09 May MINDSHIFT TALENT ADVISORY – third debate: “IMPLEMENTATION OF A TSUNAMI WARNING AND ALERT SYSTEM IN THE TAGUS ESTUARY”

Posted at 15:23h in PORTUGAL, THIRD DEBATE by

COUNTRY: PORTUGAL

ORGANIZATION: MINDSHIFT TALENT ADVISORY

DATE OF THE DEBATE: 20/01/2021

LOCATION OF THE DEBATE: Lisbon

LINK TO THE MONITORED PROJECT ON THE NATIONAL OPEN DATA PLATFORM: HERE

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

This debate took place at the facilities of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (Área Metropolitana de Lisboa – AML), the promoter  of the “Implementation of a tsunami warning and alert system in the Tagus estuary” project. The debate session had the following objectives: 1) to present the data collected during the desk analysis process, which took place between the first debate (02/12/2022) and the second debate; 2) to interview the entity responsible for the project implementation. The session was attended by 11 participants, two of whom part of Mindshift staff.

The first part of the debate was reserved for the presentation and discussion of the data collected during the desk research phase, focusing on the presentation of the main sources of information (AML website; POSEUR website; website of the beneficiary entities – the Municipality of Lisbon and the Municipality of Cascais; national and local newspapers). This first part also served to summarise the preparation work done by the monitoring group to collect the information that was still missing to include in the monitoring report. This preparatory work resulted in a set of questions which guided the second part of the debate. That set of questions included the following:

  1. What were the reasons that led to the municipalities of Cascais and Lisbon being the first to join the project?
  2. How has the AML articulated its roles and responsibilities in the project with the beneficiary municipalities?
  3. What is the state of implementation of the project?
  4. What concrete results have been achieved during the project implementation period?
  5. At this stage, how do you evaluate the effectiveness of project implementation?
  6. How will the sustainability and also the monitoring of this project be ensured in the future? Is it up to the AML to do so or will this responsibility be passed on to the beneficiary municipalities?
  7. Which other metropolitan riverside municipalities could integrate, in the short term (until 2030), the tsunami warning and alert system that is being implemented, taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the funding under PT2030?
  8. How should this integration process be promoted, ensuring the unity and coherence of the system?
  9. How can the recent volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga contribute to the political and public perception of the relevance of this system in the metropolitan context?

The second part of the session was reserved for the presentation of the monitored project by the promoter. During this presentation, many of the questions selected by the monitoring group were answered. The following conclusions may be drawn from the discussion session:

  • The project is formally closed, only missing the financial report to send to the funding entity.
  • The Municipality of Cascais has already implemented all the physical activities of the project, which refers to the installation of the syrens (warning system) and informative muppies. The municipality has also carried out exercises to test the usability of the equipment’s and has implemented awareness and information actions among the population.
  • The municipality of Lisbon does not have all the equipment installed yet; and it is considered that it is still necessary to elucidate the population on the investment made and why it is so important for the safety of its citizens.
  • The importance of the methodology proposed by the CIVIC MONITORING project was also discussed, which has now given the project greater visibility.

To conclude the session, the monitoring group discussed and aligned objectives for debate 3, that will take place in the municipality of Cascais. The aim of this debate is to visit the references sites of the project in Cascais and conduct interviews to people responsible for the project and also interview some local residents to collect their feedback about the project.