NRA

Member states are, since 2013 (UCPM Decision No 1313/2013/EU), requested to report to the Commission on their disaster risk management activities to support formulating an EU risk management policy framework that would complement and enhance the national ones.

The amendment of the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM) of March 2019 (Decision (EU) 2019/420) introduced joint reporting on (1) national risk assessment (NRA), (2) risk management capability assessment (RMCA) and (3) information on the priority prevention and preparedness measures with a focus on (a) key risks with cross-border impacts, and, where appropriate, (b) low probability risks with a high impact.

The purpose of the Version 1 of the Recommendations for NRA for Disaster Risk Management, prepared by 50 scientists, is to support the use of the new “Reporting Guidelines on Disaster Risk Management, Art. 6(1) of Decision No.1313/2013/EU2019/C 428/07” by relevant authorities of the Participating States to the EUCPM.

The final scope of this collective effort is to contribute to establishing an appropriate risk governance that is flexible and adaptable to new evidences, knowledge and situations. A risk governance that facilitates risk assessment processes as proper evidence to drive disaster risk management planning and the implementation of adequate measures all along the risk management cycle, from adaptation and mitigation to response and recovery phases.

Better national risk governance with a legal framework and integrated disaster risk management approach is a must. The implementation of integrated DRM is seen as evidence-based policy cycle compound of NRA, DRM planning and the implementation of prevention and preparedness measures.

• NRA produces the evidence to reach a common understanding and the relative importance of the risks due to the different drivers faced in a country and presents a core of evidence‐based policy‐making which adds to successful implementation of effective and efficient integrated disaster risk management.
• Risk management capability assessment strives to set up an efficient, flexible and systematic risk governance structure covering the whole policy cycle that places NRA as an essential part of disaster risk reduction strategy and facilitates from the beginning to the end the implementation of the measures in different phases of disaster risk management for different hazard.

Reporting outcomes to be submitted to European Commission are a summary of the national activities related to NRA and RMCA that are more relevant to the EU context. NRA and RMCA processes must be comprehensive and tailored to the national context to serve the specific national goals. Furthermore, their overall aim is very much the same, i.e., to support the identification and definition of disaster risk reduction strategies, which will result in less disasters and/or disasters with less impacts and increase of overall EU resilience.

It can be considered that these processes are national enablers of (a) the development of a common understanding on risk, its drivers, interlinks and options for reducing it while (b) they promote and facilitate the exchange of good practices and lessons learned to speed up the risk reduction processes. By submitting the summaries to the Commission and, thanks to the “Overview of Risks that EU may face” series of publications prepared on the top of them by Commission, the fulfilment of these two objectives is eased at the European level.

Regular RMCA is a driver of sustainable development of capabilities for the implementation of the integrated DRM and also an opportunity to continuously adapt to changing risk landscape (i.e., climate change as well as new and emergent risks) as well as development strategies with relevant capabilities.

The policy cycle for the implementation of integrated disaster risk management should have capacity to integrate climate change adaptation strategies and efficiently consider adaptation measures during DRM planning.

The policy cycle for the implementation of integrated disaster risk management is a mechanism that fill the gaps revealed in NRA process with the DRM actions in place. Therefore it is important to prioritize the development of national risk assessment capability to improve the country's resilience against the disaster risk.

The report evidences that the implementation of integrated disaster risk management is a challenging process in terms of expertise, resources, time and diversity of stakeholders involved. It requires a support of national authorities at all levels.

The report highlights the importance of the evidences produced by NRA to facilitate DRM planning and implementation of adequate measure that results in efficient integrated DRM. Based on the results of NRA national authorities (1) decide which risks can sufficiently harm well-being and security of citizens in a short or long term to be put on agenda of DRM planning, (2) understand which disaster risk drivers to be addressed to identify adequate measure to reduce risk all along the RM cycle.

The scientific approaches in NRA can be of tremendous support in this challenging task. Risk landscape is not only dynamic, but it is also expanding with increasing awareness and better understanding of different risks. Risk identification is partially based on evidence and partially on our perception regarding what we should be afraid of.

