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International audience; -Riskcoast est un projet financé par le fond européen Interreg SudOE à hauteur de 1,07 M€ qui se concentre sur l'étude des risques géologiques en zone côtière, liés au changement climatique. Riskcoast intervient sur la chaîne complète du risque, de la compréhension de l'aléa à l'amélioration de la gestion du risque, de la prévention à la crise possible ainsi que la réhabilitation de zones sinistrées. Il a démarré en novembre 2019 et s'achèvera en octobre 2022. ABSTRACT-Riskcoast project is funded by the European fund Interreg Sudoe for 1.07 M€. It focuses on the study of geological risks in coastal areas related to climate change. Riskcoast intervenes on the whole risks, from a better understanding of the hazard to the improvement of the risk management, from the prevention to the possible crisis as well as the rehabilitation of disaster areas. It starts on November 2019 and lasts 3 years.

National audience; Réaliser le retour d’expérience d’une crise extrême, telle la crise cyclonique de 2017 aux Antilles françaises, est une procédure délicate et complexe. Elle nécessite non seulement d’intégrer les contraintes et incertitudes liées au passage de trois cyclones majeurs, mais également les effets des actions et décisions prises par l’important réseau des acteurs mobilisés à tous les niveaux d’intervention. La capitalisation d’expériences individuelles et collectives au sein d’un RETEX unique est donc primordiale pour optimiser la prise de décision en conduite de crise « hors-norme », notamment dans un contexte de changement climatique aux effets imprédictibles. Dans cet article, nous proposons un retour d’expérience sous la forme d’une base de données graphique qui intègre des informations hétérogènes et descriptives des aléas, des actions menées, des interactions entre les services, etc. Il s’agit, in fine, d’enrichir les connaissances et d’appuyer les décisions, à tous les niveaux (opérationnel, tactique et stratégique), tant dans le public que dans le privé.

Realiser le retour d’experience d’une crise extreme, telle la crise cyclonique de 2017 aux Antilles francaises, est une procedure delicate et complexe. Elle necessite non seulement d’integrer les contraintes et incertitudes liees au passage de trois cyclones majeurs, mais egalement les effets des actions et decisions prises par l’important reseau des acteurs mobilises a tous les niveaux d’intervention. La capitalisation d’experiences individuelles et collectives au sein d’un RETEX unique est donc primordiale pour optimiser la prise de decision en conduite de crise « hors-norme », notamment dans un contexte de changement climatique aux effets impredictibles. Dans cet article, nous proposons un retour d’experience sous la forme d’une base de donnees graphique qui integre des informations heterogenes et descriptives des aleas, des actions menees, des interactions entre les services, etc. Il s’agit, in fine, d’enrichir les connaissances et d’appuyer les decisions, a tous les niveaux (operationnel, tactique et strategique), tant dans le public que dans le prive.

National audience; Le réchauffement climatique induit de nombreux changements tant météorologiques, environnementaux, sociaux, qu’économiques et politiques. Le concept d’anticipation devient un enjeu essentiel pour les structures publiques et privées afin de réduire les conséquences de ces changements à long terme, mais aussi à court terme. L’anticipation cherche, en effet à sortir d’une crise le plus rapidement possible ou à reprendre ou poursuivre une activité quelconque. D’un point de vue empirique, aucun consensus ne se dégage, chaque acteur l’appréhendant de façon différente. Le projet de recherche-action APRIL aspire à créer un outil d’anticipation qui permettrait aux gestionnaires de crise d’optimiser leur prise de décision et de facto la résilience du territoire et de la société. APRIL s’appuie sur la crise cyclonique de 2017 aux Antilles françaises pour expérimenter une méthodologie innovante de traitement des données de retours d’expérience.Les retours d’expérience recueillis auprès des gestionnaires mobilisés lors de ces événements sont capitalisés puis visualisés, dans un premier temps, dans un graphe dynamique. Ce dernier permet d’intégrer les mécanismes spatio-temporels de l’anticipation (type/ cinétique de l’événement perturbateur, contexte géo-spatial, circulation de l’information, facteurs humains). Ces graphes dynamiques analysés seront ensuite présentés et validés par ces gestionnaires de crise courant 2020, afin de poursuivre in fine l’élaboration d’un outil d’anticipation et de le tester lors de formations à la gestion de crise, conduites à l’INHESJ.

