Territorial Impacts of Natural Disasters – ESPON TITAN

Theme: Natural disasters, territorial impact assessment, indicators

Scope

The objective of this research is to provide pan-European evidence at the territorial level on the direct and indirect economic losses due to natural hazards and an analysis of the best practices of disaster risk management and climate change adaptation at territorial level. The research will address the following natural hazards (the list may be expanded): floods and landslides, water scarcity and droughts, storms and earthquakes.

This research aims at developing a sound methodology for assessing the economic impact of natural hazards, structured in two steps: a wide-scale methodology to be implemented with the existing data covering Europe, and a more focused and complete methodology, focused on regional/local scale. At least one regional or local entity will be selected to test the methodology.

This study will also identify instruments and tools (predominantly in spatial planning/territorial development) for disaster risk management and climate change adaptation measures and provide assessment of their benefits and usefulness.

Policy questions

• What are the economic impacts of natural hazards across European regions and cities in terms of direct and indirect costs? How are the economic impacts distributed across the main affected areas and sectors?
• Which areas and sectors are most vulnerable to natural hazards?
• Which instruments and policies regarding disaster risk management (e.g. hazard maps, disaster management plans, compulsory insurances, etc.) exist for territories at different policy levels? How effective are they?
• Which climate change adaptation measures could be put in place as part of an integrated, place-based development strategy?
• To which degree are disaster risk management and climate change adaptation measures integrated in spatial planning and territorial development policies? What could be recommendations for policy makers?
• How should regions, cities and local governments cooperate to ensure the efficiency and coordination of adaptation and mitigation measures at wider geographical scales?

Contractors

• Tecnalia Research & Innovation: ES (lead contractor)
• Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), FI
• Technical University of Dortmund, DE
• Trinomics, NL
• Cambridge Econometrics, UK

Project Support Team

• Ms. Adriana May - Lombardy Region, Directorate of Local Authorities, Mountains and Small Municipalities, IT
• Ms. Marcia Van Der Vlugt -  Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Spatial Development Directorate, NL

Budget: € 675.000,00

Lifetime: September 2019 – April 2021

Deliveries 

• Inception delivery, 19 November 2019
• Interim delivery, 19 June 2020
• Draft Final delivery, 31 January 2021
• Final delivery, 30 April 2021

Contact: Zintis Hermansons (Project Expert), [email protected] ; Caroline Clause (Financial Expert),  [email protected]