Red Roses

Roses

Red

The presentation that follows offers an immersion in the RED ROSES project

In March 2022, the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) launched its annual project funding cycle. In May 2022, the French Red Cross, the Italian Red Cross, the Italian National Research Council, the French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières and Paris-Dauphine University-PSL submitted their project "REsponsive, Data ecosystem for Resilient and Operational SEcurity Strategies" (RED ROSES) which was selected for financing.

Team

Why RED ROSES ?

Transfer of knowledge

Insights

CROSS-border data

Data sharing challenges

Insights

Decision support

Data ecosystems and data spaces

need for cross-border cooperation

Team

To students

Transfer of knowledge

To practicioners

To academics

To Red Crosses

A Socio-technical vision

NEED FOR DATA

Why Red Roses ?

Disasters ignore frontiers

Wildfires

Floods

Landslides

The French-Italian border is particularly exposed to natural hazards. Over the last few years, it was hit several times by floods, landslides as well as wildfires.

Disasters ignore frontiers

To Red Crosses

Thanks to the Red Roses project, the two Red Cross organizations have been able to improve their knowledge of disaster risk reduction and the added value that data can bring to risk prevention. The project has put in place a number of tools (Spatial Data Infrastructure, Decision Support System, Volunteered Geographic Information) to help Red Cross Societies and others relevant authorities to improve their cooperation in the border region.

Picture taken during the RedLex cross-border exercise organized by the Italian Red Cross and the French Red Cross, in October 2024, to test the tools developed by the Italian CNR.

The RED ROSES partners have chosen to focus first on the reinforcing the resilience of the area between French region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) and Italian region Liguria. This area is also the birthplace of rivers Roya, Var and Verdon as well as their tributaries. Once operationnal, the SDI could be replicated in other transborder regions in Europe and the rest of the world.

Geographical scope

• Susa Valley (including the Moncenisio Dam water area)
• Piedmont region
• Savoie department
• Hautes-Alpes departement
• Roya Valley
• Liguria region
• Piedmont region (Tende area)
• Alpes Maritimes department

More about location

The French Red Cross is the coordinating organization for the Red Roses project. The French Red Cross plays a key role in disaster risk reduction through its prevention, preparedness and awareness-raising activities for vulnerable populations. Through first-aid training programs, risk management plans and emergency response, it strengthens the resilience of communities in the face of climatic, health and humanitarian crises, both in France and abroad.

French Red Cross

French Red Cross

The Italian Red Cross (Croce Rossa Italiana) is a major actor in disaster risk reduction, carrying out prevention, training and emergency preparedness activities, particularly in the face of earthquakes, floods and health crises. Thanks to its volunteers and rapid response systems, it raises community awareness, builds resilience and ensures an effective response to emergency situations.

Italian Red Cross

Italian Red Cross

The BRGM (French Geological Survey) is the national public institution for managing risks related to natural hazards, including floods, landslides, and earthquakes. It develops assessment, monitoring, and forecasting tools to help local authorities and policymakers better prevent and manage these risks.

French Geological Survey

Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières

Data literacy

Lack of shared vision

Lack of trust

Fragmentation

Prevent : Data sharing + The sustainability of the data ecosystem

Data-sharing challenges

This figure presents four major barriers to data sharing and the development of a data ecosystem at the Italian French border.

Creating by the Paris Dauphine University team using Genially.

Contact us !

• Anouck Adrot, anouck.adrot@dauphine.psl.eu
• Henri Isaac, henri.isaac@dauphine.psl.eu
• Salomé Ritouret, salome.ritouret@dauphine.psl.eu

Paris Dauphine University contributes to disaster risk reduction through its research in economics, management, and data science, analyzing crisis impacts and developing resilience models. Its work helps decision-makers better anticipate, manage, and mitigate the consequences of natural and human-induced disasters on societies and economies.

