SMARTeST International Conference

It is a great joy and enthusiasm for us to welcome you all to the

SMARTeST International Conference,

IMPLEMENTING FLOOD RESILIENCE

The Conference will be held

27-28 September 2012, in Athens - Greece.

For information visit the website, or download the leaflet.

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HIC 2012 - 10th International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Hamburg, Germany    July 14-18, 2012

For information visit the website.

AESOP 2012
26th Annual Congress
July 11 - 15, 2012 Ankara, Turkey

The Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) will hold its 26th Annual Congress in Ankara, Turkey, from 11 to 15 July 2012. As 2012 will also mark the 25th Anniversary of AESOP our aim is to celebrate the occasion with the participation of many distinguished guests and keynote speakers, along with a number of special sessions and activities. The Congress will also provide the setting for stimulating workshops, round-table discussions, and exciting excursions, during which issues of spatial planning and development specific to Ankara may also be explored.

EU Seventh Framework Programme
Environment

Smart Resilience Technology, Systems and Tools - SMARTeST

Technologies for improved safety of the built environment in relation to flood events

The programme, involving 10 European research institutes, will develop flood resilience systems. It will seek to develop innovative and smart technology and products and to introduce new systems.  The emphasis is on cost effective solutions to flood resilient systems in the urban environment.

Aim

The aim is to improve the Road to Market of innovative Flood Resilient (FRe) technology by reducing deficiencies and obstacles in the implementation of Flood Resilience Measures, facilitating the design of more holistic flood defence systems and supporting the implementation of the new EU flood risk management policy of “Living with Floods”. New technology, systems and tools will be developed.  Guidelines for validating their performance will be established and applied in experimental studies to determine the reliability of today’s Flood Resilience products.

Strategy and methodology

The project strategy uses the work package system to address the technology, systems and implementation for flood resilient technology. The three main strands of the research will be brought together through an integration work package. The strategy also involves a significant amount of dissemination activity in order to make an impact. Dissemination activities will be varied to reach a variety of stakeholders and to make an impact from the research results.

Impacts

This project will act as a springboard to the use of the next generation of FRe-technology. Such technology may be based on so called smart systems that incorporate sensor technology, automatic control, innovative materials and high levels of performance. This innovation will improve the effectiveness especially in the case of pluvial and flash floods where extreme short response time requires automatic deployment of FRe-systems. Through involvement of commercial enterprises and service providers it is believed that the research outcomes of this project will be directly applied by the FRe industry and will especially trigger the development of new markets for the protection of urban infrastructure.

The project will result in the development of guidance documents for validating the performance of FRe technology and in experimental studies the reliability of today’s Flood Resilience products.

The project has the potential to make a significant beneficial contribution to flood risk management in Europe and will foster the development of more holistic flood defence systems which will lead in the end to flood resilient cities. The project will substantially reduce the damage, the costs and the health impacts associated with flood hazards.

The selected case studies (Manchester, Hamburg, Dresden, Paris, Valencia, Rotterdam, Athens and in Cyprus) cover various regions of Europe and the coastal regions of the Mediterranean and North Sea.  The case studies will be used as instruments for research into systems and the implementation of flood resilient technology.

Partners

The project will be coordinated by Dr. Stephen Garvin, Building Research Establishment (BRE), the full list of partners are as follows:

1. Building Research Establishment (BRE), UK (Scientific Coordinator: Dr. Stephen Garvin)
2. Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH), Germany (Scientific Coordinator: Prof. Erik Pasche)
3. Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB), France (Scientific Coordinator: Jean-Luc Salagnac)
4. University of Manchester (UNIMAN), UK (Scientific Coordinator: Dr. Iain White)
5. University of Athens (NKUA), Greece (Scientific Coordinator: Ass. Prof. Niki Evelpidou)
6. Dion Toumazis & Associates (CYT), Cyprus (Scientific Coordinator: Dr. Antonis Toumazis)
7. Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC), France (Scientific Coordinator: Dr. Ioulia Tchiguirinskaia)
8. Technical University of Delft (TUD), Netherlands (Scientific Coordinator: Prof. Han Vrijling)
9. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UMP), Spain (Scientific Coordinator: Prof. J. Javier Diez)
10. Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development (IOER), Germany (Scientific Coordinator: Dr. Thomas Naumann)

Timetable

1 January 2010 to 31 December 2012.

National support groups

National Support Groups (NSGs) will be formed in each country. These groups will be composed of representatives of national governments, local government, environment agencies, industry and local flood forums.  The intention of the NSG will be to provide support to the project from each country and to represent the interests of the country and industry in the research.  The NSGs will effectively have a role to help to steer and advise the project team.

In return the NSG members will have access to the research results at an early stage, in advance of the publication of the findings.  In addition, members will have access at reduced rates to dissemination events that will be organised in the UK and on an international basis.  The UK NSG represents a substantial opportunity to network with key stakeholders in the field of flood management through regular meetings of the group and virtual networking through a project web site.