1. EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
ENVIRONMENT
Directorate D - Water and Environmental Programmes
ENV.D.2 - Water and Marine
3RD STAKEHOLDER MEETING ON EUROPEAN ACTION PROGRAMME ON FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT
Brussels, 16 September 2005

2. Report on ORCHESTRA Benefits in Flood Risk ManagementFP
ORCHESTRA
Open Architecture and Spatial Data Infrastructure for Risk Management
Report on ORCHESTRA Benefits in Flood Risk Management

3. PRESENTATION SUMMARY INTRODUCTION THE CHALLENGE IN FLOOD MANAGEMENT
PROBLEMS IN A SPECIFIC CASE
ORCHESTRA AS A SOLUTION
CONCLUSIONS

4. 1. INTRODUCTION
EU’s territory is prone to many different types of risks (natural and man-made).
Flood management usually involves a wide range of institutions and organisations at various administrative levels with different systems and services.
Application of numerous and different policies, procedures, data standards and systems, results in problems related to co-ordinating data analysis, information delivery and resource management.
ORCHESTRA aims to improve the efficiency in dealing with risks by developing open service architectures for risk management.
EU’s territory is prone to many different types of risks (natural and man-made) that need to be addressed by an integrated approach to risk management.
Flood management usually involves a wide range of institutions and organisations at various administrative levels with different systems (monitoring, forecasting, warning, information, etc.) and services.
Application of numerous and different policies, procedures, data standards and systems, results in problems related to co-ordinating data analysis, information delivery and resource management.
ORCHESTRA aims to improve the efficiency in dealing with risks by developing open service architectures for risk management.

5. 2. THE CHALLENGE IN FLOOD MANAGEMENT
The purpose of flood management is to reduce risk and damage due to natural hazards.
The actions to achieve this goal are grouped in three phases:
Prevention
Emergency
Recovery

6. 2. THE CHALLENGE IN FLOOD MANAGEMENT
Floods are part of a multi-risk chain
Flood management requires inter-operability
Environmental alteration
Forest fires
Contamination episodes
Floods
Public health

7. 3. PROBLEMS IN A SPECIFIC CASE
3.1. Flood Management in Catalonia
3.2. Context
3.3. Implied actors/entities and roles
3.4. Flow of Information
3.5. Problems found and uncovered needs

8. 3.1. Flood Management in Catalonia
Hydraulics authorities
Catalan Water Agency (CAT)
Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE)
Master Plan for Flood Prevention in Catalonia (INUNCAT)
Risk management authority
Civil Protection

9. 3.2. Context Selected basin: Tordera River Basin Location:
Jurisdictional authority:
Total drainage area (km²):
Burnt area in the last 15 years:
Tordera River Basin
North-East of Spain
Catalan Water Agency (CAT)
866
~14 %

10. 3.2. Context

11. 3.2. Context

12. 3.2. Context

13. 3.3. Implied actors/entities and roles
Implied actors and entities:
Eighteen (18) possible actors have been identified.
Three main levels have been established depending on their jurisdictions.
LEVEL
Number of actors
National 5
Regional 10
Local 3

14. 3.3. Implied actors/entities and roles
National actors:
ACTOR
TOPIC
FUNCTION
Spanish Environment Ministry (MMA)
Environment
Criteria and data provider
Civil Protection
National Meteorological Service (INM)
Meteorology
Data provider
National Park Autonomous Organism
National Spanish Coastal Authority
Coastal management
Decision-maker

15. 3.3. Implied actors/entities and roles
Regional actors:
ACTOR
TOPIC
FUNCTION
Catalan Water Agency (CAT)
Water management authority
Criteria and data provider
Decision-maker
Preventive action-maker
Regional Meteorological Service (SMC)
Meteorology
Data provider
Regional Survey Institute (ICC)
Topography and thematic cartography
Catalan Fire Department
Civil Protection
Risk Assessment Consultancy
Risk Assessment

16. 3.3. Implied actors/entities and roles
Regional actors:
ACTOR
TOPIC
FUNCTION
Autonomous Town and Country Town and Public Works Ministry (DPTOP)
Territory planning
Criteria and data provider
Decision-maker
Preventive action-maker
Autonomous Police Ministry (Mossos d’Esquadra)
Civil Protection
Autonomous Environment Ministry (DMAH)
Environment
Autonomous General Transport Authority (DGT)
Road and railway networks
Data provider
Basic Supply Companies
Water, Energy, Communications

17. 3.3. Implied actors/entities and roles
Local actors:
ACTOR
TOPIC
FUNCTION
Town councils
Town management
Criteria and data provider
Decision-maker
Preventive action-maker
Local Police Department
Civil Protection
Other local organisms (i.e. irrigation communities)

18. 3.4. Flow of information Consultancy METEO CAT ICC CP National
authorities
Regional
authorities
Other local actors
Local
authorities

