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Assessment of the capacity for flood monitoring and early warning in enlargement and Eastern/Southern Neighbourhood countries of the European Union

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Executive summary

Flooding is a natural disaster that can damage large areas in the vicinity of rivers, and in the case of flash floods, also in the vicinity of smaller streams. The Global Risks Report 2017 (1) lists extreme weather events, of which flooding is the main risk in most countries, as the risk with the second highest potential impact and the highest likelihood of occurrence. It furthermore seems likely that climate change will aggravate flood impacts in many regions.

This report presents an assessment of the capacity for flood monitoring and early flood warning in 17 of the 23 countries which belong to the Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood Policy of the European Union and the enlargement candidate countries. Many of these receive external funding to improve their systems, but this is often on an ad hoc basis and through individual projects. The Eastern Neighbourhood countries include Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, whereas the enlargement countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo (2), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. All of these are included in this assessment. The Southern Neighbourhood Policy countries include Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco (3), Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine (4), Syria and Tunisia. The first four of these are included in the assessment.