Disasters and response
Post-tsunami damage assessment (Aceh, Indonesia)
The JRC is dedicated to improving Europe's capacity to prevent, forecast and deal with natural hazards, such as floods and drought, and technological disasters. It is currently focusing one arm of its research efforts on the development of early warning monitoring and damage assessment systems for weather-driven hazards.
Another activity in this area lies for example in the development and calibration of models to assess the vulnerability of constructions to earthquakes. For its work, the JRC can draw on state-of-the art facilities such as its European Laboratory for Structural Assessment (ELSA) used to simulate the earthquake loading of full-scale buildings.