Climate resilience of critical infrastructure was the focus of another summer school organised during the summer for international students as part of the Erasmus+ BIP programme.
A week of intensive work on joint projects brought together students from partner universities in Poland and Slovakia.
The programme of the International Summer School on Climate-Resilient Critical Infrastructure was closely linked to the European Horizon Europe projects NATURE DEMO and CESAR, which are developing innovative approaches to critical infrastructure protection and strengthening its resilience to extreme natural events at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava.
During expert lectures, participants were introduced to the concept of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for infrastructure protection. They also visited the CESIT facilities, where they had the opportunity to experience virtual and augmented reality simulations of emergency situations.
The mentors included researchers from the CESAR project, led by process safety expert Prof. Ernesto Salzano, as well as colleagues from the Department of Civil Protection.
The students were divided into three teams and worked on three different topics. On Friday, they presented the results of their work.
“We divided the students into groups based on their interests and academic backgrounds. I have to say that they did really well throughout the week,” says Prof. Ernesto Salzano, a process safety expert and the academic coordinator of the summer school.
The topics included:
- developing a causal diagram illustrating the interactions between natural disasters and critical infrastructure (under the supervision of Dr. Julia Santana)
- assessing the sustainability of low-carbon fuels (under the supervision of Daniele Morra)
- Nature-Based Solutions as tools for increasing resilience to climate-related risks (under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Lenka Brumarová and Zuzana Plešková)
The project work enabled students to combine expertise from different fields and jointly explore solutions to complex challenges related to the impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure.
An important part of the programme was also a series of field trips, which allowed participants to connect the knowledge they had gained with real-world practice. The students visited dry polders in Bolatice and learned about the functioning of the components of the Integrated Rescue System and the principles of crisis management during a visit to the Integrated Security Centre of the Moravian-Silesian Region.
“I learned about the dry polder system that we visited in Bolatice, which is used to retain rainwater. The system originally comes from the Netherlands, and this was the first time I had the opportunity to see one in person,” says Andrej Kabina, one of the summer school participants.
The entire week took place as part of the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme, which combines virtual learning with a short period of physical mobility.
The programme was complemented by a range of social and team-building activities, allowing all the students to get to know Ostrava and feel welcome during their stay.
We would like to thank all the students from our partner universities for taking part! Our partners in this Summer School were Pomeranian University in Słupsk, Technical University of Zvolen, Fire University, and Poznań University of Technology. Many thanks also go to our partner institutions and to the entire organizing team.