Unprecedented weather events in recent years have in many cases “neutralized” risk management strategies.

This is why it is critical to integrate the climate change dimension into the planning of both civil protection projects and actions.

This is the conclusion of an international scientific group, which also included Greeks, who studied cases of recurring natural disasters in the same areas and to what extent they learned after they suffered.

The study was published in early August in the international scientific journal Nature.

“The goal was to find and study ‘pairs’ of extreme events, i.e. natural disasters that recurred in a particular area,” explains Mr. Yiannis Daliakopoulos, Associate Professor of Agriculture at the Hellenic Mediterranean University and member of the scientific team. research team.

“We investigated whether in the intervening time, for example, with two floods, the authorities managed to take measures so that they do not have the same serious consequences,” he adds.

“The key question that arises during this period is whether we take climate change into account in strategic planning,” said Mr. Aris Koutroulis, Associate Professor at the Technical University of Crete.

“Until recently, planning was based on observation – for example, in the case of a dam, with current climatic conditions and future irrigation needs. It will not take into account how much demand will increase due to increased drought or temperature. So, in the end, most of the projects do not cope with the crisis.”

Repeated natural disasters in the same areas show how much they have learned from suffering.

By studying “couples” of disasters, the researchers found that in many cases, implementing risk management strategies after the first disaster mitigated the impact of the corresponding second disaster.

“For example, on the night of January 13, 1994, heavy rains led to the flooding of the Giofiros River, as a result of which the city of Heraklion experienced a catastrophic flood. Twenty-one years later, in 2015, again coincidentally on January 13, a storm of the same magnitude again flooded the riverbed,” says Mr. Daliakopoulos. “However, this time the recorded impacts were smaller, as flood protection works were carried out in between.”

The researchers found only two examples where risk management strategies reduced the impact of a second disaster that was much more extreme than the first. These are the floods in Germany and Austria in 2013 and the floods in Barcelona in 2018. These “success stories” are the result of improved risk management and significant investments in integrated management. The plan included investments in infrastructure (new rainwater networks) and measures such as tightening city planning regulations, significant improvements in early warning systems and emergency response plans.