Conference Agenda

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Authors
 
Session Overview
Session
Keynote: Jürg Luterbacher,: Early Warning at International Institutions
Time:
Tuesday, 28/Jan/2025:
5:00pm - 5:30pm

Session Chair: Juerg Luterbacher
 Location: Lecture Hall S003

UniS, Schanzeneckstrasse 1, 3012 Bern / Ground Floor, Places: 232, Seating: fixed

The talk will give an overview of the MedEWSa project, which is a 3-year Horizon Europe project started in November 2023 led by the Justus Liebig University of Giessen with 29 partners from academia, research institutions, national meteorological and hydrological services, ECMWF, Red Cross, WMO, SMEs, first responders, civil protections, NGOs, local & regional governments, crisis planners as well as lighthouse stakeholders including UNEP, UNEP-MAP, UNDP, African Union and more.


Session Abstract

Building on existing tools, MedEWSa will develop a fully integrated impact-based multi-hazard early warning system. It will achieve advances beyond the state-of-the-art in AI-based decision support solutions for improved impact prediction, methods for impact prediction and early warnings, and modelling and prediction of multiple hazard dynamics and their interdependencies.
It will also develop a standardized Decision Support Dissemination System for risk and vulnerability assessment using existing capabilities for a multi-hazard platform.
In addition, MedEWSa will deploy an analysis to provide integrated, accurate, and rapid early warnings for the pan-European-Mediterranean-African region.
The project is implemented through activities and studies in eight pilot areas, selected from European, African, and Southern Mediterranean states due to their history of catastrophic natural events with cascading impacts. The pilot areas are divided into “twins” that connect areas that, although having different climatic conditions, are vulnerable to the same natural hazards and allow for the bidirectional transfer of long-term knowledge:

  • Attica region (Greece) and Ethiopian national parks: wildfires and extreme events related to drought

  • Venice (Italy) and the Alexandria area and the Nile Delta (Egypt): coastal flooding and tsunamis

  • Kosice (Slovakia) and Tbilisi (Georgia): landslides and floods

  • Catalonia region (Spain) and Sweden (national level): heatwaves, droughts, and forest fires

Finally, MedEWSa is an implementing project for the EW4All Initiative, which aims to ensure that everyone on the planet is protected from natural and climatic risks by 2027 through the use of Early Warning Systems.