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Enabling knowledge for disaster risk reduction in
integration to climate change adaptation
Salzburg, Austria – 27-28 May 2014
Scira Menoni – Politecnico di Milano, Italy
(on behalf of Polimi team: FabrizioAmarilli, Funda Atun, Francesco Ballio,
Maria Pia Boni, Grazia Concilio, Bruna De Marchi, Ouejdane Mejri,
Giulia Pesaro, Gigi Plebani, Juergen Weichlesgartner)
Participant no.
*
Participant organisation name Country
1 (Coordinator) Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) Italy
2 Harokopio University Greece
3 Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Spain
4
Development Workshop France (DWF)
France
5 University of Salzburg (PLUS) Austria
6 United Nations University - Institute for
Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)
Germany
7
Université de Savoie
France
8 Eurac Italy
9 Adelphi Germany
10 TiConUno Italy
11 Centro de Investigactiones y Estudios Superiores en
Antropologia Social (CIESAS)
Mexico

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Under conditions of uncertainty, effective management requires that
societies do more than merely acquire knowledge: they must also
change their behavior in response to new understandings about how
the world operates. […] In situations where a multiplicity of
stakeholders are present, the key is not to try to reach consensus on all
values and meanings but to create some common values and shared
meanings through processes that promote the development of mutual
recognition of the legitimacy of the interests of the others. (McLain, Lee,
Adaptive Management: premises and pitfalls, Env. Man., 1996)
The Know4drr project: the initial proposal
WP3 and WP4:
Developing a knowledge management
framework for DRR . Setting the base of system
structuring the knowledge developed within the
project. Understanding how new legislation and
policy making activities embed new and old
knowledge on DRR and CCA….
WP1 and WP2
Who knows what, including within the
partners’consortium. Mapping
knowledge flows among different social
groups and within each social group…
WP5
Making dissemination part of the project,
learning how to share with others what we
do, why we do it, including with a larger
public….

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WP1. Setting the floor for common interdisciplinary work. The first deliverable:
Agreement paper on shared and common work within the consortium
Partner Number Title of publication
J.Weichselga
rtner
1
Cash, D.W., Clark, W.C., Alcock, F., Dickson, N.M., Eckley, N., Guston,
D.H., Jäger, J. & Mitchell, R.B. (2003): Knowledge systems for
sustainable development. PNAS (100): 8086-8091.
J.Weichselga
rtner
2
Jasanoff, S. (2004): States of knowledge: The co-production of science
and social order. London, Routledge.
POLIMI 3
Ginzburg C. Morelli, Freud and Scherlock Holmes: Clues and Scientific
Method
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/burt/GinzburgMorelliFreudHolmes.pdf
POLIMI 4
Davenport T.H., Prusak L. 2000. Working Knowledge: How Organizations
Manage What they Know.
http://wang.ist.psu.edu/course/05/IST597/papers/Davenport_know.pd
f
J.Weichselga
rtner
5
Hessels, L.K. & van Lente, H. (2008). Re-thinking new knowledge
production: A literature review and a research agenda. Research Policy
(37): 740-760.
CIESAS and
ADELPHI
6
WHITE, G.F., KATES, R.W., BURTON, I. Knowing better and losing even
more: the use of knowledge in hazard management. Global
Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards 3 (3–4), 81–92.
2001.
PLUS and
ADELPHI
7
Weichselgartner, J., and Kasperson, R. (2010): Barriers in the science-
policy-practice interface: toward a knowledge-action-system in global
environmental change research. Global Environmental Change, 20, 266-
277.

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WP1. Who knows what and what are the barriers to knowledge enaction
Analysis of knowledge in DRR and CCA as developed and used by different «social groups»
WP1. Who knows what and what are the barriers to knowledge enaction
Analysis of knowledge in DRR and CCA as developed and used by different «social groups»

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WP2. Mapping knowledge flows among stakeholders and across different «social groups»
How can we define knowledge in DRR and CCA?
WP2. Mapping knowledge flows among stakeholders and across different «social groups»
How can we define knowledge in DRR and CCA?

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The living labs of the project
Real life laboratories: cases where we are actively interacting and involved in decision making
processes and can suggest to test ongoing developments and results of the Know-4-drr project
Living Lab
Living labs are constituted by case studies that provide a unique opportunity to interact with
stakeholders on the topics brought by the project. The do not serve as observational arenas,
but permit a much stronger involvement of project partners in given activities to be agreed
upon with institutional stakeholders. Thanks to the special links that some of the partners
have established with stakeholders of the living labs, it will be possible to experiment some
tools and methods that will be proposed by KNOW-4-DRR.
The living labs will provide material for in depth analysis and representation of how
enhanced exchange and co-production of knowledge across some or all of the social groups
may occur or is hampered in different contexts.The cases consist of a well balanced sample
of different scales at which decisions are made (national, interregional, and local) and where
therefore different stakeholders from all social groups considered in the knowledge
management framework are involved. Three living labs will be carried out during the
project: the Vietnam case, the Po Riverbasin case in Italy, and the Lorca Municipality case in
Spain. Learn more about these living labs in the following boxes.
WP4. Monitoring of legislative and policy making activities in the EU and internationally
How new legislation embeds knowledge that has been developed insofar and what are the conditions
for implementing laws, regulations and decisions?

