Floods, fires and unexploded ordnance: the PPRD EAST 3 multi-hazard mapping

Within the PPRD EAST 3 program, CIMA Research Foundation's and Italian Red Cross' teams have carried out multi-hazard mapping for Ukraine taking into account the possible cascading effects of phenomena such as floods and wildfires in areas where unexploded ordnance is present, allowing anticipatory risk prevention and mitigation actions to be fielded

Natural hazards can influence each other: extreme rainfall, for example, can lead not only to floods but also to landslides ; wildfires, in addition to posing a risk to people, affect the ecosystems in which they develop; and so on. Then when we humans come into play, things get even more complex.

The examples are different, but the one we want to tell about here is very specific - and, unfortunately, also very current. It is the risk arising from the presence of unexploded ordnance in the area affected by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, combined with the risk of floods and wildfires that can cause them to mobilize or explode.

PPRD EAST 3, the multi-hazard approach

The "multi-risk approach" is now indispensable in the field of risk mitigation and management. We must learn to take into account and evaluate better and better not the single risk but the set of risks that can influence each other, causing serious damage. It is in the multi-hazard perspective CIMA Research Foundation and the Italian Red Cross started a new activity under PPRD EAST 3, the European program, led by the Swedish Civil Defense, which aims to strengthen warning systems and modernize emergency planning procedures in Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

At the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, at the request of DG-ECHO, some of the program's planned activities had been reshaped to adapt to the context. For example, as we had told hereCIMA Research Foundation began producing the Impact Based Forecast (IBF), a daily weather forecast focused on the variables - defined with the Italian Red Cross - that most influence humanitarian aid operations, and which is a tool to support the activities of the Italian Red Cross for people in conflict-affected areas.

This June, the IBF was organized to offer a specific focus on the area downstream of the Nova Kakhovka dam, which was completely flooded following a collapse of the reservoir located within the Dnepr River basin. This focus had been shared with the Ukraine Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, to support the scenario analysis.

Data on unexploded ordnance integrated with data on fire and flood risk

Since the early months of the conflict, the joint work of CRI and CIMA Research Foundation has also taken into consideration another risk in the area: the presence of unexploded ordnance (UXO), such as bombs and mines. In fact, PPRD EAST 3 focuses specifically on two main types of hazards: flood and forest fire hazards, for which a major training, including scenarios with multiple emergencies, was organized just last June in Georgia. But both of these risks would take on even greater severity if they occurred in an area where an unexploded ordnance is located, causing cascading events with potentially significant impacts in the affected area. A fire, for example, could act as a trigger; a flood could cause it to move, increasing the risk of explosion and, in any case, making its location uncertain. This is a nontrivial problem, because unexploded ordnance contains heavy metals, such as lead, and other elements that cause environmental contamination and are dangerous to human health.

For this reason, CIMA's researchers and CRI's Disaster Managers have begun work aimed at identifying the areas most susceptible to combined phenomena. To do this, they first carried out a series of "thematic" mappings, which consider areas that may be exposed to flood phenomena and forest fire risk. They then supplemented this information with information about areas most exposed to ongoing conflict.

To do so, they relied on open source data, and in particular those extracted from the Violent Incident Information from News Article (VIINA), developed by Yuri Zhukon (University of Michigan). This algorithm extracts and indices conflict-related news from news outlets, classifying them according to the different type of event (e.g., bombings, conquest of territory, assaults…). This information thus makes it possible to highlight areas where war activity is or has been concentrated, and where therefore the likelihood of unexploded ordnance is also higher.

By integrating the data from VIINA with maps of hydraulic hazard and fire susceptibility, the CIMA Research Foundation's team was able to produce a single multi-hazard map, which makes it possible to identify the areas in which the risk of cascading phenomena such as the movement of UXO following a flood or the explosion of an ordnance following a fire is greatest. Moreover, because the geographic data were defined on the smallest Ukrainian administrative level (the rajon, which we could translate as "district"), the affected areas are defined with a high level of detail.

Some examples of the multi hazard mapping realized within PPDR EAST 3 throught the integration of VIINA's data

Early Warning for Early Action

In this sense, the multi-hazard approach pursued by CIMA Research Foundation and the Italian Red Cross fits into the perspective that characterizes the PPRD EAST program, i.e., Early Warning for Early Action. This means linking information from warning systems with anticipatory actions - all those that can be put in place in a preventive way to reduce, or even prevent, the impact of the event. This approach not only has the potential to reduce the damage that an event may cause, but also maximizes the time for intervention. If, in fact, anticipatory actions are put in place during the forecast phase of the phenomena itself, the time window of emergency management is widened, giving operators more time to organize and intervene. In the program, CIMA develops Risk Analysis and Early Warning Systems, and the Italian Red Cross focuses on Emergency Planning and Preparedness, with an integrated and harmonized approach.

It also applies to the newly inserted variable, that of unexploded ordnance. If we know that it is located in an area that already has a certain level of prior risk, we can take into account the complexity of the situation at the preliminary risk assessment stage, estimating the possibility of cascading effects and without risking underestimating the danger to the population in the area or the humanitarian aids.

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