Tue, 29 August, 2023
In a world where natural and man-made disasters, as well as climate change impacts, are exponentially increasing, the numbers reveal that disaster resilience infrastructure must be fortified to strengthen communities before, during and after crisis situations. In the past 20 years, the international disasters database EM-DAT has documented 7,348 disasters that cost the lives of 1.23 million people, while impacting more than 4 billion others and bringing about worldwide economic damage that skyrocketed to €2.77 trillion. It should be noted that no biological or technological disasters are included in the numbers above.
Therefore, seeking to join the efforts to build an effective, community-based digital ecosystem for disaster resilience, the PANTHEON project came into being. In January 2023, a consortium of 17 partners: TWI Hellas, Airbus, M3 Systems Belgium, Johanniter Research and Innovation Centre, Software Imagination & Vision, MION Technologies, Future Intelligence, Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Practin, ISEM Institute, INTEROPTICS, Epsilon Malta, Institut de Seguretat Publica de Catalunya, Hellenic Police, KEMEA and Crisis Management State Academy, from 9 countries, gathered in Athens, Greece with the common purpose of developing a community-based, smart city digital twin platform for optimised disaster risk management operations and enhanced community disaster resilience.
The PANTHEON smart city digital twin environment will incorporate an integrated intelligent subsystem, and early detection and situational awareness tools, aiming to improve current risk assessment methods, minimise potential vulnerabilities and build solid foundations for enhanced community disaster resilience. In a nutshell, the project will provide Disaster Risk Management (DRM) stakeholders with all the necessary tools, including human-infrastructure technology interactions, to successfully apply and mobilise the PANTHEON solution for urban resilience.
As consortium partner on the project, TWI Hellas is responsible for coordinating the work, analysing requirements, assisting with the participatory design process and providing specifications for the pilot use cases. The TWI Hellas technical team is also leading the architecture and technical details of the PANTHEON ecosystem, as well as the development of the virtual designs and Smart City Digital Twin (SCDT).
Overall, the PANTHEON ecosystem aspires to improve decision-making efficiency by adopting a collaborative, interdisciplinary and cross-sectional approach to upgrading community-based disaster management before, during and after crisis incidents, thus safeguarding society, the environment and the economy.