Abstract
According to the United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, “natural hazards are processes or phenomena that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage”. They are at the interface between human and natural systems. From this perspective, natural hazards are a multidimensional domain including environmental issues, the private and public sector and citizens and governance ranging from local to supranational. The vast amount of information and data necessary for comprehensive hazard and risk assessment present many challenges regarding the lack of accessibility, comparability, quality, organisation and dissemination of natural hazards spatial data. In order to mitigate these limitations, an interoperability framework has been developed and published in the INSPIRE Data Specification on Natural Risk Zones—technical guidelines (DS) document. This framework provides means for facilitating access, integration, harmonisation and dissemination of natural hazard data from different domains and sources. The objective of this paper is twofold. Firstly, the paper highlights the key aspects of the interoperability to the various natural hazard communities and illustrates the applicability of the interoperability framework developed in the DS. And secondly, the paper “translates” into common language the main features and potentiality of the interoperability framework of the DS for a wider audience of scientists and practitioners in the natural hazard domain. In this paper, the four pillars of the interoperability framework will be presented. First, the adoption of a common terminology for the natural hazard domain will be addressed. A common data model to facilitate cross-domain data integration will then follow. Thirdly, the common methodology developed to express qualitative or quantitative assessments of natural hazards is presented. Fourthly, the extensible classification schema for natural hazards developed from a literature review and key reference documents from the contributing community of practice is discussed. Furthermore, the applicability of the interoperability framework for the various stakeholder groups is illustrated. This paper closes discussing main advantages, limitations and next steps regarding the sustainability and evolution of the interoperability framework.
Highlights
Natural hazards represent the interface between human and natural systems
This paper focuses on the key aspects of making data and information related to the natural hazard domain interoperable
The content of this paper stems from experience gained during the development of data specifications for the data theme Natural Risk Zones (DS) (European Commission 2013)
Summary
Natural hazards represent the interface between human and natural systems. From this perspective, natural hazards are part of a multidimensional domain including environmental issues, private and public sectors as well as citizens and governance ranging from local to supranational. The paper ‘‘translates’’ into common language the main features and potential of the IF for a wider audience of scientists and practitioners in the natural hazard domain but not necessarily involved in their day to day activity in spatial data interoperability issues. This classification, implemented from a literature review and the open consultation, allows further additions resulting from new findings and proposals. The last section concludes the paper discussing the main findings, challenges and limitations of the IF and addresses open issues and steps regarding its sustainability and evolution
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