Risk Data Hub software and data architecture

Risk Data Hub is an initiative of Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC) and consists of a publicly available web-GIS platform intended to improve the access and sharing of curated European-wide risk data, tools and methodologies for fostering Disaster Risk Management (DRM) related actions. The implementation of the concept is made of multiple steps, including the definition of type of analysis to be presented, the design of methodologies to compute data needed, the design of database architecture and software tools and finally the development of the software. This document will focus on the design of software architecture, starting from a high level analysis of the business needs, going to the explanation of the solutions proposed, considering previous works in the topic of Disaster Risk Management and showing how the existent Loss Database architecture has been extended to fit the requirements of a complex and multi-context application.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Mapping of risk web-platforms and risk data: collection of good practices

A successful DRR results from the combination of top-down, strategies, with bottom-up, methodological approaches. The top–down approach refers more to administrative directives, organizations, and operational skills linked with the management of the risk and reflects more the policy component. The bottom-up approach is linked to the analyse of the causal factors of disasters, including exposure to hazards, vulnerability, coping capacity, and reflects more the practice component. In the context of disaster science, policy and practice are often disconnected. This is evident in the dominant top-down DRM strategies utilizing global actions on one hand and the context specific nature of the bottom-up approach based on local action and knowledge. A way to bridge the gap between practice and policy is to develop a spatial data infrastructure of the type of GIS web-platforms based on risk mapping. It is a way of linking data information and decision support system (DSS) on a common ground that becomes a “battlefield of knowledge and actions”. This report presents the results of an overview of the risk web-platforms and related risk data used in risk assessment at the level of EU-28. It allows the discovery of the current advancement for risk web infrastructures and capabilities in order to establish a pool of good practices and detection of needs. The outcome of the overview shows the needs in risk web platform developments and tries to recommend capacities that should be prioritized in order to strengthen the link between risk data information and decision support system (DSS). The assessment is based on web search and outcome of diverse disaster risk workshops and conference.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Identifying challenges in Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk Data Hub for Disaster Risk Management

The Workshop on “Identifying challenges in Disaster Risk Reduction” held in Varese, Italy on 28 -29 of June 2017 aimed to improve the knowledge base on Disaster Risk Assessment (DRA) that could contribute to the potential development of the updated version of EU Guidelines for Risk Assessment and Mapping for Disaster Management. The DRMKC Risk Data Hub will become the tool for centralized collection of available knowledge, which will facilitate the identification of gaps. Challenges common to a large number of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) initiatives were identified and discussed. Challenging at local, national and international levels for top down strategies and bottom up actions for DRR is to underline the scope, importance and applicability of different methodologies, data usage and actions for different scales. With this workshop, the DRMKC planned to identify main challenges for DRR focusing the attention on two hazards: floods and drought. To accomplish its objectives, the workshop brought together: experts of flood and drought disaster risk, member states experts with experience in disaster risk assessment at national level and national Web platform developers experienced in disaster risk mapping.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Decision Making Improvement for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) through technological support

The workshop “Decision Making Improvement for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) through technological support” was held in Bucharest, Romania on 16th of October 2019, part of the 4th DRMKC Annual Seminar. The key objective of the session was to increase the collaboration with national/regional/local authorities and other institutions, aligning the development of the tools to the needs and concerns expressed at local/national level. To accomplish its objective, the workshop brought together technical and scientific experts with end users of the platforms, who have faced the main challenges related to data, knowledge and institutional practices while offering technological support for DRM. Showcases and feedback from national authorities and institutions were presented, as they were experienced when using the platforms presented in the session: the DRMKC Risk Data Hub, GRRASP and RAPID-N. The session was divided in two parts, in the first it was presented the general characteristics and functionalities of the platforms, followed in the second part by showcases of using these platforms in various applications by the local authorities and institutions.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Database on coastal vulnerability and exposure

In this document, we report progress on the development of European layers on exposure and vulnerability. This involves the collection and cataloguing of relevant exposure factors (e.g., land use, population, settlements, infrastructures) and vulnerability indicators (coastal flood protection, damage functions) as well as the development and application of tools for the logging, spatial interpolation, statistical analysis and validation of the collected information. All data are available through the The Risk Data hub database the aim of which is to improve the accessibility and dissemination of EU-wide curated risk data for fostering Disaster Risk Management (DRM).JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

The Risk Data Hub loss datasets

The aim of this document is to report the methodology used to create the Historic Events module and the use that can be done of damage and loss data. The RDH Historical Event Catalogue consists in a collection of past events data occurred in EU created from a wide array of data published in several sources and datasets. This collection makes use of inventoried data; precisely different open access datasets have been interrogated collecting European-related records on past disastrous events. Both hazard and loss data have been systematically collected from various sources, checked, linked and homogenized to be provided in tabular and geospatial format in order to create the RDH Historical Event Catalogue. The work carried out consists in an effort done to improve the existing lack of homogeneous and comparable data on past events occurred across European Countries. This work represents an assemblage of sources that become complementary. Considering that each source focuses on different aspects of the impact events, the objective of the collection is to describe the phenomenon, gather data on loss and damage records and present the spatial extent of the damages. Finally, analyses intended to illustrate ways of examining global loss data and identifying possible trends in terms of peril or geographical prone areas within the European Countries are performed on the collected damage and loss data.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Risk Data Hub – web platform to facilitate management of disaster risks

