OBJECTIVES
The overall goal of the project is to enhance urban multi-hazard disaster prevention and resilience in Tunisia, using the city of Monastir as a pilot study. A methodology will be developed to analyse and monitor urban development and disaster risk trends in a data scarce environment, and mainstream the derived information into sustainable urban planning and DRR strategies, following different steps:
- Evaluate available and needed geospatial data (baseline information, critical infrastructure, socioeconomic and environmental data); fill gaps using Earth Observation; develop a standardized GIS data base in line with the existing Tunisian standard defined by the Plan d’aménagement (PAU) as well as the European and global Urban Atlas and FAO standards to ensure comparability with other regions;
- Identify main drivers of current and future urban risk in relation to a changing environment as well as ongoing urbanization and political transformation processes.
- Conduct a baseline multi-hazard risk assessment and identification of hotspots at the sub-city scale, including hazard (flooding, heat islands, coastal erosion, land subsidence), exposure and vulnerability analysis; Elaborate a dynamic urban risk trends based on a retrospective analysis and possible future scenarios of hazard, exposure and vulnerability.
- Develop a co-designed web-based information system for the interactive visualization of results to help decision makers integrate risk information into their decision making and raise awareness among the local population;
- Support capacity-building activities among relevant stakeholders to guarantee a successful implementation and uptake of the developed tools and the integration of risk information into urban planning and resilience strategies.
EXPECTED RESULTS
The project is designed to make innovative contributions in empirical, methodological and practical terms applied to the case of Monastir and transferable to any other city. The following key results are expected from the UDR-RASP project:
- Development and implementation of a standardized digital GIS-based dataset as a basis for the analysis and monitoring of urban development and urban disaster risk
- Update Spatial Planning Plan based on the GIS database and retrospective view of the urban growth
- Improve understanding and empirical knowledge of past, current and future exposure, vulnerability and risk dynamics and their respective drivers
- Develop scientific methods and standardized approach to assess hot spots and dynamics of vulnerability and risk in data scarce environments at sub-city scale
- Create a web-based tool for the interactive visualization of hot spots of urban disaster risk and hazard characteristics, exposure and societal vulnerability
- Standardized workflow and chain of actions to be provided for decision-making in case of an overall urban planning and disaster events, applicable to other municipalities in Tunisia and beyond
The short and medium term expected impacts of the project are twofold:
- First, the availability of up-to-date data and information on urban disaster risk for the pilot city, including its dimensions of hazard, exposure and vulnerability, as well as its underlying drivers will enable local decision makers to identify potential hot spots for short and medium term disaster risk reduction measures;
- Second, by proposing a standardised, transferable and transparent approach, the project lays the foundation for future urban disaster risk assessments in Tunisia and further North African countries.
A longer-term impact will be the strengthened capacity of urban stakeholders to mainstream disaster risk reduction into sustainable urban planning processes.
PROJECT PLAN
PROJECT SCHEDULE
PARTNERS
The consortium comprises three partners, highly complementary to manage the project. IABG GmbH, a private company with proven expertise in managing large-scale projects, including in North Africa, leads it. IABG will deal with all the technical aspects related to Earth Observation data and manage the project relying on its QA Project Plan, ISO9001-compliant, with a Tunisian subcontracted expert that will ensure daily coordination in Tunisia during the whole duration of the project. United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) will use its expertise to lead the assessment of societal vulnerability (baseline assessment) in the pilot city, the development of future vulnerability and risk scenarios, as well as the integrated risk assessment. UNU-EHS will lead the development of the urban growth model and contribute to the capacity-building component of the project. The Municipality of Monastir will act both as local partner and as main beneficiary of the project and contribute to the co-design and co-development of the proposed outcomes. Furthermore, they will provide all needed local support and will contribute with two engineers and a technician as full time and two other engineers as part time during all the project phases. The main role will be to resolve all local issues, coordinate local tasks as data inventory, data collection, and field survey. They will also ensure coordination with the Tunisian government organisation and the Ministry of Equipment.