Furthermore, different hazards and different risks require very different methodology of risk assessment, not only due to diversity of phenomena, but also due to different availability of data and knowledge. Realistically, harmonisation of the risk assessment process shall remain at the level of standardized steps and presentation of the results. The main goal is to understand the risk and drivers behind as well as to assess the risk in terms of the level and probability in a way to make risks comparable.

Finally, EU policies related to different risks are essential for the harmonized process of risk assessment approaches, data collection, sharing knowledge and other NRA capabilities building. DRM policies are working on the exploitation of synergies across the whole DRM cycle for the implementation of an integrated risk governance.

This version of the “Recommendations” is part of a series of reports that collects the scientific contributions from the wider JRC scientific disaster risk community and beyond. It is a key component of the EC Disaster Risk Management Centre (DRMKC), which supports international, national and local authorities involved in DRM processes.

The EC DRMKC proposes opportunities for co-developing collective knowledge through a number of activities, such as the database of DRM related research projects and results (Projects Explorer and Gaps Explorer), the periodic publication of Science reports (Science for DRM), the holistic repository of disaster risk and impacts data (Risk Data Hub), the assessment of the risk of having humanitarian crisis (INFORM suite) and the early warnings systems for Public health related issues (EIOS) and conflicts (CAAS-CEWS), both based on Artificial Intelligence tools and on building-up communities of practice.

The report explains the purpose and objective of each step of the reporting to give meaning and motivation to demanding risk governance processes. It collects also the contributions of fourteen expert teams that prepared short step by step description of disaster risk assessment approaches specific for the chosen hazard/asset usable in the context of a National Risk Assessment exercise and addressed national risk assessment capability to be further developed.

A special focus is dedicated to capability needed to tackle climate change with presenting possibilities how to merge the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation strategies. The risks covered are of natural, anthropogenic and socio-natural origin; these are droughts, earthquakes, floods, biological disasters, terrorist attacks, nuclear accidents, collapse of critical infrastructures, chemical accidents, Natech, volcanic eruption, cyber attacks, hybrid threats, wildfires and the risk of biodiversity loss.

• Commission Staff Working Paper - Risk Assessment and Mapping Guidelines for Disaster Management (2010)
• Commission Staff Working Document - Overview of Natural and Man-made Disaster Risks in the EU (2014)
• Commission Staff Working Document - Overview of Natural and Man-made Disaster Risks the European Union may face (2017)
• Commission notice 2015/C 261/03 - Risk Management Capability Assessment Guidelines (2015)
• Commission Staff Working Document, 2020. Overview of Natural and Man-made Disaster Risks the European Union may face. SWD(2020)330 final, Brussels, 30.11.2020
• Commission Notice, 2019. Reporting Guidelines on Disaster Risk Management, Art. 6(1)d of Decision No 1313/2013/EU2019/C 428/07 C/2019/8929, OJ C 428, 20.12.2019, p. 8–33

• Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM)
• Decision (EU) 2019/420 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 March 2019 amending Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism
• The Flood Directive - Directive 2007/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the assessment and management of flood risks
• Decision No 1082/2013/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 on serious cross-border threats to health and repealing Decision No 2119/98/EC
• Directive 2003/99/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the monitoring of zoonoses and zoonotic agents, amending Council Decision 90/424/EEC and repealing Council Directive 92/117/EEC
• Council Directive 2008/114/EC of 8 December 2008 on the identification and designation of European critical infrastructures and the assessment of the need to improve their protection
• Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom of 5 December 2013 laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation
• Council Directive 2014/87/Euratom of 8 July 2014 amending Directive 2009/71/Euratom establishing a Community framework for the nuclear safety of nuclear installations
• The Seveso III directive - Directive 2012/18/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances
• Commission Recommendation 2003/887/EC on the implementation and use of Eurocodes for construction works and structural construction products

• Workshop on Risk Management Capability Assessment (2018)
• Drought Risk Assessment and Management (2018)
• Basic criteria to assess wildfire risk at the pan-European level (2019)