Call: Crisis management topic 6: Addressing standardisation opportunities in support of increasing disaster resilience

This Subprogramme aims to achieve a resource- and water-efficient economoy and society that is also resilient to climate change. Furthermore, it seeks to promote the protection and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems. Lastly, the Programme also supports the sustainable supply and use of raw materials, in order to meet the needs of a growing global population within the sustainable limits of the planet's natural resources and eco-systems.

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), some types of extreme events (e.g. flash floods and related landslides, storm surges, heatwaves, fires, including vegetation fires) have increased in frequency or magnitude, and in the meantime populations and assets at risk have also increased, leading to greater disaster risks. In order to better forecast and manage the immediate consequences of weather- and climate-related disasters, in particular regarding emergency responses, improved measures and technologies are needed.

Increasing resilience to crises and disasters requires an orchestrated set of actions, including standardisation. While dedicated research projects and new topics look into different aspects of resilience to be investigated and further developed, at the same time related opportunities and needs for standardisation to support disaster resilience have to be addressed. Such standardisation activities could e.g. significantly improve the technical, procedural, operational and semantic interoperability of command, control and communication systems for crisis and disaster management, or the interoperability of detection equipment and tools in the areas of CBRNE. An analysis of European standardisation needs has been carried out within the Mandate M487 to establish Security Standards, which has led to the identification of standardisation priorities, for three selected security sectors (CBRNE, Crisis Management, Border Security). Similar trends are developed worldwide, which opens the scope for international cooperation. Besides this, research is needed on a longer term to identify and further elaborate potential standardisation opportunities in other technological and non-technological areas where a significant contribution to improve the disaster resilience through standardisation can be expected.