Probabilistic Disaster Risk

The Risk Data Hub (RDH) has introduced an Application Programming Interface (API) that enables users to query the core datasets within the RDH database. This feature allows users to autonomously extract the data they require. The RDH API presents robust search capabilities, enabling users to retrieve specific data elements tailored to their individual needs. The RDH API can be accessed directly through coding or via Postman (Asthana et al., 2012), a platform that facilitates interaction with various API endpoints. Ultimately, the RDH API significantly enhances access to curated Europe-wide information related to risk, hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and historical disaster loss data specific to Europe.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The reformed Union civil protection legislation (Decision on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism), which entered into force on 1 January 2014, is paving the way for more resilient communities by including key actions related to disaster prevention such as developing national risk assessments and the refinement of risk management planning. Under the Decision, Member States agreed to “develop risk assessments at national or appropriate sub- national level and make available to the Commission a summary of the relevant elements thereof by 22 December 2015 and every three years thereafter”. The Decision also requires Member States, together with the Commission, to develop guidelines on the content, methodology, and structure of risk management capability assessments. The Commission has published risk assessment and risk mapping guidelines to assist Member States with their national risk assessments. Risk management capability assessment guidelines were also developed.

The recent Communication from the Commission "Strengthening EU Disaster Management: rescEU -Solidarity with Responsibility" COM(2017) 773 final calls "Member States and Commission to promote more systematic collection and dissemination of loss data, to enhance the collection of loss data and make use of loss data for optimised prevention and climate adaptation planning".

Systematically collected, comparable and robust disaster damage and loss data are an essential element of the risk assessment and management processes. Thus, the Council Conclusions on risk management capability call on the Commission to 'Encourage the development of systems, models or methodologies for collecting and exchanging data on ways to assess the economic impact of disasters on an all-hazard basis.'

The current practice in disaster loss data recording across the EU shows that there are hardly any comparable disaster damage and loss data: differences exist in the methods of data recording as well as in the governance approaches to managing disaster damage and loss data. The lack of standards for damage and loss data collection and recording represent the main challenge for damage and loss data sharing and comparison, especially for cross-border cooperation within the EU.

This report is based on an accurate analysis of several databases developed following a diversified number of purposes to collect, record and aggregate information regarding losses occurred after a shock triggered by different hazards. The report proposes a common structure of a generic database able to accommodate and properly record the required particularities of a vast variety of events triggered by any kind of hazard.

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.

This report presents the main functionalities of the DRMKC Risk Data Hub (henceforth RDH) web portal. It is meant to provide users with concise guidance on how to use the tools offered by the platform. Firstly, the paper showcases the main features of the Risk Analysis module and of the Disaster Loss Data module. Furthermore, it covers the methodologies behind the risk estimation – exploring its main components - and behind the calculation of losses – providing insights onto the classification of fatalities and economic cost. Secondly, it recounts the detailed procedure to upload data into the RDH.

The EU Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC) is developing and maintaining the Risk Data Hub (RDH): a web platform, for collecting, managing and sharing disaster risk as well as damage and loss data. The RDH aims at supporting the implementation of the EU Strategy on Climate Change Adaptation and the understanding of the EU risk landscape as part of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and at facilitating reporting by Member States, to help meet the objectives of Decision No 1313/2013/EU of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism.

The development of the platform is based on the results of ‘’Needs and Gap analysis” performed as part of the preparation of the European Commission Staff Working Document – ‘’Overview of Natural and Man-made Disaster Risks the European Union may face’’ (latest two versions 2017 , 2020 ). The RDH adopts the comprehensive framework of policies and guidelines, data sharing initiatives and spatial data infrastructures with the purpose of setting the bases for knowledge for DRM at local, regional, national and Europe-wide level.

The platform hosts, curates and disseminates data, tools and methodologies for Disaster Risk Management (DRM). Among its key functionalities, it offers an open-source methodology for risk assessment as well as an authoritative loss and damage database that can provide an analysis of the losses due to disasters at European level. The Risk Analysis and Disaster Loss data portals are hosting open data and analysis with European wide coverage. They offer an overview on available and commonly used data in terms of risk components (hazards, exposure and vulnerability that in turn are used to estimate an overall risk indicator) for the risk analysis module and disaster loss and damage data (fatalities, economic losses, non-economic losses) for the disaster loss data module. These data and European-wide analysis and indicators are managed by the DRMKC RDH administrators and are freely available for download. The RDH provides decision makers with access to robust statistics and analytics for evidence-based policy formulation. Post-event records and pre-event assessments support the development of decision-making tools such as Cost Benefit Analysis. Furthermore, identifying the geographically located drivers of disasters (exposure and vulnerability), the RDH allows to intertwine the global/international policies and the local scale of practice and implementation. This report puts together five analytical reports based on the analysis of the data available within the RDH. It aims at providing a glimpse of the multiple analysis that can be derived from the intersection of different datasets on hazard, exposure, vulnerability and disaster damage and loss data hosted on the platform.