Pilot sites

Attica is a Greek administrative region, encompassing the metropolitan area of Athens, covering 3,808 km² and with a population of 3,8 Mio.

The Ethiopian pilot site focuses on three national parks of high biodiversity and tourism relevance: Simien, Bale mountains and Gambella national park.

Attica consists of Athens, the capital, with particular characteristics, e.g. overpopulation, over-concentration of critical infrastructure, and a long coastline. Recent catastrophic events, flash flood in Mandra (2017) and wildfire in Mati (2018), are examples of the tragic consequences of the combination of natural hazards and man-made interventions. Ethiopia is characterised by high wildfire susceptibility. Even in the Cool Highlands, where temperature and rainfall conditions would reduce the risk of fire hazard, the ample fuel accumulation and strong winds can trigger isolated, catastrophic fire outbreaks, e.g. wildfire in the Simien Mountains National Park (2019). Before the start of the rainy season, agricultural and other use of fires take place, but if the rainy season is delayed or below average, the human-induced fires go out of control and affect the surrounding national parks threatening the ecosystem. The national wildfire management system needs improvement with state-of-the-art tools.

MedEWSa will improve the current DSDS by:

1. Automatizing the process-chain from identification of active fire to real-time simulations, to assessing high risk areas, to producing alerts, and consequently optimizing the response-time.
2. Enhancing the spatiotemporal information by improving the spatial resolution especially in the urban-rural interface and developing indicators at the sub-seasonal to seasonal time scales.
3. Advancing models and systems regarding the fire spread capability for large scale domains (mixed wind scenarios, simulation time optimization), and the forest fire danger rating system.
4. Standard Operating Procedures and update of the Forest Fire Bulletin to trigger early actions, (patrolling areas at risk) and rapid deployment of FRs, mitigation measures (prescribed burnings), and preparedness activities.

Pilot sites

Egypt’s Mediterranean coast stretches over 1100 km, has a high population density, concentrates many social and economic activities and is a well-known archaeological area. Nile Delta is an important economic region in various fields and part of the urban and infrastructural development plans of the new Republic of Egypt (e.g. seaports, gas and oil production, petrochemical industry, tourism, agriculture). The region experiences extreme weather events such as thunderstorms, while it is also affected by sea level rise and flooding and is subject to erosion. Agricultural and urban areas are affected leading to the displacement of millions of people.

Venice is a semienclosed regional basin with one of the largest tidal ranges and extreme sea levels in the Mediterranean Sea. The city of Venice is an important study site for coastal flooding because:

• of the long record of sea level observations,
• Venice is frequently subject to flooding,
• of the increased frequency of floods and the expected further increase,
• it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and
• the experimental and comprehensive flood protection plan based on the MOSE mobile barrier system.

MedEWSa will improve the current DSDS by:

1. Improving the EWS providing a more accurate forecast and weather and marine warnings before the extreme events with efficient state-of-the-art operational solutions using EO and modelling.
2. Supporting a better estimate of the severity of the case and its location, magnitude and timing, leading to disaster risk reduction from extreme weather and support decision makers against crisis and improved planning.
3. New stakeholders engagement from private and public sectors, interested in sub-seasonal time horizons, through a new tool for strategic leadership and planning of maintenance activities and pre-alerting authorities taking decisions about safety and health, shores protection and maritime port authorities.

Pilot sites

The Košice region covers an area of 6,754 km², with floodplains in the south eastern part of the region and a lowland-hilly landscape elsewhere. There are four rivers with several water reservoirs: Slaná and Bodva in the southwest, Hornád in the west and centre, and Bodrog in the east.

Tbilisi covers an area of 504 km². It lies on the banks of the Mtkvari (Kura) River at 380-600m above sea level. To the north, Tbilisi is bounded by the southerly foot-hills of the Saguramo Range, to the east the northwest segment of the Iori plain and to the west and south by the Trialeti Range. There are 11 main tributaries flowing into the Mtkvari river in Tbilisi.

MedEWSa will improve the current DSDS by:

1. Optimizing interplay between CEMS EWS and national forecasting service, apply methodologies tested within EFAS also at the local level, and finally make use of nowcasting products in the operational forecasts (INCA).
2. Introducing the impact-based EWS for floods; Raising awareness and training of citizens in vulnerable areas, low-technology solutions for the last mile warning for marginalized or difficult to reach vulnerable population groups including self-protection and self-preparedness advisory.
3. Extending flash flood warning capacity based on INCA products and provide sectoral impact-based forecast tailored to trigger individual emergency plans and DSS activities.
4. Evaluating automation of the forecast-based pre-tasking of the CEMS Rapid Mapping service by seamlessly integrating the hazard delineation and impact estimates within the local DRM activities (SHMU and GNEA are responsible for pre-tasking the CEMS Rapid Mapping for floods events based on the CEMS EFAS service).

Pilot sites

Catalonia is around 42% forested (40% is in the Natura 2000 network), with an estimated annual value of forest-derived products is almost €60 million. The fire season used to be from June to September, but has increasingly expanded beyond the summer months. Rural abandonment in recent decades has led to an increase in fuel load. In recent years Catalonia suffered heatwaves and droughts.

Around 65% of Sweden‘s total land area is covered with forests. Particularly, southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, with increasing forest coverage northward. Most of southern Sweden has a temperate climate with four distinct seasons and mild temperatures throughout the year and warm summers (sometimes matching temperatures found along the continental Atlantic coast as far south as northern Spain).

MedEWSa will improve the current DSDS by:

1. Including sub-seasonal and seasonal information, especially regarding drought and heatwave conditions hence addressing better extremes and longer wildfire seasons and timely preparatory actions.
2. Enhancing impact-based warning systems with tailored risk indicators and uncertainty assessment that better communicate the socio-economic impact of droughts, heatwaves and wildfires (e.g. address health-care sector needs by introducing a temperature-based health index).
3. Enhancing current fire danger indices that are based on basic weather parameters and do not consider extreme fire behaviour. ML will be explored to improve occurrence probabilities.
4. Advancing fire spread models for extreme wildfires. Solutions will consider combining data mining, ML and data assimilation to reduce uncertainty for EWSs.