D54 Summary Report on end user evaluation, implementation, and recommendations – ACRI-ST, CNRS.DTP

Conclusions, Recommendations, socio-economic relevance and policy implications:

§ The RETINA “users”, composed primarily of Civil Protection decision-makers, have benefited from the results of the RETINA Project in all three Natural Laboratories;

§ The Civil Protection groups in the Iceland, Alps, and Azores Natural laboratories have learned several important lessons from the RETINA project and have incorporated these lessons into their work procedures.

§ All RETINA partners appreciated the dialogue between the three natural laboratories with different hazards and approaches to them.

§ All RETINA partners appreciated the dialogue between the civil protection and scientific communities as mutually beneficial.

§ The RETINA “users” learned more about the way scientists evaluate geophysical processes and validate that information, primarily through hypothesis-testing and peer review.

§ Similarly, the RETINA “scientists” learned more about the needs of the civil protection community, especially the need for hard facts in real time during the “alert” and “response” phases of the disaster cycle.

§ During these two phases, time is too short for the scientists to validate their information. Accordingly, the scientists and their instruments are more useful to civil protection workers as “eyes and ears observing in the field” than as “oracles looking into the future”.