Managing severe weather risk and potential landslip

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) uses data collected by Copernicus Sentinel-2 to forecast floods, landslides, and severe storms. Although these applications are not directly related to the rail industry, they can play a crucial role in preventing incidents like the Stonehaven derailment in August 2020. CEMS mapping consists of rapid mapping and risk and recovery mapping and evaluates hazards, exposure, and vulnerability variables to calculate the total risk value. This information enhances understanding of landslip processes and thus can be used to improve the monitoring and management of this risk.

Moreover, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) can be particularly useful for forecasting floods, landslides, and severe storms (European Commission, 2023), which can be fatal for passing trains such as the Stonehaven derailment, which occurred in August 2020. There are two types of CEMS mapping – rapid mapping and risk and recovery mapping. While rapid mapping can inform the emergency managers within hours or days from when the CEMS has been activated after a disaster has struck, risk and recovery mapping provides on-demand geospatial information (European Commission, 2023). Thus, rapid mapping is often used to identify and assess the situation after a disaster has occurred, while the latter assists with prevention, preparedness and risk reduction activities. Hence CEMS risk and recovery mapping seems more appropriate to detect and prevent landslides and minimise their effect on running rail services.

Figure 1: An exemplar map in Italy of how geospatial information sourced from risk and recovery mapping about landslides is displayed. Source: European Commission, 2023

This information could then be used to increase understanding of landslip processes and therefore improve the monitoring and mitigation of the effect they have for the rail industry.