This study presents the results of an experimental application of a multi-method measurement concept for the monitoring of alpine mass movements. Satellite-borne differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) was applied as the key technology. To improve the information contents of the DInSAR displacement data for an individual mass movement, a complementary measurement was carried out with a three dimensional measurement system. The information on the 3D movement characteristics obtained by this complementary measurement was used to extrapolate subsequent DInSAR measurements to 3D. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data were tested as complementary 3D measurement systems. The deviations between the single measurement systems were mainly controlled by the error budgets of the different methods. An exception were short term GNSS single point time series which included small scale surface movements that were not captured by the other methods. TLS proved to be the most suitable complementary method. A single TIS repeat measurement was sufficient to create a mask, which enables the projection of DInSAR displacement data to 3D. The application of satellite-borne DInSAR in alpine terrain is challenging; signal decorrelation is a problem due to fast terrain movements and snow coverage and can cause failure of the measurement system. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Private car mobility registers a high accident rate and, in addition, in 2014 in the EU-28, around 70% of the overall CO2 emissions from transport were generated by road mode. As a result, a modal shift of at least a part of passenger transport in urban areas, from private car to sustainable transport systems is desirable. Several policies have been adopted in the EU in this direction. The SaveMyBike project regards the development of a rewarding system for sustainable mobility based on an open source platform able to monitor systematically trips in the city, starting to integrate the platform with a service to incentive private bike use by means of UHF-RFID systems, creating secure areas for bike parking and finding stolen bicycles. The real testing application to the Livorno case study from the beginning of 2018. Then, SaveMyBike project introduces four innovations: it’s, for the first time, an open source rewarding platform, called GOOD_GO linked to an anti-theft system for private bikes, it is applied to a whole city and it introduces a ‘financially hot system’ for municipalities able to find financial resource from bike services.

During earthquakes, in order to manage the emergency properly and arrive at the most efficient hospital response it is a good idea to carry out a simple, rapid and reliable vulnerability assessment of seismic events. The “holistic” approach inherent in the methodology described here is not exclusively based on structural parameters but includes a combination of two main research-based approaches: the theory of complex systems analysis with the use of an input–output inoperability (Leontief) model and a rapidseismic vulnerability assessment with the field data collection using the World Health Organization evaluation forms. In the context of the European Commission's Framework Program 7 project “MOVE—Methods for the Improvement of Vulnerability Assessment in Europe”, the methodology was applied to the hospital system in Florence, where there are five main medical centers. Rapid seismic analysis was carried out by considering spatial and temporal exposure under two main scenarios. The proposed methodology was applied to rapid assessment of seismic risk in the Florence hospital system, which includes five health structures. Only one hospital provided a treatment capacity that exceeded medical needs. All the other hospitals had a post-event treatment capacity that was lower than the forecast level of local demand for hospital care. Regarding the intrinsic security situation, only two hospitals presented higher values than average, while the structure closest to the earthquake epicenter had the lowest intrinsic security value, with almost 40% of its general patient and ICU beds rendered insecure.

