The recent droughts and unprecedented floods in 2021 and 2023 in Europe have illustrated our vulnerability to extreme weather events. Besides climate change as a driver of more frequent and intensifying weather extremes, demographic change and socio-economic development exacerbate severe impacts. International frameworks for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation (e.g. SENDAI framework, EU Climate Adaptation Strategy & EU disaster risk management policies) acknowledge the critical need for integrating risk governance, communication and operational mechanisms for coping with extreme climate. DIRECTED seeks to foster disaster-resilient societies through improving collaborations and communication among scientific, technical, and policy-makers, and local communities regarding extreme climate events and a multi-risk perspective on forest fires, droughts, floods, heatwaves, and storms, to support disaster risk reduction. Our four European Real World Labs (RWL’s) are at the centre of our efforts to improve interoperability for data, models, communication and governance in the context for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). DIRECTED will improve interoperability with an integrated federated system, which connects different instances and data sources on public and private clouds under a centralized interface, known as a Data-Fabric. The Data-Fabric will adapt to changing CCA and DRM requirements for data, models and visualizations. Our RWLs will co-produce a plug and play system that lowers the cost of implementing new and connecting existing modeling environments and data sources.
DIRECTED has seven core objectives, which include creating an overview of current knowledge, policies, tools, and best practices for DRM and CCA decision-making; advancing the interoperability of data, models, and tools; co-developing a new multi-level integrated risk governance framework (Risk-Tandem framework) for the coherent integration between DRM and CCA policies; demonstrating the potential of transdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder co-production as a means to unpack enablers, barriers for developing transformative tools and improved risk management strategies; leveraging innovative digital architectures using a Data-Fabric technique to support integrated multi-hazard DRM and CCA workflows; demonstrating the feasibility for integrated cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary coordination of the DRM cycle; and strengthening DRM and resilience-building in our RWLs and beyond.
