Guidance

European multiple environmental threats emergency network (EMETNET)

Published 14 November 2016

Overview

The EMETNET project serves to support the EU and its member states by providing a rapid risk assessment (RRA) methodology of emerging environmental threats to assess their risk and associated impacts.

It will also seek to provide a network of expert risk assessors to support the European Response Co-ordination Centre and the Health Emergency Operating Facility (part of the EU civil protection mechanism) in the rapid scientific assessment of risks to inform responders in the field and to contribute to co-ordinated risk management.

EU member states have varying capabilities to rapidly assess natural and man-made disaster risks and their impacts. It is vital that these states present a co-ordinated approach to risk management and reduction, in the event of a serious cross border health threat. This has been recognised by the EU decisions:

• 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism
• 1082/2013/EU for serious cross-border threats

The EU decisions seek to strengthen and improve co-operation and co-ordination in the fields of civil and health protection. In particular, they aim to improve the prevention, preparedness and response to natural or man-made disasters that can impact upon one or more member states, bringing EU policy in line with the International Health Regulations, 2005.

Objectives

The main objective of the EMETNET project is to provide a simple, efficient, inexpensive and robust methodology to enable the rapid assessment of risks and impacts of emerging environmental threats. This will provide a unified understanding of the associated health, environmental, economic and cross-sectoral impacts of such events to aid risk management and the planning and response process.

The methodology developed within the European Chemical Emergency Network (ECHEMNET) project will be adapted and expanded to allow for a broader range of emerging environmental risks in Europe.

EMETNET also aims to:

• strengthen the RRA of emerging natural and man-made environmental threats, building upon methods developed for cross-border chemical and biological threats and considering other European and member state approaches
• extend the ‘International Scale of Industrial Accidents’ to form a common scale to enable the direct comparison of impacts of multiple environmental hazard types
• develop the ‘network of experts’, established in ECHEMNET for cross-border chemical threats to cover multiple hazards to aid RRA of emerging environmental hazards
• encourage international workshops with EU member states and expert risk assessors to enhance sharing and co-operation in assessment of emerging threats and potential disaster scenarios
• arrange exercises to assess the operational benefits of remote risk and impact assessment for teams deployed through the Civil Protection Mechanism
• operate in ‘pilot-mode’ to support Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) and Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) in assessing the multiple impacts of emerging environmental threats

Expected outcomes

The project will:

• raise awareness and bring together experts, European and member state authorities with competencies in the field of risk and impact assessment of emerging multiple environmental hazards
• further develop a robust inexpensive RRA methodology derived from ECHEMNET to extend to other environmental hazards, taking into account best practise and member states’ experiences
• extend an international impact assessment tool for chemical accidents, to cover additional environmental threats to ensure planning and response activities are commensurate with the potential health, environmental and economic impacts of these threats and to aid risk management
• operate in ‘pilot mode’ to provide risk assessment support to DG ECHO and DG SANTE in the event of a serious threat; where possible links with other competent authorities to improve robustness of assessments will be made
• ensure more efficient shared risk and impact assessment procedures at the European level to aid prevention, preparedness and response measures
• extend the pool of expert risk assessors for use by EU DGs to assess emerging threats
• unify methodology (and support mechanism) for EU member states to assess emerging risks

Project elements and responsibilities

EMETNET consists of the following 5 work packages:

1. Project co-ordination: led by RIVM

This includes technical management of the project, to ensure milestones and deliverables are met on time and to manage the contractual and financial administration of the contract on behalf of the European Commission.

Expected results

The project is run smoothly and an effective working relationship between partners and external collaborators and stakeholders is maintained. The technical, financial and administrative requirements are reported in the progress and final reports.

2. Impact assessment scale, RRA methodology and guidance for risk assessors: led by PHE

2.1 This seeks to build upon outputs of work in the ECHEMNET project, adapting the RRA methodology to encompass a broader range of environmental threats (identified in the EU overview of natural and man-made disaster risk in the EU).

Guidance documents for national risk assessors from previous EU projects will be reviewed, standardised against existing authoritative guidance (for example WHO risk assessment guidance), tested, consulted upon and synthesised into a user friendly document. A collaborative document sharing and working IT platform will be used to develop the technical documents and also in exercise or pilot mode should a RRA and impact assessment be required by the Commission during the lifetime of the project.

