myDEWETRA in the world

PROJECT: VFDM Project – Integrating Flood and Drought Management and Early Warning for Climate Change Adaptation in the Volta Basin

BENEFICIARY COUNTRIES: Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast

DEWETRA: Within the VFDM project, CIMA Research Foundation supports the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Volta Basin Authority (VBA), and the Global Water Partnership for West Africa (GWP-WA) in the implementation of the complete chain of an End-to-End Early Warning System for Flood Forecasting and Drought Prediction at the transboundary level in the Volta basin. Such EWS will be called VOLTALARM and will be based on a customized version of myDewetra.world. It will empower the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and other competent authorities of the six riparian countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, and Togo) with robust and innovative technological solutions for forecasting and warnings dissemination for floods and drought. The implementation of the customized version of myDewetra.world platform stems from the analysis of existing capabilities for DRR/DRM, hydrometeorological forecasting, and early warning in the six beneficiary countries. During the first year, Cima Foundation completed the study and provided access to myDewetra.world to the project’s stakeholders while defining the required customization. The implementation of the platform will be completed in the second and third year of the program with (i) the integration of existing local data, both static and dynamic, and Volta basin risk profile for floods and drought (also developed by CIMA Research Foundation); (ii) the configuration of a specific tool, integrated within myDewetra.world platform, for the issuance of warning bulletins at national and transboundary level; (iii) training for all the project’s stakeholders (NMHSs, National Civil Protection agencies, and other DRM entities) to use and manage the platform. VOLTALARM will enable the Volta basin’s riparian countries to share data, forecasts, and warnings on floods and drought, providing timely information to reduce the impacts of disasters, both at national and transboundary level.

TIMEFRAME: 2019 – 2023

PARTNERS:

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Volta Basin Authority (VBA)

Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP-WA)

Executing external partners:

Italian Civil Protection Department (DPC)

International Centre on Environmental Monitoring (CIMA Research Foundation)

Centro di Ricerca e Documentazione Febbraio ’74 (CERFE)

International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

PROJECT: IPA DRAM Programme for Disaster Risk Assessment and Mapping in the Western Balkans and Turkey

BENEFICIARY COUNTRIES: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo*, Turkey

DEWETRA: An ad hoc version a of myDEWETRA.world has been set up for the Western Balkans and Turkey and provided in a platform called the Electronic Regional Risk Atlas (ERRA). The Internet-based tool is designed to store and display risk, vulnerability and exposure data, including critical infrastructures; and to reproduce catastrophe risk maps; to help assess the potential impact of disasters; to provide useful input to determine the most effective use of resources and funds for natural and man-made risk management.

The ERRA IPA DRAM should allow Partners to respect their national policies and regulations on data sharing and to be used as a tool for the assessment and mapping of risk both during the Program and beyond. The ERRA IPA DRAM can be adapted to the Program and to the environment of the Partner Countries: there are minimum two level of installation one per Partner country and one at the regional level.

Furthermore, at the regional level, the program aims to develop a regional approach for the harmonization and improvement of the mapping of risks of regional interest, in close connection with DPPI SEE (Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Initiative for South Eastern Europe), as well as with the JRC (European Commission’s Joint Research Center) and other key institutions involved.

TIMEFRAME: 2016- 2019

PARTNERS:

Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) (lead)

International Centre on Environmental Monitoring (CIMA Research Foundation)

Italian Civil Protection Department (DPC)

Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (ACPDR)

National Protection, Rescue Directorate of the Republic of Croatia (DUZS)

WEBSITE: www.ipadram.eu

PROJECT: PPRD South III – Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Natural and Man-Made disasters in Middle East and North Africa Partnership Countries

BENEFICIARY COUNTRIES: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia

DEWETRA: The PPRD South III project, funded by the European Commission, aims to strengthen resilience in the region covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and, at the same time, to reduce the social, environmental, and economic costs of disasters. The project, currently ongoing, is built on the results achieved with the previous PPRD South Programme, which was active from 2009 to 2012.

Within the project, CIMA Research Foundation oversees supporting the Italian Civil Protection Department in the implementation of the sub-objective named “Development and installation of a flood risk monitoring and mapping tool in interested countries including training and technical assistance for the set-up of Early Warning Systems for floods”. The activities are taking place between July 2020 and January 2021 and include sharing and support in the use of the myDEWETRA.world tool, a large-scale version of the myDEWETRA platform developed by CIMA Research Foundation and owned by the Civil Protection Department and used for the assessment and management of flood and forest fire risk. Countries interested in developing a national instance of myDEWETRA.world will be assisted in the process, also through the collection of data necessary for implementation, training (through E-learning courses available on CIMA moodle platform) and remote support. The use of the platform can help national bodies involved in risk management and civil protection, including technical-scientific ones, to share information, develop possible risk scenarios and develop tools for real-time assessment, monitoring and alerting to possible critical situations. Also, the platform can facilitate the access to available global real time data on flood and forest fire risk and integrate them with local existing data.

TIMEFRAME: 2018 – 2021

PARTNERS:

Expertise France

Italian Civil Protection Department (DPC)

International Centre on Environmental Monitoring (CIMA Research Foundation)

French General Directorate for Civil Protection and Crisis Management  (DGSCGC)

French Ministry of the Interior – Technical Cooperation (CIVIPOL)

Spanish General Directorate of Civil Protecton and Emergencies (DGPCE)

International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAP)

PROJECT: Building Disaster Resilience to Natural Hazards in Sub-Saharan African Regions, Countries and Communities” Programme

BENEFICIARY COUNTRIES: Angola, Tanzania, Zambia

DEWETRA: The “Building Disaster Resilience to Natural Hazards in Sub-Saharan African Regions, Countries and Communities” Programme started in 2015 with the goal of improving the natural disaster risk management in the countries of the Sub-Saharan region. It is funded by the European Union and was born by the agreement between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP).

In 2018, on demand of United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), CIMA Research Foundation developed the flood and drought risk profiles for sixteen African countries, in order to contribute to the enhancement of countries’ capacity in gathering and analyzing the disaster loss data, in using risk assessment and in integrating risk reduction to development planning.

In 2019, in order to promote the integration of scientific risk knowledge in decision-making processes, CIMA Research Foundation reviewed the risk profiles by integrating local knowledge and data for three countries (Angola, Tanzania and Zambia), in close partnership with local institutions. In addition to this, CIMA’s team developed guidelines for the use of profiles, a tool that can provide a support for national political decisions in each country. In these guidelines, myDEWETRA.world was used as a pilot platform to demonstrate the importance of sharing risk information quickly and in a coordinated manner. The 3 beneficiary countries were therefore provided with access to the platform, in which all risk information gathered in the project (static data such as infrastructure information, as well as high detail floods hazard maps) were present.

TIMEFRAME: 2018 – 2019

PARTNERS:

European Union

African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States

UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

CIMA Research Foundation

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Wageningen University and Research