The GOBEYOND project, an EU-funded initiative under the Horizon Europe program, has developed a suite of next-generation early warning platforms designed to assess geological and weather risks such as wildfires, flooding and drought – identifying not only where and when a disaster will occur, but also who and what will most likely be affected.
The advanced Multi-Risk Impact-based Early Warning System (MR-IEWS) will then feed this information into digital tools used by civil protection authorities and first responders to support decision-making.
MR-IEWS was co-designed with scientists, technology developers, civil protection authorities, first responders and regional and local communities to define needs and test solutions.
“There is growing awareness of the need for anticipatory action. Existing early warning systems are mostly designed to detect hazards, not to provide actionable information or anticipate impacts,” explained GOBEYOND project coordinator Daniel Sempere-Torres from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
He added, “Converting diverse data into actionable information is very challenging. Local exposure and vulnerability datasets differ in detail and format, while geophysical and meteorological early warning algorithms differ in nature and timescales.”
Real-life testing
GOBEYOND’s MR-IEWS comprises two families of platforms: one for tailored regional decision support systems (DSS), the other for forecasting impacts in European (EW4EU) and Mediterranean (EW4MED) member states.
The DSS platforms integrate trusted real-time local and regional data to generate site- and time-specific warnings about hazard events. Civil protection authorities access this information through a digital dashboard, and automatic alerts can be sent to emergency managers.
Real-time operational demonstrations of the DSS are being conducted across a variety of environments in five regional and five municipal sites, including Andalusia in Spain, Chefchaouen Province in Morocco and the Attica region of Greece.
In Morocco, EW4MED helped the Ministry of the Interior protect over 140,000 citizens through rapid assessments of flooded areas, thanks to the relatively new integration of satellite imagery, as reported by the European Commission.
Meanwhile, local authorities in Estepona in Spain used one of the DSS tailored platforms to identify and monitor flood-prone locations, allowing them to quickly take preventive measures such as closing roads.
Advanced features have been added to the EW4MED platform, including an AI-based forest fire risk assessment tool developed by the CIMA Research Foundation through GOBEYOND’s Innovation Prize Open Call. The tool simulates fire propagation and estimates the impact on populations and infrastructure.
“Adopting advanced specialist components like AI-driven wildfire simulations as they are developed helps build a comprehensive one-stop shop for disaster management, making our solution attractive in the marketplace,” said Sempere.
The new platforms will be released in summer 2027 and will support EU initiatives such as the EU civil protection mechanisms and the European integrated framework for climate resilience.
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