Global Dialogue Platform on Forecast-based Financing (FbF), Berlin

The Global Dialogue Platform on Forecast-based Financing (FbF) is organized by the German Red Cross in close cooperation with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the World Food Programme and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. FbF is an innovative program with the prime goal to anticipate disasters, prevent their impact, if possible, and reduce human suffering and losses, based on credible forecasts, early preparedness and pre-planned community level actions. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) has contributed in the past to this initiative by providing timely probabilistic GloFAS flood forecast information for individual cases such as e.g. in Uganda. The JRC gave a presentation of the products and services of the EMS as well as of GloFAS.

River Engineering Symposium 2018: Rivers Without Borders, 10-11 October 2018, Graz, Austria

The workshop was organized by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism together with the Region Styria and the Austrian Association of Water. The workshop aimed at presenting national and international experiences, challenges and chances in trans-border flood risk management. The JRC presented the Copernicus EFAS and its future developments in the session on early warning system and emergency response planning. More info can be found here.

Early warning systems expert group meeting, 29 November 2018, Brussels, Belgium

The Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) of the European Commission organized an expert meeting on early warning systems. The purpose of the meeting was to inform participating states of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism on latest development in the field of the Early Warning Systems according to the mandate the Commission has received. Presentations included an analysis of recent events (Tsunami in Sulawesi, Indonesia), the European Natural Hazard Scientific Partnership (ARISTOTLE-2), as well as updates on the new Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), the European Drought Observatory (EDO) and EFAS.

Copernicus Users workshop, 13-14 Nov 2018, Zagreb, Croatia

The workshop was organised jointly by the Copernicus services on Atmosphere Monitoring (CAMS) and Climate Change (C3S), in collaboration with the Croatian Ministry of the Environment and the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological service. The workshop aimed to promote the products and uses of data and information from these two Copernicus services. In addition, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service CEMS was also presented, and a panel discussion including representatives of CAMS, C3S and CEMS was held. More information can be found here.

ANYWHERE workshop in Barcelona 13-14 November

The third workshop of the H2020 project ANYWHERE (http://anywhere-h2020.eu/) was held in Barcelona 13-14 November followed by a General Assembly for project partners on the 15-16 November. The main purpose of ANYWHERE is to act as a decision support tool for end-users (Civil Protection Agencies (CPA), businesses, public) with regards to multiple natural hazards and risks, including extreme weather, floods, flash floods, wildfire, storm surges, health and drought. EFAS delivers flood and flash flood data to the platform. The users of the pilot sites were in general happy with the platform, and the next year will be spent in further developing and tailoring the platforms to the end-user needs. Incidentally, the meeting coincided with a major flash-flood in Catalonia, which also affected Barcelona. The Civil protection agency of Catalonia were very impressed with the performance and usefulness of the Catalonian platform A4Cat during this event.

New partner

We gladly welcome Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell’Ambiente della Lombardia
(ARPA Lombardia) as new EFAS partner.