Related EU Policies and European Commission Activities. Presentation to WGF15, April 1 st and 2 nd, 2014, Budapest

Transcription

1 Related EU Policies and European Commission Activities Presentation to WGF15, April 1 st and 2 nd, 2014, Budapest

2 The Global Flood Partnership ( A JRC (The Institute for Environment and Sustainability and the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen) initiative with the close collaboration of the Dartmouth Flood Observatory: Global Flood Working Group: Key personnel from the international scientific community have met over the past 3 years within the framework of to discuss global flood forecasting and monitoring systems.

3 During this period, the working group extended their dialogue to include international response organizations Such as European Commission's DG ECHO, World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR); United Nations World Food Programme (WFP); Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC); National flood authorities (e.g., Brazil and Namibia); Meteorological authorities (including World Meteorological Organisation - WMO and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts - ECMWF) and other public and private stakeholders in flood management (including reinsurance and the commercial space industry).

4 The meeting of the Senior Officials of the Carnegie Group countries, the United Nations and the World Bank (organised by the JRC in December 2012) concluded that a new international impetus was needed to which the EU, the Carnegie Group countries and international organisations such as the United Nations and the World Bank, can contribute coherently in order to maximize the impact for citizens worldwide. As a concrete step in this direction a Global Flood Partnership was proposed. Drawing upon the recommendations of the meeting of the Senior Officials, the Global Flood Working Group concluded in their annual meeting in Washington in 2013, that dialogue must be turned into action to start building global flood forecasting and monitoring systems. The participants agreed that this can be accomplished by means of a Global Flood Partnership.

5 The overall objective of the Partnership is the development of flood observational and modelling infrastructure, leveraging on existing initiatives for better predicting and managing flood disaster impacts and flood risk globally. The Partnership shall achieve this through bringing together the scientific community, service providers (satellite and weather), national flood and emergency management authorities, humanitarian organisations and donors to provide operational, globally-applicable flood forecasting and monitoring tools and services, complementary to national capabilities. The Partnership aims to strengthen the sharing of hydrometeorological data and information, foster in-country capacity building and improve flood risk management models and products.

6 More details in the Concept Paper: 0Flood%20Partnership%20v4.3.pdf From 4-6 March 2014, the 4 th Workshop of the Global Flood Working Group took place in Reading, UK, with the goal of kicking of the Global Flood Partnership. The meeting was open to scientists, experts and practitioners in the field of global flood forecasting and monitoring who are interested in contributing to the Global Flood Partnership with (prototype) operational systems, data, knowledge and networks.

7 Green Infrastructure New information brochure on Green Infrastructure for the wider public (with an example on flood protection -> large scale flood protection plan(sigma II) in Flanders/Belgium) ucture_broc.pdf European Parliament resolution and opinions of European Economic and Social Committee (and implicit also Committee of Regions) ask to use Green Infrastructure for flood prevention Working Group on Green Infrastructure implementation and restoration to be re-installed with first meeting on 24/03.

8 Copernicus Programme Previously known as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), is the European Programme for the establishment of a European capacity for Earth Observation The EP adopted the Regulation for European Earth Observation programme Copernicus on 12 March. It still needs to be adopted by the Council. The Regulation defines Copernicus' objectives, governance and funding (some 4.3 billion euros) for the period There are two services (of the six) of interest for Floods: - the Land service* coordinated by the European Environment Agency (in particular the land cover layers on water, wetlands - and the mapping of riparian areas which is going to be launched) and - the Emergency Management service with timely and accurate geospatial information derived from satellite remote sensing and completed by available in situ or open data sources (EFAS, and flood mapping in rush and non rush mode). *In addition the service also supports the generation of a Pan-European Digital Elevation Model

9 Possibility for MS to activate the Emergency Management Service. Requests for activation through the National Focal Points. ( Activation in rush mode (=products delivered within 24:00 after image acquisition, e.g. floods in Croatia) and non-rush mode mapping, e.g. for flood risk mapping or rehabilitation phase etc, however, in non-rush mode there was no activation for flood products so far. COPERNICUS land products of interest for floods Directive is the Pan- European land component: CORINE Land Cover/LCC and 5 High Resolution land cover Layers (Water, Wetlands, grasslands, forests, imperviousness)

10 The EU-DEM (European Digital Elevation Model) is available free of charge on the Copernicus Land service portal land.copernicus.eu (operated by EEA). Some countries are already completed and the portal will continue to be populated in The EU-DEM is a unique pan-european seamless and harmonized Digital Surface Model derived from earth observation data. It covers 39- EEA countries; it provides elevations captured at 1 arc second posting or about every 30m grid, with a vertical resolution of 7m. It does not replace national or local DEM which can be more precise but it is consistent across borders.