19. 3.5. Problems found and uncovered needs
Lack of information or ignorance of existing data. Difficult search and access.
Concept misunderstanding (different languages, types of risk or users, e.g. relationships between technician and decision-maker).
Lack of standardisation.
Lack of coordination among authorities in multi-risk or trans-boundary emergencies.
Difficulty to find input data and check model output data.
Lack of information, i.e. maps, to determine risky potentially areas, risk level, population and goods at risk, so as resources location and access and evacuation itineraries.
Ignorance of existing data. Difficult search or access.
Concept misunderstanding (different languages, types of risk or users, i.e. relationships between technician and decision-maker)
Lack of standardisation: different users don’t understand information the same way, or similar information seems not to represent the same. This might be increased in multi-risk events.
Lack of coordination among authorities in multi-risk or trans-boundary emergencies.
Difficulty to find input data and check model output data
Sometimes, model implicit hypothesis might be referred just to the local field when it was developed
Lack of experience
Mistakes

20. 4. ORCHESTRA AS A SOLUTION
Development of an open architecture service-oriented based on standards and coherent semantics through the use of metadata and ontologies to facilitate information flow and usage.
Started in September 2004, ending in August 2007
A consortium of 14 partners in Europe
A budget of 13 M€

21. 4.1. ORCHESTRA basic terms
Interoperability: ease of systems and users to be efficiently connected to each other.
Metadata: information associated to data (source, characteristics and quality) that gives coherence criteria to interoperability.
Semantic and ontology: concept (e.g. flow) and domain of kwowledge (hydraulics)
Architecture: conceptual framework with the necessary software development.
Service: any action that results in an intermediate (system service) or output product (user service).
- Service taxonomy: means hierarchy
- Service maps: link user and system services.

22. 4.2. ORCHESTRA goals
To design and implement an open service-oriented architecture for risk management in Europe.
To develop a set of services that are useful for various risk management applications.
To validate the ORCHESTRA results (i.e. architecture and services) in multi-risk scenarios.
To provide software standards for risk management applications, and to provide additional information about these standards in the form of a book (the ORCHESTRA book).

23. 4.3. ORCHESTRA general strategy
ORCHESTRA approach to enhance inter-operability: use of standards
Instead of risk management systems integrated within an organisation…
… systems are networked across and between organisations with interoperable capabilities
Standards-based info structure for risk management
Network platforms, services, components and
portals based on standards

24. 4.3. ORCHESTRA general strategy
ORCHESTRA approach to enhance inter-operability: use of standards
ORCHESTRA architecture design and development will be based on the principles of existing standards:
Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (ISO/IEC10746), structuring ideas and documentation
OpenGIS Service Architecture (ISO/DIS 19119), taxonomy of services

25. 4.3. ORCHESTRA general strategy
ORCHESTRA approach to enhance inter-operability: use of ontologies
Distributed, heterogeneous sources of information require inter-operability
Focus has been given to syntax and structural level: this allows physical connectivity
Semantic level should be also addressed: content of the information referring to the same concepts = common semantics
Ontologies: specification of a conceptualisation in a domain of knowledge (i.e.different risk domains). Formal description:
- Glossary of terms
- Relationships
Mapping of ontologies: inter-operability between information sources (i.e. multi-risk scenarios)

26. 4.3. ORCHESTRA general strategy
ORCHESTRA approach to enhance interoperability: services chaining

27. 4.4. ORCHESTRA done work User requirements have been identified.
Different risk domains have been defined (glossary and ontologies).
Service maps have been linked to information flow.
Identification of ORCHESTRA potential users is running.

28. 4.5. Stakeholders’ Benefits from ORCHESTRA
CONCEPT
CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
IMPROVEMENTS BY IMPLEMENTING ORCHESTRA
Information
Lack of information
- Access to all available information
Ignorance of existing data and difficult search and access
Comprehension
Concept misunderstanding
- Concepts univocally defined by glossaries and developed ontologies
Lack of standardisation
Coordination
Lack of coordination among authorities in multi-risk or trans-boundary emergencies
- Standardisation reduces response time

29. 4.5. Stakeholders’ Benefits from ORCHESTRA
CONCEPT
CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
IMPROVEMENTS BY IMPLEMENTING ORCHESTRA
H&H modelling
Difficulty to find input data and check model output data
- Access to all available information
Model implicit hypothesis might be referred just to the local field when it was developed
Knowledge
Lack of experience
- Access to all available information facilitates deeper studies
Mistakes
- Standardisation reduces margin of error

30. 5. CONCLUSIONS
Floods are a demanding type of natural disaster with a large number of involved entities and actors (stakeholders).
ORCHESTRA will improve Flood Management:
information will be consistent and coherent.
information search will be efficient based on semantic structures and use of ontologies.
Use of standards will help to integrate flood planning with other risks (e.g. forest fires), domino effects and trans-boundary organizations.
ORCHESTRA application tool will increase the availability of more specific and useful information.