On 28-29 May, the NEAM-Commitment project's training meeting was held at the headquarters of ISPRA (Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale) in Rome, funded by the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG-ECHO) to mitigate tsunami risk in the Euro-Mediterranean area (NEAMTWS). Among the participants were ISPRA as the event organizer, INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia), Greece's NOA, Spain's IHC, and Cyprus' BSH. These were joined by representatives of the Italian Civil Protection Department who, together with ISPRA and INGV, presented Italy's coastal planning model, from tsunami hazard assessment to the creation of inundation maps based on adopted policy choices.
The event also saw participation from Spanish civil protection authorities. Particularly significant was the first-time attendance, regarding this specific risk, of a representative from Lebanon - a high tsunami-risk country that, while not part of the consortium, joined with the aim of developing inundation maps using the methodology proposed by the NEAM-COMMITMENT project.
The two working days included technical sessions with practical exercises on the use and sharing of software and tools employed for defining tsunami inundation areas along Italian coasts. Additionally, some Italian case studies were analyzed to address potential critical issues encountered when applying the methodology to different contexts in Greece, Spain, Cyprus, and Lebanon.
The knowledge transfer achieved during this workshop will help develop shared coastal planning among participating countries. Moreover, thanks to the guidelines developed by the project, this model can be extended to other countries in the NEAM area, thereby strengthening regional cooperation in tsunami risk management.