Paris Dauphine-PSL University

Paris Dauphine-PSL University

Data ecosystems and technologies for data processing cannot be approached from a purely technical perspective. Data is not only a digital product that can be stored, processed and displayed thanks to digital resources. Data, through its production, sharing and consumption, also embodies social interactions and practices. In particular, data sharing is based on collaboration between organization, which implies trust and the sharing of common values. For this reason, Red Roses adopted a comprehensive and socio-technical view on data support to cross-border resilience.

Socio-technical vision

Before storm Alex that struck France and Italy in October 2020, many municipalities of the valley de la Roya had already developped Reductionnismes Plans of Risks (PRR) for avalanches and landslides. Unfortunately, most of these plans did not analyze the risk of flood. Yet, because of this storm, the entire hydrographic netword of three valleys was massively impacted and modified. Several cities in the south-eastern part of France had to be evacuated due to the high level of the hydrogeological risk.

The National Research Council (CNR) of Italy is a key player in the study of natural hazards and the development of strategies for disaster risk reduction. It conducts interdisciplinary research and designs innovative technologies to better predict, prevent, and mitigate the impacts of extreme events on populations and infrastructure.

National Research Council

National Research Council (CNR)

The resilience of cross-border regions - defined as territories at the jointure between distinct countries separated by a topological or administrative border - has become an international concern, all the more given climate change (United Nations, 2019). Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) can drive the strengthening of this resilience while achieving sustainable development by preventing new and reducing existing and new disaster risks (UNDRR, 2017). Cross-border regions characterized by the existence of diverse frontiers and boundaries. They also generally host critical infrastructures (such as roads, nuclear and chemical plants). For this reason, cross-border regions are particularly vulnerable to hazards. The Italian and French border has a long tradition of cross-border cooperation such as Interreg Alcotra Despite these efforts, DRR actors at the border are still experiencing information and data integration issues. Red Roses aims at addressing these issues and further promoting cross-border data sharing.

Need for cross-border cooperation

Data ecosystems represent promising avenues to address multiple challenges such as smart cities, sustainable development and agriculture (such as GreenDeal), health resilience... As illustrated by the report from the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, data ecosystems can help alleviate the damages and costs inherent to disasters. For instance, from the data exchanged within an ecosystem, organizations can generate and share more reliable alerts (Van den Homberg & Susha, 2018). The European Commission has been going further by promoting data spaces : « A data space ‘brings together relevant data infrastructures and governance frameworks in order to facilitate data pooling and sharing’.»

Data ecosystems & Data spaces

Data ecosystems are « socio-technical complex networks in which actors interact and collaborate with each other to find, archive, publish, consume, or reuse data as well as to foster innovation, create value, and support new businesses » (Oliveira et al. 2019, p.589). Multiple instances of data ecosystems can be found in cross-border region, including in Nepal and also along the Mekong River.

Cross-Border data was produced in previous projects such as ConcertEaux and Amis Within the Red Roses project proposes another platform that gathers cross-border data that can be processed by DRR actors. These tools reveal the importance of a cross-border view on data. Collaboration on cross-border data can support the convergence of DRR actors from Italy and France towards a common vision of the cross-border territory as a liminal space.

Cross-border data

Picture of the workshop organized by Paris Dauphine University to test the governance plan with some fifteen international experts, January 2025.

To practictionners

The Red Roses project invovled multiple online, comodal, offline workshops organized by each partner. These workshops supported the fueling of a European community on data ecosystems. Most importantly, within the Red Roses project, the Italian Red Cross (CRI) organized a cross-border exercise and a training module. This model supports the organizations’ capability to process and share cross-border data. By doing so, the Red Roses project supports the development of European communities. Finally the SDI and DSS created by the CNR and BRGM was shortlisted by the European Commission for further tests, supporting digital innovation in relation to DRR in Europe.

Wildfires have direct consequences on both human lives, commodities and natural heritage. They can also indirectly cause an enhancement of debris flows, erosion and avalanche danger,. The cross-border Alpine forest fires require a relatively large amount of resources for fire-fighting and prevention. On the Italian side of the study area, the last wildfire event was recorded in August 2021, between Airole and Olivetta San Michele, where a forestfire broke out near the Colle di Tenda state road 20, interrupting road communications.

