ARISTOTLE: A Multihazard All-Risk Integrated System Toward Transboundary Holistic Early Warning

Saving lives and livelihoods is a national responsibility met by national plans and resources. Around the world the ability of nations to put in place the necessary preparedness planning to respond to a disaster, recover and then mitigate future events varies.

Effectiveness of plans varies depending on the level of resources available to a country. In some countries natural events can exceed the nation’s planning or resources to cope. For these countries the EU has put in place an emergency assistance programme contributed to by all EU members and managed by the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) in Brussels, known as ARISTOTLE.

The ERCC monitor world events and analyses whether and what support another country may need in order to pre-position resources. Pre-positioning resources enables the ERCC to act very quickly when a country calls on the international community for help. Getting teams and resources into the crisis zone just hours faster saves more lives and livelihoods than a slower response could achieve.

This is where ARISTOTLE comes in.

The project started as an operational pilot in 2017 and entered a new operational phase in October 2018. It comprises a collaborative network of scientific and operational experts across Europe, which provide accurate and authoritative information on natural disasters to ERCC. Here we discuss the Met Office’s role and the role of the Global Guidance Unit meteorologist, who acts as Hazard Lead for weather.