RISC-KIT Final Conference

The RISC-KIT Consortium will host a special conference event to mark the end of the RISC-KIT project. The conference is scheduled to take place in Delft, Netherlands, from 5-7 April 2017. The conference will bring together researchers from the RISC-KIT project and others, to discuss the latest developments in the area of coastal storm preparedness and disaster risk reduction.

This conference will showcase strategies to cope with intense storm events in a variety of coastal areas, taking into account different coastal types and features, land uses, hazard types, socio-economic and environmental characteristics demonstrated in these areas, along with their cultural and institutional variability. The Conference is the culmination of three years of research and developments towards the creation of a flexible toolkit for efficient and comprehensive coastal risk management, which will benefit coastal communities.

Representatives from all of Europe’s major sea basins will take part in a three-day event that comprises lectures by the RISC-KIT toolkit developers, demonstrations of the RISC-KIT tools, and perspectives from coastal end users for whom the tools were developed.

Conference Format

April 5th is a day dedicated to End Users during which decision makers and government agents will be presented with an introduction to the following information and tools:  

• The Storm Impact Database; 
• A repository of historical storm and impact data for past events in Europe;
• A Coastal Risk Assessment Framework, designed to identify areas of increased coastal risk on a broad scale;
• The Hotspot Tool, designed to look in detail at risks at particularly vulnerable points on the coast;
• The Web-based Management Guide, a resource for determining the best Disaster Risk Reduction methods for specific circumstances;
• Multi-Criteria Analysis, a method by which local priorities and opinions can be incorporated into risk evaluation, preparedness strategies and amelioration approaches.

April 6th and 7th will see contributions from project researchers who will describe the application of the RISC-KIT tools on European case study sites and invited guests who will present on concurrent European and national projects. During these two days, there will also be insights from a series of international experts who have accompanied the project from its launch. Through this event, RISC-KIT aims to implement the acquired knowledge in the best possible way, to enhance the success of hazard management and increase risk resilience in coastal zones, in close collaboration with the local end-users and stakeholders.