National, Cross-Border, International and Global actions in all phases of Disater Management are in due need of technical, organizational and legal standards that allow for the required cross-organizational as well as cross-cultural Harmonization.

While first international regulations on transnational information flow and processes already have been implemented successfully (transnationally, european, globally) in other domains since years (Environment, Geoinformation etc.) and further more overarching regulations already have been decided upon (European Data Act, Interoperable Europe Act etc.), implementation in the RISK domains still lack the concepts of how to approach the associated complexity, encourage and promote the elaboration of Lighthous realization, discuss and make available suitable Testbeds, and mobilize adequate workforce in order to achieve Facet Components that support data, information and workflow in predefined achievable timeframes.

This side-event is open for international experts' experiences and opinions exchange RIMMA2025 Participants less experienced but interested in the Digital Future of RISK Information Management are welcome to join.

This session deals with the analysis of the economic and insured losses as well as an assessment of the effectiveness of prevention and early warning in relation to the weather extreme "Bernd" of 2021.

In a comparative study between the three countries Germany, Austria and Switzerland, it has been analysed whether and how the different levels of damage caused by the weather extreme (a combined heavy rain- run off, floods and hail storm event) can be attributed to meteorological, geomorphological, technical and organisational characteristics of the catastrophe management. The preventive effect of protective and early warning measures were studied in the Ahr Valley, the Eastern Alps (Upper Bavaria and Salzburg) and the Swiss canton of Lucerne in detailed field studies. In addition to a comprehensive literature review, interviews with experts and local simulations were carried out (and could be reproduced “on demand” in the session for stronger interaction with the audience).

We would like to discuss among the panellists and with the audience on:

(1) The opportunities regional heavy rain-strategies, the international state and the barriers of implementation;

(2) How precipitation scenarios of the future could account for climate change and also include nature-based solutions (land protection; run-off infiltration strategies);

(3) Ways to strengthen local risk awareness and private precautions;

(4) The concept of integrated catastrophe management (i.e. prevention, crisis intervention and insurance) and its benefits in the areas of early warning and financial management of natural disasters.

The subjects will be discussed beyond the findings of the comparative study and include European and international perspectives.

The target group are national and international interested parties from practitioners, experts and politicians.