PROJECT DETAILS

The project FLOOD SHIELD focuses on the transboundary Axios/Vardar river that has the potential to provide a wide range of benefits, i.e. environmental, social, economic and strategic, but also disservices such as flood risks to the regions it flows through. Numerous challenges hamper effective cross borer cooperation in general and cooperation on transboundary floods management in particular, thereby increasing vulnerability to floods at the cross border areas of Greece and Republic of North Macedonia. The project main objective is the minimization of the cross-border flood risks and disasters at the Axios/Vardar river basin by strengthening the cross-border cooperation, organisationally, technologically and socially. In particular, the project combines different aspects to achieve the following sub-objectives: 1. Strengthening the flood risk governance at the Cross-border area in order to better assess, plan, monitor, prevent and react against floods; 2. Improving the technical capacity for effective cross-border flood risk assessment, monitoring, preparedness and response; 3. Promoting the role of citizens and voluntarism groups in the civil protection actions in case of flood disasters to protect themselves and actively involved in prevention and reaction activities. The implementation of the project's activities and the delivery of their anticipated outputs will contribute to the achievement of the project's specific objectives as follows: -The strengthening of the flood risk governance will be achieved through: a) the establishment of a Joint flood risk management group that will improve and pool together the capacity of authorities, services and volunteer groups, b) the establishment of operational cross border centers, c) the definition of the procedures needed to overcome the barriers in the cross border cooperation, d) the elaboration of a cross border flood reaction strategy and e) the training of the staff of the authorities, services and volunteer groups participating in the interventions during floods. -The improvement of the technical capacity for effective cross-border flood risk assessment, monitoring, preparedness and response will be achieved through: a) the Flood Early Warning System development b) the flood risks and vulnerable sites mapping c) the accessibility modeling of means and equipment in the neighboring territories and d) the Incident Management and Collaboration Platform development for Civil protection and other stakeholders to train, prepare and respond in case of flooding, -The promotion of the role of citizens and voluntarism groups will be achieved through awareness raising, information and promotional campaigns that will include events, informal education in schools, audio and video materials etc.