Web exclusive: I-React could help save lives during natural disasters

In partnership with The European Commission
Web exclusive: I-React could help save lives during natural disasters
By Euronews
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An app that lets people send information in real time to civil protection during natural disasters could improve how we respond to them. The head of the I-React project spoke to Euronews.

Fabrizio Dominici is the project coordinator for an app called I-React. This app lets people share information to civil protection services all over the world during natural disasters. The project involved 9 European countries who collaborated to create something that could quite possibly save lives.

The app gathers information from a range of sources both before, during and after natural disasters occur. This could help prevent wildfires and floods while increasing the efficiency of the response from civil protection in an emergency situation.

Data can be gathered from satellites and weather forecasts as well as from social media, drones and anyone who uses the I-React app to submit photos and information.

All of these sources are sent to a central system, as Fabrizio explained:

"All the information about the emergency is sent to the control center; here it is displayed on a screen and add to a decision-support tool.

[They] are generated by reports from citizens' smartphones and social media analysis. Thus they can provide a picture with geolocalized images of the emergency situations."

He claimed this will help the response processes we already have:

"I-REACT does not aim to replace the solutions that are being used by civil protection, but aims to integrate and provide an additional and complementary service to what exists today."

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