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10/09/2026 |
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Flash News from the
Disaster Risk Management
Knowledge Centre
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After the scorching summer , welcome to the latest DRMKC Flash News, bringing you new insights on evolving climate related risks, together with the latest tools and datasets, and upcoming events and opportunities to support better preparedness and resilience.
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Flagship Reports and News
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Tools and Datasets
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INFORM Warning: New User Guide Out for Global Crisis Early-Warning Tool
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The new user guide details how to use the INFORM Warning beta platform—developed by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) under the overall INFORM partnership led by UNDP. The tool shows where and how the risk of humanitarian crisis might increase in 1–12 months, combining natural hazards, conflict, socio-economic vulnerability, and exposed population data into simple, comparable warning levels.
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INFORM Risk Mid2026 Release Now Available
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INFORM Risk Mid2026 is now available, reflecting updated input data since the March 2026 release. Due to unusually large data shifts, this release should be treated as a standalone snapshot rather than compared directly to prior scores.
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Towards an operational EU Drought Impacts Database (EDID)
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A new database tracks impacts across nine sectors, mainly agriculture, water supply and aquatic systems. A new severity score shows increasingly extreme impacts in recent years.
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New AI Pipeline Builds Traceable Disaster Storylines
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A new AI pipeline, developed through a multi-partner collaboration, combines EM-DAT records with ReliefWeb and European Media Monitor (EMM) documents to generate citation-grounded disaster storylines and causal knowledge graphs supporting humanitarian situational awareness.
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REDES 2.0: A pan-European rainfall erosivity dataset shows intensifying erosivity trends
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REDES 2.0, a major update to Europe's rainfall erosivity dataset, now covers thousands more monitoring stations. The data shows rainfall erosivity, a key driver of soil erosion, has been rising across much of Europe over the past decade.
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Events and Calls
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EU Civil Protection Forum: register now
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| Registration is now open for the 9th European Civil Protection Forum (3-4 November 2026, Brussels). The event will gather policymakers, civil protection authorities, first responders, practitioners and researchers from Europe and beyond. |
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Disaster Risk Management Training online series 2026 - Integration of foresight into risk assessment
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| A new 10-part online seminar series (September-November) will explore how foresight can be integrated into risk assessment, helping identify tipping points in complex, cascading disaster risks. |
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European AI Challenge 2026: From Data to Policy
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| Can AI help Europe better anticipate flood risks? The JRC and FARI invite students to explore how artificial intelligence, data, and science-for-policy methods can support better preparedness for future floods. |
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IRISCC Opens Fourth Call for Sponsored Research Access, Deadline 15 October
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| IRISCC's fourth Open Call for Access is inviting researchers to apply for sponsored access to its climate research infrastructure, with focus on integrated risk research and interdisciplinary design. |
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Webinar Series on Second-Generation Eurocodes, October-November
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| Registrations are now open for the free webinar series (October-November 2026) covering the technical background of the second-generation Eurocodes, the European standards for the structural design of buildings and infrastructure works. |
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Additional Resources
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Strengthening the EU's Future Disaster Resilience: 12 Priority Capabilities Toward 2040
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| A new JRC foresight study identifies 12 priority operational capabilities and 12 emerging technologies to strengthen EU disaster and infrastructure resilience through 2040 |
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CEMS Seasonal Forecasts Show Strong Skill in Predicting Hydrological Drought Months Ahead
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| A new study puts CEMS seasonal drought forecasts to the test against two decades of global river discharge data. The results: forecasts stay reliably skillful for months, outperforming simpler methods. |
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What's Driving the Drought in East Africa and Central Asia?
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| What's driving the compounding drought across East Africa and the Middle East/Central Asia since 2021? Why are agricultural impacts so different from country to country? |
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Preparedness Determines Whether Climate Displacement Is Chaotic or Safe
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| A new JRC Science for Policy Brief examines how emergency preparedness shapes climate-driven mobility, from early warning and evacuation planning to housing recovery and social protection. |
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Fire Resilience as Strategic Investment: New EU Policy Recommendations
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| This brief highlights fire‑resilient forests as essential to EU strategic autonomy, urging strategic investment, use of EU monitoring infrastructure (such as EFFIS) and inclusion of fire risk in spatial planning. |
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Why the Mediterranean Remains Hard to Forecast (Part I: Sources of Predictability)
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| This review examines why climate prediction remains particularly weak in the Mediterranean basin. It surveys current understanding of the region's climate variability and predictability, plus emerging tools like sub-sampling and bias correction aimed at improving forecast skill. |
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From Forecasts to Decisions: Turning Mediterranean Climate Data Into Action (Part II)
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| Part II of this review looks at how raw climate forecasts get turned into usable decision-making tools for energy, water, transport and agriculture. It draws on EU projects like EUPORIAS, MEDSCOPE and MED-GOLD, and flags data access and verification as persistent challenges. |
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Floods with compounding hazards increased almost threefold in 30 years
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| A new study found that more than 70% of flood events in Europe involved multiple overlapping hazards. The costliest 1% of events all involved such combinations, accounting for over €167 billion in flood losses. |
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Assessment of EU and Member States Adaptation Investment Needs
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| This study estimates the investment needed to adapt to climate risks across EU Member States through 2050, covering ecosystems, infrastructure, food, health and economy. It also models an urgent-investment scenario focused on early-action priorities. |
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Can AI Read the News Faster Than a Disease Can Spread?
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| A new JRC report explores how generative AI, particularly LLMs, can extract epidemic intelligence from sources like EIOS and WHO outbreak reports. It showcases working prototypes, but flags hallucination risks and data privacy concerns too. |
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Europe's Aging Bridges and Tunnels Face a Growing List of Risks
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| This JRC review maps the risks that bridges and tunnels in the Trans-European Transport Network face. Many structures are ageing and under-maintained, and the report flags key research gaps. |
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Rethinking Emergency Zones for a Wartime Nuclear and Radiological Risk Landscape
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| A new paper proposes a way to calculate emergency planning zone distances when conflict degrades safety conditions across a territory with several nuclear and radiological facilities, raising latent accident risk rather than a specific event. |
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Natech Risk Management: JRC Guidance for Industrial Operators and Authorities
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| This JRC technical guidance addresses Natech risk, industrial accidents in which natural hazards can trigger hazardous material releases, a growing concern under the Seveso III Directive. New guidelines are now also available in French. |
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