ENSURE
EU FP7 sponsored research project
ENSURE is an EU FP7 sponsored research project and stands for Enhancing resilience of communities and territories facing natural and na-tech hazards.
Since a long time vulnerability is a key concept in disaster literature. Nevertheless the majority of studies and grants have been allocated to hazard related research, neglecting the influence of vulnerability of exposed systems on the death toll and losses in case of natural or man disasters. There is the need to better identify and measure also the ability of menaced and affected communities and territorial systems to respond. This is the starting point of the ENSURE project.
The overall objective of ENSURE is to structure vulnerability assessment model(s) in a way that different aspects of physical, systemic, social and economic vulnerability will be integrated as much as possible in a coherent framework. The ENSURE approach starts from the recognition that for all considered hazards most damages and most of vulnerabilities arise from the territory, therefore entirely "contained" at a territorial level. Other vulnerabilities, such as systemic, economic and social have interactions with the territory, but cannot be entirely determined at a territorial level. The project will start by assessing the state of the art in different fields related to various vulnerability aspects.
The project runs from 2008 to 2011. Leading partners are BRGM (France) and T6 (Italy). ITC project leader is Dr. Anne van der Veen.