The European Commission’s Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre and the Directorate General for Research and Innovation have developed a platform, Gaps Explorer, that collects pre-analysed information on recent and ongoing Disaster Risk Management (DRM) projects and provides recommendations for actions to three groups: practitioners, policy makers and scientists.
The first pilot was developed on Forest Fires. This is a major hazard throughout Europe, producing large environmental and economic losses and having an impact on human lives. Effective forest fire management and decision-making requires science-based information. The analysis of the knowledge, methodologies and technologies produced in the last two decades opens up new perspectives for enhanced forest fire risk management in the face of climate change, social and cultural trends and growth dynamics.
This knowledge exchange is vital. In this context, European Forest Institute’s (EFI) initiative European Forest Risk Facility has brought information together from around the world on fire use and practical training opportunities in South Africa, USA and Europe. Most recently, EFI organised an international event in Madrid that featured a panel of high-level speakers from the world of politics, academia, rural development and bieconomy as well as forest practice and fire prevention.
Europe funds multiple of Research & Innovation (R&I) projects. Due to sheer size, information on project outcomes remain largely unknown to those who could use them. Similarly, innovation potential that would result from putting together outcomes of various R&I projects remains untapped. The formulation of R&I priorities for future programming is also hampered due to a lack of overview of recent R&I outcomes across various domains. Significant shortcomings still remain in the uptake of research findings by related policies and management programmes, due to the lack of dissemination and limited exchange between the key stakeholders. This new tool has the potential to link several knowledge management initiatives at the European and national level while ensuring the dissemination and exploitation of outcomes to various communities besides DRM.
Check our Media section for more news on forest risks and forest fires. All the documentation of our SURE workshops on forest disturbances and Exchange of Experts activities as well as many other forest risks related information is available on the RISKPlatform.