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IABG mbH Einsteinstraße 20, |
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UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) – UN Campus, |
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MUNICIPALITY OF MONASTIR Avenue Habib Bourguiba |
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IABG mbH Einsteinstraße 20, |
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UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) – UN Campus, |
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MUNICIPALITY OF MONASTIR Avenue Habib Bourguiba |
Contact details
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IABG
Felicitas Bellert Project Manager IABG This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Mobile: +49 151 14786996 Dr. Rainer Malmberg
Key Account Manager international/Geomatics IABG
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Mobile: +49 151 21650618 |
UNU
Dr. Michael Hagenlocher
Project coordinator UNU-EHS This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Mobile: +49 176 21552109 Municipality of Monastir
Mme. Sonia Ayed Project coordinator Monastir This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Mobile: +21 697559617 |
EVENTS
Interviews with stakeholder have been executed in Monastir. By means of an extensive questionnaire, the following information was collected in several parts: The personal interviews with respondents of relevant organisations and departments of Monastir have been followed up by an online survey during 4 weeks Figure 1: Natural Hazrad and Vulnerability Workshop, Monastir 2017 Figure 2: Interviews with stakeholder, Monastir, 2017
An additional workshop with stakeholder took place in May 2017 in Monastir. The meeting was structured in 3 parts: Figure 3: Workshop GIS/Remote Sensing, Monastir 2017
An important workshop with stakeholder took place in October 2017 in Monastir. The meeting was intended to inform about results from earlier workshop and interviews, and to develop scenario criteria for the city of Monastir. Three parts cahracterized the workshop: The workshop was structured in presentations and exercises: Figure 4: Workshop, Monastir 2017
The European Civil Protection Forum is the largest recurring public event on European cooperation in the field of civil protection and hosted by the European Commission in Brussels. It took place from 5-6 March 2018. Figure 5: Civil Protection Forum 2018, Brussels
Employees of the municipality of Monastir have completed a further training on GIS in the context of urban planning and risk assessment.The training schedule has included topics like “GIS in urbanism, GIS functionality to be applied in urban planning, data extraction, updates and quality assurance of geospatial data, development and production of hazard prone areas and exposure layers as essential inputs for the following risk assessment. Furthermore, IABG presented the most important results of GIS activities in the project. The Tunisian team also had the opportunity to learn about the application and maintenance of the provided data and tools. Practical exercises have been carried out on various topics to better understand the project results and their impact on urban planning.
A final meeting took place in Monastir on 4th October 2018. All related stakeholders, representatives of the Municipality of Monastir as well as representatives from the region or national authorities and NGO’s were invited to join the meeting and learn about results. The meeting was structured in 3 parts: Due to heavy rainfall in Tunisia two weeks before the final meeting, the perception of disaster risk was quite high and the public interest in the project results was evident. This was also reflected in the number of about 150 participants and the media interest. The presentations are available within this website.
The UDRASP project team presented project results and project related information with focus on risk assessment as a side event on the AFRICA-ARAB PLATFORM ON DISASTER RISK REDUCTION 9th – 13th October 2018 in Tunis (Tunisia) Link to the PresentationsKickoff-Meeting and Interviews with stakeholder in February 2017
Stakeholder Meeting from 17th – 19th May 2017 in Monastir / Tunisia
Workshop Scenario
Presentation of the UDRASP project at the Civil Protection Forum 2018 in Brussels, Belgium
This has been an opportunity to present the UDRASP project within the European civil protection community and to representatives of some neighborhood countries like Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. IABG presented the most important activities and initial results of the project with a stand for interested visitors.
GIS Advanced Training in Dresden/ Germany
Final Meeting in Monastir in October 2018
Presentation of project results at the AFRICA-ARAB PLATFORM ON DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
Link to the Website
