NaDiNe - Natural Disasters Networking Platform | Umweltbundesamt

Background and Goals

The destructive force of extreme natural events increasingly leads to the loss of human lives and material damage. With the number of natural disasters globally increasing, coordinated disaster management is getting more important. Over the past years, several research centres within the Helmholtz Association have established a comprehensive expertise in the field of disaster management.

NaDiNe is the Natural Disasters Networking Platform of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres in the area of natural disasters. The mission of the platform is to bundle and link the existing scientific expertise within the the Helmholtz Association in order to support disaster management In addition, in the event of a catastrophic occurrence, up-to-date information will be edited and evaluated from a scientific point of view for the press and the public.

In order to support the transfer of knowledge in practice, so-called expert teams will continue to be established for different natural hazards. In the NaDiNe flood experts team, representatives from the Helmholtz centres German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) have joined forces in order to bundle their expertise and to exchange state-of-the-art knowledge in their scientific fields. Hydrologists, focussing on research in hydraulic modelling and damage degree estimation, as well as meteorologists and remote sensing specialists concentrating on the assessment, description, and analysis of floods, work in the team. Overall, there are expert teams on earthquakes, floods, oil spills, storms and storm surges, and tsunamis.

The project works on the following products:

• Online database for flood damage - HOWAS 21 (implementation of results from the MEDIS project): HOWAS 21 is an object-specific flood damage database for Germany. In addition to the monetary damage incurred for residential buildings, furnishings, businesses and other premises, HOWAS 21 contains data on the impact of an event on a property, on the damaged property itself and on damage minimisation.
• Web-based flood damage data acquisition: To increase public awareness and to promote the documentation of flood events, a web-based survey of floods and flood damages has been developed. A good documentation of more frequent, smaller floods and the resulting damage is important contribution towards improving flood prevention and flood management.
• Web-based flood information brochure (implementation of results from the MEDIS project): The web-based brochure is aimed at communities that want to inform their residents about the possibilities for and potential of private flood prevention. They are supported in producing qualified and cost-effective information materials.
• Automation of the FLEMO models (flood loss estimation model) for assessing flood damages to households and enterprises (implementation of results from the MEDIS project): The versatile models for the evaluation of flood damage to residential and commercial buildings (FLEMOps and FLEMOcs) can be applied throughout Germany and are implemented as a web service on the natural disasters networking platform for professional practitioners. Practitioners are given the possibility of calculating model run-throughs with their own flood scenarios and work with the results.

The objectives and tasks of the networking platform of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres in the area of natural disasters are:

• To bundle and link the existing scientific expertise within the the Helmholtz Association in order to support disaster management. The available expertise on natural hazards and disasters In the Helmholtz Association will be merged through the formation of project-wide expert groups with different priorities. An interdisciplinary exchange among scientists will be carried out by means of regular meetings, joint projects, and the use of the communication channels established in NaDiNe.
• To provide data, models and scientific information products to scientists, policy makers, authorities and relief organisations for application in disaster prevention and mitigation.? Collected or existing data in the Helmholtz Association will be made available and processed into to information products for use in disaster management, using scientific methods and models. The necessary infrastructures will be designed and built and interfaces to external information services will be provided.
• To edit and evaluate information on natural hazards from a scientific point of view for the press and the public Background information is offered on earthquakes, floods, oil spills, storms and storm surges, and tsunamis. In the event of a catastrophic occurrence, up-to-date information will be edited and evaluated from a scientific point of view for the press and the public.

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