11 Workshop on the "Use of the Copernicus Emergency Service for Floods: Emphasis on floods in central Europe in June 2013" in October All presentations* are on the portal: Copernicus EMS also encompasses EFAS (European Flood Awareness System) which is handled by the JRC and now financed by Copernicus: *Please quote the workshop if you use the slides

12 European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) News & Updates EFAS fully operational: EFAS is fully operational since September 2012 under the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. New EFAS partners: Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, Miño-Sil/Duero/Guadalquivir River Basin Management Authorities (Spain), Latvian Environment Geology and Meteorology Centre. EFAS has now more than 30 partner authorities. 9 th EFAS Annual Meeting: The 9 th EFAS Annual Meeting will take place 8-9 April in Lelystad (Netherlands) New EFAS features: Improved forecast model Improved visualization of end products on Publication of forecast verification skills in the EFAS bulletins Find out more on

13 INSPIRE Directive: establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. Public consultation on the implementation: Assess whether the actions already underway to establish an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community are still on course to meet the objectives pursued. Deadline was 24/2/2014. Please be informed about date of INSPIRE Conference for good governance, will take place in Aalborg, Denmark June 2014: e/registration Topics for which contributions are sought include reduction of environmental risk and management of natural disasters.

14 LIFE projects Floods management clearly features amongst the priorities under the new LIFE Regulation Annex III of this Regulation mentions under the Thematic priorities for Water: "Activities for the implementation of Directive 2007/60/EC" In addition, the work programme for includes the following text under the water thematic priority: "Addressing water quality, floods and drought management in a cost efficient way is a serious challenge within the EU. Responding to the challenges and opportunities in the water sector requires a holistic approach across a number of actors. In line with the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Flood Directive and the priorities of the European Innovation Partnership on Water, projects should focus on developing and particularly implementing actions which can help Member States move to genuinely integrated water resource management, promoting ecosystem-based approaches where relevant.

15 Priority will be therefore given, inter alia, to projects on water, floods and drought - Annex III, section A points (a)(i)-(ii) (of the LIFE Regulation) 1. Planning and establishment in urban and rural areas of natural water retention measures that increase infiltration, storage of water and remove pollutants through natural, or "natural-like" processes and thereby contribute to the achievement of the WFD and the Floods Directive (FD) objectives and to drought management in water scarce regions. 2. Projects promoting flood and drought risk management through (a) extreme event prevention and protection tools for support of policy, land use planning and emergency management and (b) integrated risk assessment and management approaches based on resilience and social vulnerability, and ensuring social acceptance."

16 Civil Protection New civil protection legislation (entered into force Jan 2014 with key innovations to the existing EU cooperation within the Civil Protection Mechanism: 1. Prevention integrated into the legislative framework - Risk assessments obligatory for all MS by 2015; - Refinement of risk management planning; - Assessment of national risk management capabilities obligatory for all MS by Peer reviews of disaster risk management policy; - Exchange of good practices, climate change adaptation, use of financial instrument for prevention; - Possibility to deploy expert missions to advise on disaster prevention and preparedness at the request of a MS/third country in need; - Specific prevention and preparedness actions expanded to the candidates, potential candidates and neighbouring countries

17 2. Preparedness strengthened actions - Continue existing activities exercises, training, exchange of experts, projects - Creation of a Network of training institutions - Better planning of EU operations 3. Response more effective and coherent - Creation of a voluntary pool of pre-committed response capacities of the Member States ready for use in case of disasters - Better response planning - Creation of Emergency Response Centre in Brussels (24/7 availability)

18 CIS WG on Agriculture: Draft Technical Paper on Assessment of opportunities for water in greening and the Rural Development Programmes (available in CIRCA) The purpose of the paper is to identify how specific articles of the new CAP regulations can be used to benefit water. The paper provides a summary of the key elements of articles that are relevant to WFD (and related water directives) objectives and listing relevant examples of the types of activities that could be funded under each article. The table includes a fourth column, currently blank, for Member States to populate with their own examples. Several flood related opportunities in relation to addressing WFD (and FD) priorities.

