Call: Disaster Resilience & Climate Change topic 2: Natural Hazards: Towards risk reduction science and innovation plans at national and European level

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.

Previous and recent catastrophic events have demonstrated that society has become more and more vulnerable and exposed to risk also in an uneven distribution way at global level. A more coherent approach to threat and related risks needs to be developed within a strong risk reduction innovative frame and perspective to organise and structure, with all the relevant actors, a contribution to a new strategy for future research activities in natural hazards going beyond the traditional risk concepts and including resilience.