FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 Nat Cat mitigation programs in Bulgaria Roumen Galabinov

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013

Estimated economic damages reported by disaster type (US$ X 1,000)

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 Since January 2013 a new National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction was established. The platform is chaired by minister of Interior and consisting of all the ministries and institutions in the government relevant to DRR activities as well as private sector. This National disaster protection plan includes plans as: - Floods; - Earthquakes; - Snow storms; - Petrol products spills; - Fires; - Industrial accidents; - Nuclear accidents; - Biological contamination; - Terrorist acts.

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 The main activities of newly established National Platform for DRR are in compliance with the government strategic goals and priorities for action and include: 1. To propose and coordinate the national policy and the applying of good practices in the filed of disaster protection. 2. Development of Annual Working Program for activities, priorities and tasks in compliance with the strategic goals in the field of disaster protection and DRR. 3. Organization of the development of the DRR strategy.

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 In the working plan of the newly established National Platform for DRR developing of a Strategy for DRR was given a priority. The main goal for establishing the new National Platform for DRR is to involve all the parties into DRR and also to strengthen the communication and information sharing between all the institutions. A new law for public-private partnership came into force on 1 January 2013 and allows the government and municipalities to participate in long-term cooperation with contractual period of 35 years with private companies to perform activities of public interest including DDR.

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 Floods Flood risk management plans shall make the implementation of specific measures for flood prevention, improving the preparedness of the population, local and central government in case of flood, including improved flood forecasts and early warning systems. The Water Act provides measures for flood protection to be performed with priority. Under the Water Act Flood risk management plans are developed for each river basin management region.

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 Earthquakes New ordinance for Designing of the building structures through the implementation of the European system, including through implementation of Designing of structures on earthquake impacts came into force on 6 January The ordinance ensures higher reliability of the constructions under operating and seismic impacts. National applications were developed for designing according to Constructive Euro codes system. For the implementation of the Bulgarian State Standard European Norm 1998 new cards for seismic zoning of Republic of Bulgaria were developed for repeating periods 475, 95 and 1000 years.

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 System for early warning and alarming in case of disaster. The system has 2 subsystems: Subsystem 1 for notification of authorities and the parts of Integrated Rescue System - with a capacity up to officials with a possibility to be included all managerial levels - from the President to the lowest local level. Subsystem 2 (The Siren system) for early warning and notification of the population of the country- covers 34 % of the population of the country - the ten biggest cities. A big constraint is that 66 % of the population of the country still not use the early warning and notification system

FIAR International Insurance- Reinsurance Forum 2013 Problems Financial support for disaster risk reduction activities is not sufficient. Missing of structured approach to the data used by different organizations in the field of risk mapping. A common methodology for risk mapping and assessment is needed. Strengthening of the joint work of the institutions. Budget constraints, not enough disaster risk reduction capacity in the country. Although a lot of efforts have been made, there is still a lack of enough disaster risk reduction capacity and trained people to support the institutions. Lack of multi-hazard risk assessment and lack of multi-hazard integration approach to disaster risk reduction. Still on-going work for improving the existing systems and need of financial resources to keep the software, needed for those systems, up to date lack of enough financial resources.