate the impact of running information campaigns (launched in late 2019) with a particular focus on children and schools including parents and teachers. This specific campaign includes an online game for children aged 8-12 to extract recommendations for closing the RPAG. In doing so, it will develop an impact assessment of measures closing the RPAG and to enhance risk awareness campaigns and material.

Hazard Settings: CBRN Hazard

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION

The case study will address the responses to the leakage of toxic chemical substances from a factory in an industrial but highly populated area. It also addresses cumulative and cascade effects associated with fires or explosions and the airborne spreading of dangerous substances. The case study addresses the low knowledge of the population about CBRN warnings and self-protection measures and seeks to enhance cooperation between the public and CPAs in case of emergency. Overall, this case study brings together different risk perceptions from civil protection authorities, factory management as well as population and representatives of the municipalities and seeks to establish joint VGI-based mapping approaches, enhanced two-way communication and new training formats.

Hazard Settings: Earthquakes

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION

This case study seeks to analyse and understand the preparedness of volunteers in the Municipality of Eilat (MoE) and at Magen David Adom (MDA), for earthquakes. The current levels of individual and family preparedness are assessed as very low despite volunteers being aware of the earthquake risk. This case study of the preparedness of MoE and MDA volunteers will allow for a consideration how different organisational aspects effect the ability to generate effective preparedness plans. In order to further assess the impact of orgnisational culture on risk perception and actions, volunteers of the Jordanian Red Crescent from Aquaba (a city neighbouring to Eilat) will be invited to the workshops. The case study will seek to work with gamification approaches to preparedness training, as well as producing joint needs assessments as well as stress tests and the revision of training material.

Hazard Settings: Multi-Hazard

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION

The case study focuses upon developing and communicating a new civil protection instrument, including a citizeninformed resilience and adaptation plan, for managing climatic risks notably flooding, heat waves and extreme rainfall or wind gusts. Existing plans are outdated and traditional communication methods often fail to reach all relevant societal groups, especially the elderly and vulnerable. A new plan will function as a live instrument and be constantly updated in line with stakeholder consultation. New IT tools will be advanced for warning and informing citizens and for integrating volunteer groups and civil society organizations into the early warning system and communication planning. In doing this there will be an increased awareness of risks and better identification of how to best protect vulnerable groups. 

Hazard Settings: Pandemics

CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seen the rise of novel, yet controversial, tracking apps used to monitor the spread of the virus, for contact tracing, quarantine enforcement, travel and social distancing monitoring. Despite their utility in monitoring disease transmission, such applications have reported privacy and security risks that have undermined trust in public health efforts, as well as risking civil liberties and data privacy where individuals have been asked, or compelled, to give up personal data. Overall uptake has been mixed, which raises critical questions how such tracking apps could be designed to provide useful data, while at the same time protecting personal information. There is an urgent need to determine how pandemic control plans for the COVID-19 partnerships can be best developed, written, and communicated to wider partners, specifying their role and responsibility in the outbreak response; how to most effectively collaborate with citizens to ensure good behavioural practices are understood and adhered to and to understand possible at-risk communities e.g. the elderly and ethnic minority groups. By comparing and contrasting different international experiences of the development and uptake of such apps or monitoring techniques (from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, UK, Germany, Brazil, as well as across cities that are part of the Efus network)64 this case study will use a series of virtual workshops/webinars to derive insights and recommendations for how European authorities can best to utilise tracking apps and similar technologies within disaster resilience to mitigate and/or manage risk and crises in the future.