The management of disaster risks of different kinds (manmade, natural) is ruled at European level by a number of policies covering various sectors (e.g. environmental, industrial, civil protection, security, health), scales (EU wide, regional, national) and operational actions (preparedness, prevention, response and recovery). A range of research and technological developments, are motivated to support the implementation of these policies and actions across various scales reaching local level. However, the effectiveness of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) depends greatly on the efficiency of managing relevant information. Complex forms of decision-making needs technological support for achieving DRM objective of reducing risk. Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC) is currently developing a web-based geographical information system (WebGIS) aiming to support the implementation of international actions for DRM from global or regional level to local-national level. With this study, we present the DRMKC Risk Data Hub, a tool that improves the access and share of curated EU-wide disaster risk information relevant for DRM related actions. We also identify the key characteristics of a WebGiS platform needed to address in the most efficient way aspects of disaster risk management. Risk Data Hub acts as a knowledge hub, links policy and practice through geospatial technology and mapping, combines top-down strategies with bottom-up methodological approaches and sets the bases for science-based information for DRM polices. Currently, Risk Data Hub structures the information into three modules that covers the Exposure Analysis – as one of the main drivers of risk, Historic Events – as an EU-wide loss and damage database and Risk Analysis module - as collection of good or existing practices.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Assessment of the EUMETSAT LSA-SAF evapotranspiration product for drought monitoring in Europe

Evapotranspiration is a key parameter for water stress assessment as it is directly related to the moisture status of the soil-vegetation system and describes the moisture transfer from the surface to the atmosphere. With the launch of the Meteosat Second Generation geostationary satellites and the setup of the Satellite Application Facilities, it became possible to operationally produce evapotranspiration data with high spatial and temporal evolution over the entire continents of Europe and Africa. In the frame of this study we present an evaluation of the potential of the evapotranspiration (ET) product from the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF) for drought assessment and monitoring in Europe. To assess the potential of this product, the LSA-SAF ET was used as input for the ratio of ET to reference evapotranspiration (ET0), the latter estimated from the ECMWF interim reanalysis. In the analysis two case studies were considered corresponding to the drought episodes of spring/summer 2007 and 2011. For these case studies, the ratio ET/ET0 was compared with meteorological drought indices (SPI, SPEI and Sc-PDSI for 2007 and SPI for 2011) as well as with the anomalies of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (fAPAR) derived from remote sensing data. The meteorological and remote sensing indicators were taken from the European Drought Observatory (EDO) and the CARPATCLIM climatological atlas. Results show the potential of ET/ET0 to characterize soil moisture variability, and to give additional information to fAPAR and to precipitation distribution for drought assessment. The main limitations of the proposed ratio for drought characterization are discussed, including options to overcome them. These options include the use of filters to discriminate areas with a low percentage vegetation cover or areas that are not in their growing period and the use of evapotranspiration without water restriction (ETwwr), obtained as output of the LSA-SAF model instead of ET0. The ET/ ETwwr ratio was tested by comparing its accumulated values per growing period with the winter wheat yield values per country published by Eurostat. The results point to the potential of using the remote sensing based LSA-SAF evapotranspiration and the ET/ ETwwr ratio for vegetation monitoring at large scale, especially in areas where data is generally lacking.JRC.H.7-Climate Risk Managemen

Update of Risk Data Hub software and data architecture

This document, as an update of the first technical report (JRC114712) on software and data architecture, will focus on the design, starting from a high level analysis of the business needs, going to the explanation of the solutions proposed, considering previous works in the topic of Disaster Risk Management and showing how the existent Loss Database architecture has been reviewed to fit the requirements of a complex and multi-context application. For a more generic overview of the concept of the DRMKC Risk Data Hub, the reader can consult the report “The Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre – Risk Data Hub: Vision Paper & roadmap”, European Commission, Ispra, 2019, JRC119384.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

The Risk Data Hub loss datasets - The Risk Data Hub Historical Event Catalogue

In recent decades, the systematic collection of disaster related data has rapidly become a crucial concern; there is a growing recognition of the importance of post-disaster loss data, which are an essential mean to inform policy decisions oriented to reduce disaster risk as they are strictly linked to a variety of aspects: from the understanding of the impacts of occurred events to the calibration and validation of forecasting models till the evaluation of progresses in reducing disaster risk. Post-event damage and loss data have an intrinsic key role in all the phases of the DRM. Records of damage and losses occurred due to past disastrous events are not always available. Rarely countries have procedures and databases to collect and store post-event damage data; in many countries there are no organizations in charge of collecting data and open global datasets often have different quality of data (Petrucci at al., 2018). At European level loss and damage data are available through global multi-hazards databases (Wirtz, K., et al., 2014), but there is no authoritative loss database that can provide a trend at European level (De Groeve, 2015). The Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC) is currently developing a web-based geographical information system platform, the DRMKC Risk Data Hub (RDH), which aims at improving the access and share of curated EU-wide disaster risk information in order to support the implementation of international actions for DRM. Currently, Risk Data Hub structures the information into three modules that covers the Exposure Analysis, Historic Events – as an EU-wide loss and damage database and Risk Analysis module. The aim of this document is to report the methodology used to create the Historic Events module and the use that can be done of damage and loss data. The RDH Historical Event Catalogue consists in a collection of past events data occurred in EU created from a wide array of data published in several sources and datasets. This collection makes use of inventoried data; precisely different open access datasets have been interrogated collecting European-related records on past disastrous events. Both hazard and loss data have been systematically collected from various sources, checked, linked and homogenized to be provided in tabular and geospatial format in order to create the RDH Historical Event Catalogue. The work carried out consists in an effort done to improve the existing lack of homogeneous and comparable data on past events occurred across European Countries. This work represents an assemblage of sources that become complementary. Considering that each source focuses on different aspects of the impact events, the objective of the collection is to describe the phenomenon, gather data on loss and damage records and present the spatial extent of the damages. Finally, analyses intended to illustrate ways of examining global loss data and identifying possible trends in terms of peril or geographical prone areas within the European Countries are performed on the collected damage and loss data