Overview

Effective natural and man-induced disaster management needs to be addressed through a complex preparedness-response-mitigation-rebuild cycle to be implemented at different and synergic levels in the ADRION countries. The MUHA project will connect the observed and modelled hazards and risks related to the integrated water cycle with the existing and improved coping capacity developed by national, bilateral and EU Civil Protection Mechanisms, following the rationale defined by the Sendai framework. Four water related risks will be addressed, regarded as components of one single complex water system prone to different hazards: accidental pollution, flooding, drought and failure of critical infrastructure due to earthquakes. Current status of water system and multi-hazard anticipated scenarios must result in complex disaster response mechanisms. The MUHA rationale is based on the necessity to effectively link different aspects of the water cycle in an improved response system, which will integrate functions of the analysis, forecasting and incident command systems, to be integrated in Common Alerting Protocols, thus enabling efficient transnational response. The interconnected role of water utilities through the water safety plans and civil protection mechanisms is crucial and currently not sufficiently harmonized. While the involved countries have already developed own different planning and response mechanisms at different levels, MUHA is expected to produce a long-term robust networking, based on a joint transnational management to address the common challenges of water-related response to hazard. Moreover, the definition of common action plans, methods and tools to be implemented in pilot actions are expected to improve response time and effectiveness of the coping capacity developed by national, bilateral and EU Civil Protection mechanisms.