When it comes to wildfires, in the past 20 years: - in Italy, 1,100,000 ha of forest have been burnt. Every year, an average of 11,000 fires occur, destroying more than 50,000 ha of wood each year; - in France, the Mediterranean mountains contribute 34.8% to national burned area.

• "Data Ecosystems and Disaster Risk Reduction in Cross-border Regions: Visioning from 2020 Roya Valley Flood Disaster." by Anouck Adrot and Mercedes Aguerre, 2022.
• "The impact of conflict on data sharing for Disaster Risk Reduction" by Anouck Adrot and Mercedes Aguerre, 2023.
• "Barriers against data sharing for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) at borders" by Anouck Adrot, Lola Brunet and Henri Isaac, 2024.
• International Conference “Bordelands Facing a Polycrisis in the 21st Century – Resilience and Future Perspectives of Cross-Border Relations”
• To be continued : Paper to be presented at EGOS Colloquium 2025 in Athens, submission to EGU General Assembly and submission to ISCRAM 25.

Several papers have been published as part of Red Roses project. This contributes to enriching the knowledge of data ecosystems within the scope of the DRR.

To academics

The goal of the RED ROSES project is to make DRR at the French-Italian border more efficient. In practice, it implements, tests and deploys a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the use of actors on both sides of the border, especially those related to Civil Protection. Thanks to this platform, actors will be able to access more and less recent data as well as cooperative decision-making tools.

Goals

On October 4, 2020, storm Alex resulted in heavy rains and flash floods in the Roya Valley at the French-Italian frontier. Many infrastructure, economic and service facilities were destroyed, both in urban and rural areas. For instance, a dozen bridges were taken away by the water. Due to these damages, several villages such as Tende, Saorge, Sospel or Breil-sur-Rota, were doomed to isolation for several days. Over 4,000 households were without electricity in French departments of Alpes-Maritimes and Var. In Italy, the bad weather conditions caused two deaths, damage and numerous cases of missing persons in regions of Piedmont, Liguria and Valle d'Aosta.

All these students attended meetings, such as debates, workshops and exercises. They interacted with the partners and the advisory board members of the Red Roses project. This collaboration provided the students an opportunity to develop research skills but also knowledge and competencies about data and data ecosystems. As future professionals of conflicts and crises, they will support data use for resilience. Here is Lila’s feedback on this experience : Here is Salomé's feedback :

The Red Roses project involved 4 cohorts of master students of the Conflict Transformation and Peace studies master. Between 2022 and 2025, more than 25 students participated into empirical data collection and analysis to create knowledge and tools to support data usage for DRR and resilience at the Italian French border.

To students

Here is attached screenshots of Red Roses Geoportal composed by two Web Mapping applications : - A Zero level database : provides the spatial distribution and statistics of different types of hazards at cross-broder level - Near Real Time & VGI : Provides the spatial distribution and statistics of various types of environmental data collected by remote sensors. The Geoportam has been done by the CNR & the BRGM.

SIRENE is an example of Decision Support Systems that relies on multiple sorts of data, including data from research-based risk maps, authorities’ processes, infrastructure maps, as well as information generated by volunteers. For each type of emergency SIRENE can present the proper emergency procedures as well as the people in charge of performing these procedures. Systems such as SIRENE can improve risk awareness and support the processes to address natural hazards and critical situations.

Decision support

SIRENE means Sistema Informativo per la Preparazione e la Risposta alle Emergenze (Information System for Emergency Preparedness and Response in English).

Data is a crucial input to understand disasters and prevent their impacts. For instance, topological data helps identify locations that can be flooded or reached by fire. Data can drive DRR cooperation across borders (Kanbara & Shaw, 2021). First, as a digital resource, it is easy to replicate and share. Second, it calls for collaboration because understanding and preventing disasters cannot rely on a single source of data (Petrenj et al., 2013) as illustrated in the case of Bardonnecchia. The mutualisation of data can better help grasp the nature and the amplitude of a risk. Once the crises strikes, data sharing can help coordinate actions (Liverani et al., 2018). Data sharing represents a major component of resilience.

Need for data