GOBEYOND turns hazard alerts into impact-based warnings for European first responders
Europe's extreme weather and climate events are intensifying, but most early warning systems still stop at hazard detection. The EU-funded GOBEYOND project is building a Multi-Risk Impact-based Early Warning System (MR-IEWS) that identifies not only where and when a disaster will occur, but who and what will most likely be affected.
"There is growing awareness of the need for anticipatory action. Existing early warning systems are mostly designed to detect hazards, not to provide actionable information or anticipate impacts," explains project coordinator Daniel Sempere-Torres of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC).
The system assesses geological and weather risks including wildfires, flooding and drought, and feeds the resulting analysis into digital tools that support civil protection authorities and first responders. It was co-designed in Living Labs where scientists, technology developers, civil protection authorities, first responders and local communities defined needs and tested solutions together.
Two platform families, ten demonstration sites
MR-IEWS comprises tailored regional decision support systems (DSSs) and two forecasting platforms covering European (EW4EU) and Mediterranean (EW4MED) member states. The DSS platforms combine trusted real-time local and regional data to generate site- and time-specific warnings, which authorities access through a digital dashboard with automatic alerts to emergency managers.
Operational demonstrations are running across five regional and five municipal sites, including Andalusia in Spain, Chefchaouen Province in Morocco and the Attica region of Greece.
Converting that data into usable warnings is the hard part. "Local exposure and vulnerability datasets differ in detail and format, while geophysical and meteorological early warning algorithms differ in nature and timescales," Sempere-Torres notes.
Early results in Morocco and Spain
In Morocco, EW4MED helped the Ministry of the Interior protect over 140,000 citizens through rapid assessments of flooded areas, drawing on newly integrated satellite imagery. Local authorities in Estepona, Spain used a tailored DSS platform to identify and monitor flood-prone locations and take preventive measures such as closing roads.
The EW4MED platform has since gained an artificial intelligence-based forest fire risk assessment tool, developed by the CIMA Research Foundation through the project's Innovation Prize Open Call, which simulates fire propagation and estimates impacts on populations and infrastructure.
Towards release in 2027
The project is developing a business model for cloud-based services built on customisable GOBEYOND products. Once released in summer 2027, the suite will support EU initiatives including the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and the European framework for climate resilience.