Newsroom

NEWS SEARCH RESULT ( 1 - 4 from 4 )

SMR NEWS

Planning for flooding, terrorism and disasters in Kristiansand

16 October 2017

“We are creating tools that cities can use to prevent disasters, and to be prepared for when they occur. It is also important that cities learn from each other's experiences, good and bad," said Professor Jose J. Gonzalez, the University of Agder (UiA). He is the acting scientific coordinator for the European-funded research project Smart Mature Resilience, in which the UiA and the Municipality of Kristiansand, along with six other European cities and five research and international institutions, develop models for how cities can prepare for natural disasters such as sea level rise, extreme weather, flooding and landslides, as well as terrorist attacks and major accidents.

Involve more institutions

In several of the models that the crisis management research project has prepared for various disaster scenarios, it is recommended to involve far more institutions, public and private bodies than only emergency services departments and municipalities. "After the flood, it became clear, for example, that locally, we could have involved more volunteer organizations and the general population in general. Experiences from other places have also shown that it can be effective to prepare people for disasters occurring, and to train them into how they should respond, "says Sigurd Paulsen, deputy chief executive officer in Kristiansand Municipality, explaining: "We can warn or prepare people living near vulnerable areas about the risk of flooding, avalanches or acute pollution from a company or similar. The information can go to charity or non-governmental organizations, or directly via text, email or social media. The emergency response manager believes that such information must be targeted and is probably most effective if the recipients perceive a real threat. For example, it may be easier to understand the need for increased preparedness now after a serious flood occurred than a before part of the country was inundated with flood waters.

A broad-researching topic

"The serious flooding this autumn drew attention to the research project, but it's about so much more than just flooding and extreme weather," says Jose J. Gonzalez. “In addition to natural disasters, the research project deals with how cities can prepare and handle conditions such as heatwaves, juvenile delinquency and economic changes.

Several of the models have already been tested and have already achieved good results in cities such as Vejle and Glasgow. In both cities, they have managed to turn economic recession into new optimism and growth, "said Jose J. Gonzalez.

Three of the cities that participated in the research projects, Bristol, Glasgow and Vejle, already began developing resilience ten years ago in order to better cope with unforeseen events. To make this happen, the cities have expanded their cooperation with business, the city's organizations and universities, and have gotten citizens involved in city processes.

"In these three cities, the investment has had positive ripple effects. The cities have managed to turn business downturns to positive growth," says Jose J. Gonzalez.

NOK 45 million

The research project has a budget of €4.6 million or about 45 million kroner. Of this, UiA has 9 million kroner over three years.

"Without being able to answer for the entire organization, I think there can be much to gain for Kristiansand municipality," says Sigurd Paulsen.

Original text: Torbjørn Witzøe, Fædrelandsvennen. Translation: Clara Grimes, ICLEI Europe.

SMR NEWS

Smart Mature Resilience to launch new programme and workshops at Thessaloniki event

9 October 2017

Nine ambitious local governments will join stakeholders from seven European cities in kicking off a new city collaboration programme as part of the Smart Mature Resilience (SMR) project at a Stakeholder Dialogue in Thessaloniki (Greece) on 7 November 2017.

The event will see participating cities sharing and exchanging local government policies and tools for strategically building city resilience. European cities are facing increasingly frequent and intense hazards and risks as climate change and changing social demographics place their critical infrastructures under increasing pressure. Sharing good practices can help them plan ahead for known and unknown shocks and stresses.

As part of the SMR project, three so-called “Tier 1” cities, Glasgow (UK), Kristiansand (Norway) and Donostia/San Sebastian (Spain), have co-developed a suite of tools to support them and other cities in planning, budgeting and identifying replicable policies towards their resilience goals. A second group of “Tier 2” cities, Bristol (UK), Riga (Latvia), Rome (Italy) and Vejle (Denmark), has been closely observing and providing feedback on this process.

At the one-day Stakeholder Dialogue, these cities will share their knowledge of these tools and contextualise them in terms of real policies to a new group of “Tier 3” cities including Amman (Jordan), Athens (Greece), Greater Manchester (UK), Malaga (Spain), Malmö (Sweden), Reykjavik (Iceland), Stirling (UK) and Thessaloniki (Greece). The event will be officially opened by the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris.

Research as part of SMR has found that cities and their critical infrastructure are interdependent, and that cities can help further boost their own resilience by supporting and fostering resilience in other cities. SMR is supporting the potential for replication by working towards international standards in city resilience management.

The first CEN workshop initiated by SMR, spearheaded by German standardisation organisation DIN, CEN WS/88 - Functional Specification for a Resilience Information Portal is underway. Two further envisaged CEN Workshop Agreements, City Resilience Development - Maturity Model and City Resilience Development - Operational Guidance, will kick off in Thessaloniki on 8 November, following the Stakeholder Dialogue. To join the standardization processes, please contact rene.lindner@din.de.

For further information, visit the project website.

