Newsroom
Newsroom
Coping with Catastrophes—€9 million for New Project
8 December 2023, by Newsroom editorial office
Photo: pixabay/Wickedgood
The goal is to give precise warnings to the public in the event of storm surges.
The interdisciplinary research project Rescue Mate should prepare Hamburg for challenges posed by extreme weather events. The federally funded project was initiated and will be headed by Prof. Dr. Mathias Fischer and Dr. Martin Semmann (Department of Informatics). The work will be conducted at Universität Hamburg and elsewhere.
In Hamburg, storm surges will presumably become more frequent and intense. This also means looking at rising sea levels, an increase in local extreme winds, and the impact of continuous rain or heavy rainfall in areas protected by dykes. The latest storm surges on the North and Baltic Seas especially have shown what kinds of dramatic effects these kinds of events can have on the local regions.
To respond effectively in the future to these developments, Hamburg must take action accordingly and quickly and further develop existing concepts and strategies while also incorporating civil security research. This pertains particularly to warning the population and governmental management.
More efficient and quicker reactions in emergencies
The Ministry of the Interior and Sports has thus joined ranks with Universität Hamburg and numerous other universities and partners for a new project titled Dynamische Lageerstellung und Unterstützung für Rettungskräfte in komplexen Krisensituationen (RESCUE MATE). The project under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior is set to run for 4 years and is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the amount of €9 million within the scope of civil security research.
RESCUE MATE focuses on a possible serious storm surge in Hamburg that would entail extensive evacuations and lockdowns in areas close to the Elbe and in which many different people would have to closely coordinate and consult to handle the situation and protect the population. Realizing coordinated, interdisciplinary responses to catastrophic events more efficiently and more quickly and providing better protection from large-scale damage is one of the goals that project members want to accomplish jointly with Hamburg’s firefighters and police.
Technical solutions for coordinating help
The project was initiated by Prof. Dr. Mathias Fischer and Dr. Martin Semmann from Universität Hamburg and will also be based here. The primary goal is to make the flow of information between governmental offices, rescue organizations, and aid organizations more automatic, quicker, and better resourced. To this end, technical solutions will be developed that enable governmental security offices and numerous other organizations in Hamburg to quickly send direct help to private citizens in emergency situations.
Further project goals are precise warnings in the case of damage and providing the public with recommendations for courses of action, for example, using apps with evacuation tips. Among other things, the different project phases will include information sessions at which virtual reality will give private citizens a realistic view of the situation in case of flooding.
