METEOR

Hydro-meteorological hazards such as (mountain) flash floods, debris flows and coastal floods or geological/geotechnical hazards such as earthquakes and landslides are as dangerous as they are sudden and difficult to forecast. Many of these phenomena occur simultaneously or as cascading events or affect the same region at different times. They induce high level damage and aggravating factors due to unexpected interactions among the hazard and raised vulnerability. These multi-hazard situations cause both direct effects on people, assets at risk but also indirect damage to society because of networks disruption or environmental crisis (pollutions, tank sewage systems failure…). Risk management process involves several actors and decision-makers before (mitigation, protection, preparedness, information), during (alert, rescue) and after (recovery) an event or crisis. Adapting effective policies and long-term strategies to manage the multi-risks’ context is challenging: how to assess effectiveness of various measures, mix of non-structural measures (land use and cover, rescue planning) and structural (civil engineered) or nature-based solutions? Decision-aiding methods are therefore expected to consider and reconcile technical, economic, environmental, social or human and organizational issues. Despite of their complexity, risk management decisions, taken in order to cope with (e.g.) flooding, landslides, drought, technological hazards… often remain sectorial (disciplinary silo approaches). METEOR project aims to propose new framework for multi-risk decision-making since existing methods fail both to represent and manage interactions between events and possible consequences of those cascading hazards and failures. Considering uncertainties and information quality will be natively embedded in all approaches, working at frontier of risk and resilience. Aiding decision while knowing what you do or may not know will be a key principle of our approach. METEOR project proposes to develop an innovative, effective but pragmatic scenario-based decision-aiding framework. It will be usable in a progressive multi-scale and multi-temporal contexts ranging from simple and quick approaches to complex, long-term adaptation strategies. To be compliant with real-life decision support needs and objectives, METEOR project will aim to “merge theory and practice” in a pluri-disciplinary perspective to propose innovative and informed action tools, plans and methodologies. METEOR will build on a cross-disciplinary approach, mixing engineering, eco-engineering, and human sciences methodologies. It proposes an original integrated combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches; deterministic and probabilistic/statistical methods; multi-criteria decision-making framework; safety, reliability and dependability/traceability. The main result will be a usable, operational and risk-informed framework that accounts for uncertainties and information imperfection in decision-making processes. Developments will consist in methodologies, free interoperable, spatialized scenario building and decision-aiding frameworks. A generic methodological toolbox will facilitate description of systems, complex interactions, cascading relations between natural events, vulnerabilities and their consequences on exposed populations, territories, assets and infrastructures. Project’s consortium gathers highly experienced international applied research institutions, top-ranking universities, small and medium enterprises and stakeholders representatives to cover the scientific, technical, operational and practical needs. Senior scientists and experts will design and lead work packages taking benefit of their scientific background and networks, project management skills, past-experience and involvement within national and European projects (InterReg Alpine Space, Alcotra, EC projects in H2020, FP7 and FP6…) and international organizations.