Disaster risk management is an essential function of every government in order to protect citizens and environmental, infrastructural and economic assets against major hazards and threats. In a world of increasing disasters as well as a rapidly changing risk landscape, regular national risk assessments constitute a fundamental  evidence basis for capability-based DRM planning and implementation of disaster risk reduction measures, and help to consolidate a culture of continuous resilience-building.

This report, online since 23 February 2021, is already the second in this series of reports, the preparation of which is a key activity of the Commission’s Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre, linking national, regional and global efforts to acquire better risk governance structure through evidences, science and knowledge management.

The aim of this latest report is to support the use of the new “Reporting Guidelines on Disaster Risk Management, Art. 6(1)d of Decision No. 1313/2013/EU,” (2019/C 428/07) by relevant national authorities. The report explains the purpose and objective of each step of the reporting to give meaning and motivation to demanding risk governance processes at the national level and beyond. Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) Decision No. 1313/2013/EU requires EU Member States and UCPM participating states to report to the Commission on their disaster risk management activities to support formulating an EU risk management policy that would complement and enhance the national ones.

The further aim of this series of reports is to build up a network of experts involved in the different aspects of the national risk assessment process. This latest version is the outcome of collaboration of 50 scientists from 14 separate expert teams.  A special focus is dedicated to the capability needed to tackle climate change. It synthesizes existing knowledge and information on how to model risks of natural, anthropogenic and socio-natural origin: namely floods, droughts, wildfires, biodiversity loss, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, biological disasters, Natech accidents, chemical accidents, nuclear accidents, terrorist attacks, critical infrastructure disruptions, cybersecurity and hybrid threats.