A project workshop will be held to discuss and reach agreement on the structure and content of the RRA and guidance; experts will be identified to provide feedback on the methodology. Two stakeholder workshops will be held to ensure that comments from future end-users and other competent authorities are included in final deliverables.

Expected results

The RRA methodology and guidance for risk assessors will be made available to member state authorities and national risk assessors to enable a more consistent approach to assessing the risk of emerging environmental threats using a common comparable framework for multiple hazards.

2.2 This will seek to adapt and develop an impact assessment scale for environmental hazards. The European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL) international impact scale of chemical accidents will be reviewed and compared to the impact criteria established in annex III of the Overview of natural and manmade hazards COM(2014)216.

European and national competent authorities (such as IMPEL, EEA, ERCC) with a role in disaster prevention, planning, preparedness and response will be engaged in the scale development. The extended scale will provide a clear and comparative scale of severity of health, public health impacts, economic, environmental, social/political and cross sectoral impacts. Such a tool, as described in Orford et al. 2014, could provide an easily interpretable robust severity scale for risk managers and policy makers to enable cross comparison of national risks and aid prevention and response measures.

Expected results

Impact scale will be made available to member state authorities and national risk assessors to enable a more consistent approach to evaluating the impact and comparing multiple hazard types that may impact on public health to ensure that subsequent measures are appropriate and proportional with the predicted impacts.

3. Network of experts and engagement: led by RIVM

This will define an engagement strategy in order to expand the existing ECHEMNET network of expert risk assessors to cover multiple environmental hazards. Project workshops will be held to engage with expert risk assessors and multi-sectoral EU organisations that are involved in environmental threats. The workshops will aim to enhance sharing and co-operation in the assessment of environmental threats between EU member states and EU DGs, to recruit experts to the network and to consult them on project outputs.

This expanded network will run in ‘pilot mode’ during the project, so that if a serious environmental threat occurs during the lifetime of the project, the pilot network will be activated using the mechanism and guidance developed in work package 2 to respond to this threat.

Expected results

This work package will result in a pilot network of expert risk assessors able to rapidly assess multiple environmental threats. The engagement process will enhance the cross-sectoral support for the network and ensure its alignment with existing EU mechanisms for risk assessment. The final report will make recommendations for the improvement and sustainability of the network and mechanism, and highlight the lessons learnt in developing the network.

4. Exercises and lessons learnt, led by FOI

This aims to design and run 2 exercises to evaluate if the remote scientific assessment of emerging environmental threats with a network of expert risk assessors will:

• support further development of the ERCC mediated co-ordination and assessment of environmental hazards
• support member state national risk assessors in providing a unified RRA methodology
• provide a report on the lessons learnt from past disasters to help support the development and reiteration of the RRA methodology, impact scale and guidance material

Two exercises will be designed that will test the rapid scientific assessment methodology and remote co-ordination mechanism and how these could integrate with ERCC or HEOF procedures at a European level.

Expected results

The work package will provide a clear assessment of the current gaps in the rapid assessment of past environmental disasters which will inform the development of the assessment methodology in work package 2. It will also provide a robust assessment of the value of a rapid scientific assessment by remotely situated expert risk assessors to aid action at the European level (such as ERCC or HEOF mechanisms) and co-ordination of RRA at the national member states level.

5. Project dissemination and evaluation: led by PHE

A project dissemination working group will act to promote awareness in:

• EU member states
• European Competent Authorities
• external stakeholders
• professional interest groups
• social groups
• political spheres both inside and outside of the EU

Dissemination will be an ongoing activity throughout the project to generate and share information and knowledge by exchanging knowledge and best practice and to reinforce global health security capacity with regard to environmental threats.

Expected results

A high level of engagement with external stakeholders described above will be measured by the number of attendees at project workshops, collaborative partners and expert risk assessors recruited to the project.

Funding and disclaimer

The project ‘European Multiple Environmental Threats Emergency Network’ (EMETNET; Grant Agreement No. ECHO/SUB/2015/718592/PREV14), has received funding from the European Union, Civil Protection Financial Instrument.

The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained within this publication.

Partners

• National Institute for Public Health and Environment Netherlands (RIVM).
• Swedish Defence Research Agency, CBRN Defence and Security, Sweden (FOI).
• Public Health England, Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Harzards (CRCE), UK.

Contact

Contact EMETNET@phe.gov.uk or EMETNET@rivm.nl for further information.