PEARL

PEARL brings together world leading expertise in both the domain of hydro-engineering and risk reduction and management services to pool knowledge and practical experience in order to develop more sustainable risk management solutions for coastal communities focusing on present and projected extreme hydro-meteorological events. The project will examine 7 case studies from across the EU to develop a holistic risk reduction framework that can identify multi-stressor risk assessment, risk cascading processes and strengthen risk governance by enabling an active role for key actors. The research programme links risk and root cause assessment through enhanced FORIN methodology, event prediction, forecast and warning, development of adaptive structural and non-structural strategies and active stakeholder participation. The project aims to develop novel technologies and methods that can improve the early warning process and its components; it builds a pan-European knowledge base gathering real case studies and demonstrations of best practice across the EU to support capacity development for the delivery of cost-effective risk-reduction plans. Additionally, the project provides an interface to relevant ongoing tsunami work: it plugs into global databases, early warning systems and processes at WMO, and contributes to community building, development of guidelines and communication avenues at the global level through IWA.

A key finding of IMPRESSIONS was that benefits in some regions and sectors are offset by detrimental effects in others. For example, increases in agricultural and forest productivity in northern Europe are offset by severe water scarcity and loss of productivity in southern Europe and parts of central and eastern Europe.