EU tests joined-up flood response
EU tests joined-up flood response
2008-04-14Newsfeed
European countries have tested new technology which utilises cutting-edge virtual reality, artificial intelligence, communications, display, GIS and database technologies to co-ordinate the response to the threat of massive coastal flooding.
European countries have tested new technology which utilises cutting-edge virtual reality, artificial intelligence, communications, display, GIS and database technologies to co-ordinate the response to the threat of massive coastal flooding.
The major international exercise set up emergency command centres in the UK, Sweden, Holland and Ireland which worked together to provide a joined-up response to flooding from a simulated tsunami in another EU member state.
The exercise was of particular relevance in the light of the major tidal surge that nearly overwhelmed flood defences in the eastern United Kingdom, Germany and Holland in November 2007, and the growing threat from rising sea levels caused by climate change.
The EU FloodCommand programme, co-funded by the European Commission, is a project run by emergency training and technology company VectorCommand.
The exercise explored how emergency services and governments could best co-ordinate resources to help a fellow European nation deal with the results of a massive tsunami.
The complex issues of how to offer and prepare emergency response forces such as helicopters and boats, transport them to the recipient nation, and deploy and co-ordinate them once there, were all explored during the exercise, with VectorCommand's Command Support System being used to improve communications and integrate all aspects of resource command and control.
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