SMR NEWS

Stakeholders in Donostia/San Sebastian, Glasgow and Kristiansand receive training on the City Dynamics Model and Resilience Building Policies tool

4 October 2017

The Smart Mature Resilience project is undergoing an intensive training period, where local stakeholders in the core cities of Donostia/San Sebastian, Glasgow and Kristiansand are receiving in-depth training on how to use the latest tools developed by the project; the Resilience Building Policies Tool and the City Dynamics Model. Two stakeholder training workshops took place in Glasgow and in Kristiansand. Local stakeholders received training on how to use the City Dynamics Model (previously referred to as the System Dynamics Model), which supports the already available Resilience Maturity Model.

The City Dynamics Model helps users, specifically municipal employees and elected officials involved in strategic planning and city management, better understand the main elements of the resilience building process in their city. It helps them prioritize the most urgent policies they should implement in order for their city to build resilience and guides them in planning relevant activities at a local level. During the training session in Glasgow, the participants worked on a flood scenario, to identify the best policies to improve preparedness and critical infrastructure performance and to better anticipate future water management challenges. In Kristiansand, the case study focused on some of the aspects of the recently developed and adapted Kristiansand Action Plan, and more specifically on the policies that would advance urban, green growth in the Nordic port city.

Following the trainings, webinars will be held, where the Tier 2 cities of Rome, Riga and Vejle will be briefed on the training activities and results from the implementing cities, the tool developers of TECNUN, University of Navarra, CIEM Center for Integrated Emergency Management, University of Agder and co-creation partner ICLEI Europe, and will ask questions and provide feedback on the results. The SMR partner cities are also preparing to take over a mentoring role for the upcoming final pilot implementation of the project, where a new Tier 3 group of cities will join them in resilience building activities. The City Dynamics Model will be available on the SMR website at the beginning of November 2017.

RELATED NEWS

City of Bratislava exchanges with Reykjavik's Experts on Climate Change Adaptation in Iceland

2 October 2017

The capital city of Bratislava participated in the 8th international conference of the Society for Disaster Risk Management "Dimensions of Disaster Risk Reduction and Society Resilience in a Complex World" which took place on 23-25 August, in Reykjavík (Iceland). In addition to the conference, the Office of the Chief Architect represented the RESIN project in a visit the City Hall of Reykjavík in order to meet the city's experts for climate change adaptation, whom they first met during the 1st Knowledge Transfer Workshop organised by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability in Bratislava on 12-13 June 2017.

Among the main topics of the conference were the increase in natural disasters due to climate change such as drought, floods, forest fires and overheating of the urban environment, which also resonate with Central Europe and Bratislava. The city of Bratislava presented outputs from several projects that are related to climate change risk. One of the contributions focused on Bratislava´s experience in the RESIN project, which was prepared together with Faculty of Natural Sciences of the UK in Bratislava and Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems in Germany. The aim was to provide insight on how tools for reducing climate change risks and impacts are developed by researchers and later tested and used by the four city partners in the project. In Bratislava city, these tools are tested and in order to be finally used in urban planning, adaptation planning and decision making, which is in the project referred to as the process of co-creation. The presentation summed up the lessons learned from RESIN and from practical work on the side of implementation of blue and green adaptation measures. The take-home message for Bratislava from this conference is that adaptation planning goes beyond building green and blue infrastructure and should also encompass the planning of preparedness for climate change hazards and minimising the risk they impose for health of citizens but also damage or loss to property, with a special focus on awareness raising and communication in risk management.

Thanks to the cooperation as part of the RESIN project among 1-tier and 2-tier cities, it was possible to meet the representatives of Reykjavík City hall, who also participated in the 1st Knowledge Transfer Workshop and exchange experience with the implementation of adaptation measures in a dynamically changing urban environment that has to withstand the adverse impacts of climate change, such as heavy rainfall and other extreme weather events. In Reykjavik, this problem is solved by diverting water from roads and other impermeable areas to areas that are covered with vegetation or wetlands. Despite the fact that Iceland uses almost exclusively renewable energy (geothermal and water) to meet its energy needs, Reykjavik plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions also by revitalizing wetlands and urban greenery, including its woody component, which can absorb most greenhouse gases. An example of such a wetland is the Vatnsmýrin, which was revitalized on the territory of the city near the University of Iceland and includes an educational walkway that brings its significance closer to visitors and residents of the city.

Like Reykjavik, the capital city of Bratislava is balancing the need for urban development and densification with pleasant and safe urban environment for living. For Bratislava, this mostly concerns reintroducing green areas into the city, which would make the city's microclimate more pleasant during heatwaves and help prevent damage after extremely heavy rainfall. Pilot projects of such adaptation measures have been carried out within the framework of the "Bratislava is preparing for climate change" project, financed by the EEA grants and Norways Grants (project duration 2014-2017).

"Bratislava has had an active approach in adaption to climate change and protecting drinking water resources. Through the presentation of individual projects, it will be possible to continue to cooperate in the future and to establish contacts with foreign partners in implementing concrete measures to increase the adaptation of cities to climate change," said Ingrid Konrad, Chief Architect, City of Bratislava.

Subscribe to our newsletter and stay informed

CONTACT

  Email

 Twitter


 
 LinkedIn

 

 

 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 653569.