Empowering and Connecting Diverse Communities for Multi-Hazard Resilience with Open Data, Open Models, and Open-Source Software

As (peri-)urban areas become increasingly digital, interconnected and complex, alongside growing threats such as climate change, natural disasters and cyber-attacks, there is an urgent need to enhance the resilience and security of critical infrastructures (CIs) and the essential services they support. However, the current state of resilience planning and management in Europe faces challenges due to its top-down strategies, which fail to account for specific local/regional needs and result in inadequate operational efficiency and fragmentation of key CI stakeholders and existing resources.
To address these challenges, the ECHO Project will create a multi-level Resilience Ecosystem that unites CI operators, Emergency Service Providers and local/regional authorities to co-create innovative tools, services and strategies for enhanced urban resilience planning and management. This will promote best practices and empower stakeholders of all sizes to strengthen the resilience of interconnected systems, ultimately enhancing the security and wellbeing of European citizens and communities.
Combining the expertise of 26 partner organisations across the EU, the ECHO Project will develop:

• a resilience Strategy, Information Sharing Protocol and 
• EU-sovereign Knowledge Hub to ensure cost-effective resource pooling and reuse, collaboration, and efficient crisis response.

The suite of interoperable, modular and cost-effective solutions will all be accessible via a centralised Platform. This Platform will include Generative AI tools for threat forecasting, risk assessment, situational awareness, decision support, resilience plan evaluation, in addition to scenario-based simulations tailored to address diverse multi-hazard threats. By using cutting-edge technologies such as Generative AI, ECHO will enable advanced modelling, forecasting and decision-making for all the relevant stakeholders involved in CI while ensuring transparency and data security.
These ECHO solutions will be tested and validated in four European pilot sites, addressing multiple hazards including floods, landslides, drought, earthquakes, wildfires, infrastructure failures and cyber-attacks, as well as engaging CI operators, Emergency Service Providers and local/regional authorities. The pilot sites will include Slovenia, Italy, Spain and the cross-border Italy-Slovenia region.
The project will further foster collaboration amongst CI operators, Emergency Service Providers and local/regional authorities via local knowledge exchange and European workshops.