FLIRE – Floods and fire risk assessment and management
Good Practices Category
Good Practices Summary
Develop an integrated Decision Support System Tool available to local authorities and key stakeholders in order to:
Minimize of the impact of floods and forest fires on human lives, ecosystems and properties.
Improve Floods’ prevention level.
Improve the Flash flood mitigation.
Improve the Forest fires’ prevention level and forests’ protection.
Raise awareness on both hazards of flash floods & forest fires and their combined effects in both environmental and socio-economic aspects of Eastern Attica and Athens city.
Mitigation
FLIRE’s main challenge is the short time lag that usually exists between weather drivers (for both floods and fires) and the resulting flash flood or fire event.
Replicability/Knowledge Transfer
A description of the Project and the tools developed has been disseminated to the general public. Representatives from local society and other potential users of the tools participated in training courses for the application of the tools and received relevant technical support. Local authorities and stakeholders involved received even more detailed and customized information, while technical details of the Project, focusing on the methodology applied and the lessons learnt were disseminated to the scientific and research community. According to the After-LIFE Communication Plan, relevant activities will continue during the 5-year After-LIFE period.
Resources
The Project has develop: A report on the current environmental status of the study area, including information on locations vulnerable to floods and forest fires; Flood and forest fire hazard and risk maps for the study area; Forest fire and flood risk-management tools that will operate under near real-time conditions and will inform local authorities, stakeholders and the general public of the risk of imminent fires and floods; A planning tool for flood risk assessment and management in peri-urban environments; An integrated Decision Support System for combined flood and forest-fire risk management.
Target Audience
Policy Implications
FLIRE is expected to contribute to the implementation, update and, when relevant, development of EU environmental policy and legislation.
Social Dimension
FLIRE is of high relevance to national and local authorities, civil protection agencies and actors, non-governmental organization focusing on environmental protection as well as to the citizens. Public consultation with key stakeholders, local authorities and citizens’ committees from Eastern Attica and Athens city is crucial in order to gain sufficient information for the area and secure the use and integration of the early warning systems and the Decision Support System tool by local authorities.
Innovation Type
Awareness, Platform, Technology, ToolkitInnovation
FLIRE brings to the table significant technological innovation in terms of remote sensing, data mining, flood and fire modelling techniques and development of information and communication tools (ICT), such as advanced early warning systems.