This paper focuses on the Landslide Thematic services of the EU-funded FP7-SPACE project SAFER (Services and Applications For Emergency Response) for inventory mapping, monitoring and rapid mapping by using Earth Observation (EO). We exploited satellite Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA), and discuss example applications in South Tyrol and Abruzzo (Italy), Lower Austria (Austria), Lubietova (Slovakia) and the Kaohsiung County (Taiwan). These case studies showcase the significance of radar and optical EO data, InSAR and OBIA methods for landslide mapping and monitoring in different geological environments and during all phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, crisis and recovery. © 2016 The Authors

The uncertainty related to disasters generated by climate change and anthropogenic modifications of the environment adds yet another challenge for the decision makers, in terms of strategies, regulations and technologies adopted for protecting the communities without limiting their development and increasing their resilience to natural hazards. In mountain regions the choice of appropriate sites for infrastructure such as roads, railways, cable cars or hydropower dams is often very limited. In parallel, the increasing demand for supply infrastructure induces a continuous transformation of the territory. The new role played by the precautionary monitoring in the risk governance becomes fundamental and may overcome the modeling of future events, which represented so far the predominant approach to these sort of issues. The monitoring carried out by radar satellite systems represents, for practicability, resolution and cover, a good solution for keeping under observation extensive areas affected by hydrogeological instability. On the other hand, satellite remote sensing needs to be corroborated by terrestrial measurements particularly in the case they are used to evaluate an increasing of the deformation trend for community protection. Basing on the experience of European Projects as SAFER (http://www.ecmwf.int/research/EU_projects/SAFER) and SAFELAND (http://www.safeland-fp7.eu), the Interreg funded project SloMove aims to structure and consolidate methodologies in order to integrate differential interferometry technique with most common terrestrial technologies as D-GPS and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for monitoring slow mass movements. Within the project, the partnership has identified two test sites located between 2,500 and 3,000 m of altitude, in South Tyrol, Italy, and Grisons Canton, Switzerland.

The Ziway–Shala basin, in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER), is a reference site for regional to global paleoclimatic reconstructions. We undertook and interpreted a stratigraphical, pedological and geomorphological study, including a new geological map scale 1:250,000, to provide a Late Quaternary-centred revised geological history of the basin. 1 We mapped several Late Quaternary sedimentary units and arranged them in four major unconformity-bounded stratigraphic units (synthems), recording equivalent phases of geomorphic change. A new, extensive, soil survey allowed us to establish a pedostratigraphic unit, the T’ora geosol, as a distinctive marker of landscape stability and instability in the area during the Holocene. Climate change was a major control on geo-morphologic evolution of this area during the intense climate fluctuations of the last 100,000 years. Extensive lake systems developed during relatively humid Last Glacial interstadials and in the early-mid Holocene; this last was characterized by short, but high-amplitude, regressions during arid pulses. Major lakes’ lowering occurred in the terminal Pleistocene and in the last 5000 years. Evidences for high or very high terminal Pleistocene lake levels suggest possible non-climatic controls on changes in lakes’ extension and volumes between Late Pleistocene and Holocene. We suggest that modifications of hydrological thresholds, due to activity of structures parallel and transversal to the MER, established new lakes’ boundaries between terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene, setting the maximum level of Holocene lake systems at about 1670 m a.s.l. The integrated analysis of lacustrine, fluvial, slope and soil systems provided a basis for a general interpretation of relations between climatic changes and geomorphic processes at a basin scale.

As it represents the final point of the whole rescue chain, hospital infrastructure is essential to the medical response during disasters. Hence, vulnerability evaluation of medical facilities becomes necessary in order to properly plan medical response in emergency situations. For this reason, the purpose of this study is to examine vulnerability levels in the hospital system in Florence, Italy, with the specific goal of identifying its ability to respond to major crises such as floods or earthquakes. For its success, the main constraint of hospital vulnerability assessment is the high complexity of systems in terms of failures, propagation, and impact on the overall performance. Besides the (physical) structural resilience, hospital functionality strongly relies on nonstructural components and organizational aspects. An integrated methodology, based on a combination of the following research areas, was developed: the theory of complex systems analysis, by using the Output–Input Inoperability Leontief Model, and the Rapid Vulnerability Evaluation Approach with the application of evaluation forms especially designed for earthquakes and floods. The medical performance assessment involved the entire hospital system in Florence (Italy) which comprises of five hospitals and one ambulance service headquarters.

