The IRMA project is a 3-year, €3.5 million European Commission funded research project starting in June 2008 with 9 EU and 6 African partners. The project aims to develop an integrated risk management platform and applications for environmental risk management in Africa using telecommunications. The goals are to integrate existing risk assessment and recovery services, develop local services, and demonstrate the platform in 5 scenarios addressing bushfires, floods, desertification, and urban risks in Senegal and Mozambique. The expected achievements include an architectural framework for multi-risk management in Africa along with tools, a pre-operational infrastructure to be tested in operational scenarios, and specific applications for the demonstration scenarios.

1. Integrated Risk
Management for Africa
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2. IRMA key data
• European Commission funded Research Project
• 3 years
• € 3.5M total budget - € 2.5M EC contribution
• Started in June 2008
• 9 EU & 6 African Partners
– including major players in the IP business
– the governments of Luxembourg, Mozambique and
Morocco participate to support the emergency service trials
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3. The IRMA Consortium
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4. IRMA Vision
• ICT Environmental Risk Management
• Though telecommunication infrastructure is limited
• Though data is limited
• In addition: new applications in support of regional
development:
– Environmental management
– Regional planning
– Next generation IP based networks

5. IRMA Goals
• ICT Multi-Risk Platform (mostly Open Source)
• Integrate existing services and technologies (risk
assessment to recovery)
• Develop local services
• Demonstrate value in 5 scenarios

6. IRMA technical approach
• Integration and adaptation to the specific conditions of
Africa of the best R&D results coming from recent or on-
going European R&D projects:
– Overall service oriented architecture: WIN & ORCHESTRA
– Earth observation service environment : ESA SSE, GENESIS
– Sensor network software : SANY
– Ad-hoc wireless networks : u2010
– IPv6 based solutions : u2010
– Automatic handling of network failure: u2010
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7. IRMA Expected Achievements
• A coherent suite of architectural concepts and
methodologies applicable to multi-risks management
situations in Africa, including advanced multiple
vulnerability assessment to cope with complex
emergencies.
• An integrated set of tools, compliant with the above
mentioned concepts and methodologies and with current
and emerging international standards.
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8. IRMA Expected Achievements
• A pre-operational infrastructure and access-platform,
assessed by end-users through operational scenarios
serving as reference for further prototyping and future
larger scale deployments
• Specific applications (bushfire, flood, desertification and
urban risks) dedicated to the demonstration of multi-risks
management in Africa.
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9. IRMA Expected Achievements
• A versatile communications system enabling high and/or
low rates Internet transfer.
• A reliable, low cost communications system enabling alert
messages and possibly emergency communications in any
location of Africa (i.e. even where no electricity is supplied)
• A management concept to monitor and automatically
control the functions of services and networks shown as
critical through the dependability and vulnerability analysis.
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10. IRMA Communication Network
CRTS
SPB ANRT
UL
CCG
SES
TSF
TAS-F
CSE
ENSP
UTICT
CSIR
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11. IRMA: the Senegal Scenarios (Bush Fire and Desertification)
CSE
Desertification
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12. IRMA: the Mozambique Scenarios (Floods)
FLOODS
UTICT
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13. The Floods Scenario in Mozambique
Source: USGS/FEWS NET

14. More information on
http://www.irma.lu
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