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WP5 Dissemination closely interacting with projects’ activities, as it is a coordination action
In the input paper we delivered for GAR 15 we suggested that one way of enhancing co-working
capacity among a variety of stakeholders is not only to provide «translations» but to become able
to share visions and problem framing even holding different perspectives and views…
WP5
Dissemination
How to
create links
with the
world
outside the
project.
Trying to
develop a
rich wesite,
with several
growing
links with
many others
with which
actual co-
work is
programmed
or ongoing
http://www.know4drr.polimi.it/

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WP5 Dissemination
Together with TiconUno, developing videos for a webTV and an important national Italian radio
(radio 24). Learning how to make risk prevention and mitigation interesting for a larger public,
providing scientific information and knowledge in forms that are both appealing and making
ourselves understandable by other publics…
WP5 Dissemination
Together with TiconUno, developing videos for a webTV and an important national Italian radio
(radio 24). Learning how to make risk prevention and mitigation interesting for a larger public,
providing scientific information and knowledge in forms that are both appealing and making
ourselves understandable by other publics…

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WP5 The workshops and seminars of the project of the project
At the workshop that was held in Bozen last December we had a nice experience playing the
«Flood control game» developed by young ex-students of Rotterdam University together with
representatives of regional and provincial civil protection authorities, the director of the Po
riverbasinAuthority, Municipality of Volos, Greece. Fun but also made us think a lot…about
resilience, uncertainty in decision making under strong pressure and stress…
WP5 The workshops and seminars of the project
Two other seminars were organised, one in Spain with representatives of civil protection
authorities, universities, lawyers working on environmental trials.The goal being to organise a
second seminar next November on the issue of «liability in the field of risk management». The
second seminar was organised in Greece on the issue of prevention in times of financial crisis.
How the financial crisis has impacted on the ongoing activities of civil protection authorities and
environmental ministries?

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WP3 Developing a knowledge management framework for DRR .
Setting the base of system structuring the knowledge developed within the project. It is
therefore a meta-object, structuring knowledge on knowledge (regarding DRR and CC
mitigation, adaptation and prevention measures)
Structured content Unstructured content
Example “Data which can be stored
int tables”. I.e. historical
measurements of a specific
parameter
“Data which cannot be
stored into tables”. I.e.
maps, texts, procedures
and regulations, etc.
Technology to store data Relational DBMS (Oracle,
MS SQL Server, MySQL,
…)
- Repository
- Indexing technologies
- NoSQL DBMS
(Alfresco, Box, CouchDB,
…)
Technology to extract data SQL queries and
languages supporting
structured queries
Meta-search engines,
SQL-like queries, tagging
engines.
Support to unstructured
queries
(Google Search Appliance,
Vivisimo, etc.)
Cost of management and
extraction of information
If the contents to be
recorded are structures,
The process of recording
is simple. If the contents
are unstructured and need
to be transformed and
reorganized, the process is
long and expensive
The process of recording
content is simple in any
case.
Knowledge
Base
(meta-info)
Knowledge in
the Web
classifica on
Ins tu onal
sites Social
Media
Other
sources
Knowledge
retrieval
Retrieve links
Knowledge usage
Knoweldge
user
Knoweldge
provider
Publish
docs & tools
WP3 Developing a knowledge management framework for DRR .
So we are going to propose:
- to analyse and provide one possible interpretation of the knowledge embedded and
required to navigate in a mindful way and manage the information stored in one of the
platform that is already oriented as or built as a “knowledge management system”. No a
guide to the site, but a meta-interpretation and meta-navigation of its content
- develop the architecture of a knowledge management system for our living labs
- provide an example of application of the architecture on one of the living labs of the
project

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WP3 Developing a knowledge management framework for DRR .
So here are some questions for you to consider during this day and a half of discussion
among networks active in DRR and CCA:
- what would you consider as fundamental knowledge to be shared in a knolwedge
management system built as an open platform?
- can such knoweldge management system be not just a place to share knowledge, to
make it more visible, but also to «produce» new knoweldege. Is this too ambitious for
now?
- what are fundamental contents you would not neglect in the development of such a
system? That is, what are the contents that we should provide, about what topics do you
think we should provide elements for deeper understanding, and discussion?
22
WP3 Developing a knowledge management framework for DRR .
Proposals from the Greek team after several focus groups and one workshop organised
on the issue of risk prevention and mangagement in an area of financial crisis

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23
Dealing with networks and with the «open avatar» or the «new media»
24
WP3 Developing a knowledge management framework for DRR .
Quotation from Mejri and Hagi «La rivolta dei dittatoriati» (the rebellion of the people
subjugated to dictatorship), telling about the Tunisian Spring
It was when anyone got access to Facebook as a tool to look at the
true reality that we, people subjugated to the dictatorship, have
transformed the internet space in a free space. Facebook as a tool to
look at the true reality not just as a tool to write feelings, share
vacation pictures or look for old schoolmates.
The network of «virtual» relationships has become the place where
the most trustworthy representations of the actual events could be
found.
As the space disappears and the time shrinks in those new
communication media, a new dimension emerges in which a very
large number and variety of potential speakers may express
themselves.

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So this is one of the objectives of this meeting, another one being to make
representatives of networks meet, discuss, share knowledge. One complex aspect of
this project is that we are not addressing topics, hazards, risks, but rather knowledge
on topics, hazards, risks, and very important knowledge on prevention and mitigation.
This means also knowledge about how things work in public administration and
governmental authorities, how they work in the different sectors (public, private) that
have been discussed in WP1.
I would really like to thank Raphael Spiekermann, Stefan Kienberger,
Peter Zeil from the Paris Lodron University in Salzburg, Austria for their
great effort and substantial work invested in organising this workshp!