RES-MAR was an international project carried out between 2012 and 2013 within the European territorial cooperation partnership between Italy and France. Regione Liguria, project leader, has entrusted CIMA Research Foundation with the task of assisting municipalities to analyze the difficulties encountered in the application of the Civil Protection warning system, with particular attention to flood risk management.
CIMA Research Foundation’s objective was to identify and suggest operational recommendations for local governments in order to improve regional policies on civil protection. To this end, a participatory approach was followed, with three thematic clusters: the first one was dedicated to the existing “knowledge” on contents and tools for disaster risk reduction training; the second one focused on fostering “sharing” processes among institutions; the third one was dedicated to “act”, collecting practical suggestions to be used in the drafting and implementation of municipal emergency plans.
CIMA Research Foundation has held four group meetings for participants coming from municipalities with homogeneous characteristics, in terms of size and territorial issues. Group meetings followed a participatory approach and resulted in the drafting of operational proposals, shared at different levels. Two main requests emerged from this activity: the need to improve territorial planning tools and the need to create relationships between Region and Municipalities for a greater support and sharing of choices. Two communication campaigns were also carried out, one of which was dedicated to elementary school children, providing information on the risks of their own territory.
Finally, a focus group was also created regarding the emergency planning and management in schools. In order to provide accessible and straightforward information to schools and citizens, a graphic revision of the weather surveillance and alert bulletins was carried out, as well as a revision of the web page managed by the ARPAL weather center and the Civil Protection Functional Center.