In the modern mining industry a comprehensive slope monitoring program, aimed at managing potential large scale instabilities and able to simultaneously detect local scale movements, should represent an integral part of every geotechnical risk assessment plan. El Teniente provides a good example of a complex modern mining operation where stability issues have to be addressed with a slope monitoring program which is able to support geotechnical engineers not only in managing risk, but also in the interpretation of ongoing stability problems. Situated in Chile, 44 km east of Rancagua, 75 km south of the capital Santiago and at an altitude of 2,500 m, El Teniente is one of largest underground copper mines in the world and also recently integrated surface mining. The nature of the project in terms of depth, size and mining methods, and the possible interactions among the different mining processes, expose its facilities and processes to significant risk levels. Slope stability is one of the most critical sources of risk, at least in connection withsurface operations. In order to cope with these risk conditions and to possibly mitigate them, new technological solutions based on process automation and innovative concepts have been adopted. This paper describes the innovative use of slope monitoring data currently under implementation at El Teniente, which is based on the combination of radar data used in an unconventional way and other geotechnical-geological analyses. Although slope monitoring radar is a well−established safety-critical monitoring practice designed to provide alarms in case of impending pit wall slope failures occurring, there is limited published information available on the use of such a powerful technology for other purposes in mining operations such as the interpretation of slope behaviour. This paper presents the author’s experience with using radar data to identify the most likely failure mechanisms and to assess and validate geotechnical models. More specifically, at El Teniente the proposed integrated approach involves calibrating the input parameters for finite element modelling (FEM) to replicate movements observed through the monitoring data acquired by radar. The paper presents the results of the use of radar to monitor different areas of the mine affected by stability issues, such as the Camino Principal (the main access road to the Rajo Sur pit) and the north walls of the Rajo Sur (potentially affected by slope movements) and how the data have been used to get a better preliminary understanding of ongoing instability phenomena.

Located in the Alta Badia Valley, a famous tourist area in the Dolomites of northern Italy, the active Corvara earthslide-earthflow causes damages to critical road infrastructures, as well as ski and other recreational facilities and power lines. The high spatial resolution and the short frequency of revisit time of COSMO-SkyMed system (CSK®), open new opportunities for SAR-based monitoring systems dedicated to natural risks management. The ASI AO funded project “LAWINA” takes advantage from these distinctive features together with non-conventional reflectors, in order to monitor and assess the hazard of such a phenomenon by means of PSI techniques. The particular working context and the complete processing workflow for this specific application, offer opportunity to highlight strengths and weak points of classical approach to PSI and to provides suggestions for an effective use of experimented corners.

The Italian Space Agency (ASI Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) funded 27 scientific projects in the framework of COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) program. A subset of them focused on the improvements of the quality and quantity of information which can be extracted from X-SAR data if integrated with other independent techniques (GPS, data and imagery in other bands and wavelengths). The paper summarizes the results obtained from same of these projects and, in particular, regarding: - the use of GPS observations and Numerical Weather Models (NWM) to remove atmospheric artifacts from InSAR imagery so improving the CSK potentialities in the field of topographic mapping; - the integration of SAR data in X, L and C bands to improve snow cover monitoring and glaciers detection; - the use of X-SAR data to retrieve rain precipitation and its validation with C-band radar observations; - the improvements of the focusing techniques.

In November 2021, a large-scale crisis exercise was organized in the heart of the Pyrenees. The main objective of this cross-border exercise between France, Spain and Andorra was to allow practitioners to prepare for a largescale earthquake, by testing the contribution of the tools developed within the framework of the European project POCRISC. Among the different functions activated during the exercise, this article focuses on the particularly critical function of emergency assessment of building damage. It analyses the feedback from the exercise participants asked to evaluate the deployment, coordination and operation of the damage assessment function, including the use of a tool developed specifically for these activities.