19 Cohesion/Regional Policy The legislative package on EU Cohesion Policy for the period was adopted in December ( m) Every European region may benefit from the support of ERDF and ESF. However a distinction between less developed, transition and more developed regions will exist in order to ensure concentration of the Funds according to the level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). (

20 A number of ex ante conditionalities are laid down together with the criteria for their fulfillment. Some conditions are directly related to the thematic objectives of the policy (for example in the field of environment, conditions are established for water), while others apply horizontally (for example the legislation on EIA-SEA). A Draft Guidance on EACs, including fiches with guidance on thematic ex ante conditionalities, is available at

21 Eleven thematic objectives (TOs) in Common Provisions Regulation. TO 5: Climate change adaptation, risk prevention TO6: Protecting the environment and promotion resource efficiency TO5 covers the areas promoting climate change adaptation, risk prevention and management through: (a) supporting [ ] investment for adaptation to climate change, including eco-system based approaches; (b) promoting investment to address specific risks, ensuring disaster resilience and developing disaster management systems. The Guidance document on TO5 is available at

22 TO6 covers the areas protecting the environment and promoting resource efficiency, through: (a) investing [ ] in the waste sector to meet the requirements of the Union s environmental acquis and to address needs, identified by Member States, for investment going beyond those requirements; (b) investing [ ] in the water sector to meet the requirements of the Union s environmental acquis and to address needs, identified by Member States, for investment going beyond those requirements; (c) conserving, protecting, promoting and developing natural and cultural heritage; (d) protecting and restoring biodiversity, soil protection and restoration and promoting ecosystem services including NATURA 2000 and green infrastructures;

23 (e) action to improve the urban environment, revitalisation of cities, [ ] regeneration and decontamination of brownfield sites (including conversion areas), reduction of air pollution and promotion of noisereduction measures; (f) promoting innovative technologies to improve environmental protection and resource efficiency in the waste sector, water sector, soil protection or to reduce air pollution; (g) supporting industrial transition towards a resource-efficient economy, [ ] promoting green growth, eco-innovation and environmental performance management in the public and private sectors. The Guidance document on TO6 is available at

24 The budget of the Cohesion Policy and allocations per Member State is available at Timing for the submission of PAs/Ops ( According to the Common Provisions Regulation, each Member State shall submit its Partnership Agreement (PA) to the Commission within 4 months from the entry into force of the Regulation. A Partnership Agreement (PA) is a national strategic document which covers the use of the five CSF Funds and lays down an umbrella strategy for all the Operational Programmes (OPs) supported by the CSF Funds. A single PA shall be prepared in each MS and it will be used as a basis for the OPs.

25 The Commission shall in turn make observations within 3 months of the date of submission of the PA by the Member State and shall adopt the Agreement no later than 4 months from its submission, provided that the Member State has adequately taken into account the observations made by the Commission. This means that as a general rule, PAs should be adopted by end of August 2014 at the latest. The CPR Regulation establishes that Operational Programmes (OPs) shall be submitted by Member States at the latest 3 months following the submission of the PA.

26 The Commission shall make observations within 3 months of the date of submission of the OP and adopt the OP no later than 6 months from the date of its submission, provided that the Member State has adequately taken into account the Commission observations. As a general rule, therefore, OPs should be adopted by end of January 2015 at the latest. The European Commission is now analysing the official Partnership Agreements received from 12 Member States (PL, FR, LV, PT, LT, SK, FI, DE, EE, DK, HU, NL) outlining their investment plans for EU Structural and Investment Funds for the programming period. The 16 remaining official Partnership Agreement proposals are to be submitted to the Commission by 22 April, for adoption as soon as possible so that programme funding can begin.