E-CITIJENS - Civil Protection Emergency DSS based on CITIzen Journalism to ENhance Safety of Adriatic Basin
Summary and general objective
The project " Civil Protection Emergency DSS based on CITIzen Journalism to ENhance Safety of Adriatic Basin" (E-CITIJENS), began in January 2019.
E-CITIJENS aims at increasing the safety of the Croatian and Italian Adriatic basin from natural and man-made disasters by improving emergency prevention and management measures and instruments.
It pursues the above target through cross-border cooperation to: (i) reinforce the Civil Protection (including Coast Guard) chain of command in both countries with Crossborder Functional Centers equipped with an advanced and efficient decision support system to more efficiently monitor risks, manage emergencies and co-ordinate the involved forces during emergency interventions; (ii) keep open a real-time update channel on risk occurrences by collecting and using citizens information voluntarily provided via Social Media (citizen journalism) to report hazardous situations and events and signal their progress.
The above objective will be sought by promoting cross border policies that can harmonize and improve both countries’ risk management current legislations and their overall efficiency
Specific objectives
- To endow Chain of Command of Civil Protection with a “social media based” Emergency DSS (EDSS);
- To activate the participatory citizens’ role as "active sensor" of emergencies;
- To harmonize Croatian and Italian risk management current legislations.
Main activities
- Project management and coordination of activities;
- Communication activities;
- Modelling "social media based" Civil Protection emergency management system;
- Development, testing and release of "social media based" Emergency Decision Support System platform;
- Release of EDSS Platform and Transfer of Emergency Services Regulatory Framework.
Expected results
- Improvement in Coordination of Civil Protection risk management measures. It is a result of reinforcement of Civil Protection and Coast Guard chain of command in both countries with Crossborder Functional Centers equipped with an Emergency DSS platform then enhancement of level of uniformity and similarity of the existing emergency regulatory systems and legislations in both countries. Both interventions are essential to support CP in: (i) monitoring the geophysical elements that influence natural risks, (ii) adopting preventive measure to reduce the impact of emergency occurrences on ecosystems and population then (iii) coordinating the emergency interventions to grant an effective and prompt crisis management through the identification of the source and severity of various kind of risk occurrences.
- Increased involvement of citizens in natural and man-made disaster management. It is the result of participatory process activation to bring the citizen to play the role of "active sensor" of natural and man-made risks that gets him proper proactive behaviour and makes him a capillary and diversified kinds of risks source of information for the risk management coordinated measures.
Both results will contribute to the Programme result indicator since they improve the coordination of the risk management measures among Institutions, Civil Protection and Citizens, affect the whole involved territories and kind of risks and improve the existing emergency measures.
The partnership includes: Molise region; Split and Dalmatia County; Veneto Region; University Of Split - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy; EEIG Eurelations; Alma Mater Studiorum – University Of Bologna; Pescara Municipality; Adriatic Ionian Euroregion; Zadar County Rural Development Agency and Region of Istria.
UNIST-FGAG main contribution is in modelling the system (WP3) and reporting on implementation and evaluation (WP5).
The project is funded under the 2014 - 2020 Interreg V-A, Italy-Croatia CBC Program. The total value of the project is € 2.846.100,00 of which 85% is funded from the European Regional Development Fund. The estimated duration of the project is the end of June 2021.