DRI Meets Resilience Experts to Improve Local Emergency Response to Cyber-Physical Breakdowns

On 9-10 April 2025, the DRI team participated in a two-day consortium meeting organised by the SPARROW project.

Family photo of the SPARROW consortium

What is SPARROW?

A Horizon Europe initiative that aims to improve cities' resilience against cyber-physical breakdowns, such as power outages or telecom network failures caused by natural or man-made disasters. The project will develop a suite of tools to help emergency teams act quickly and decisively when a crisis strikes. The tools are a mix of hardware and software technologies designed to work together in different combinations and scenarios.

SPARROW tools

Self-powered ruggedised mobile 5G network for emergency internet provision (EMER-5G) is a portable 5G tower to help first responders coordinate their activities when traditional communication channels fail or are not available. Through IoT connectivity (LoRaWAN, NBIoT, LTE, LTE-M, the solution can support earth observation by allowing survey drones to inspect affected areas.

Portable 5G network (left) can provide connectivity to drones (center) equipped with AI vision (right)

City Digital Twin (CITWIN) is a modeling solution to aid emergency response in crisis situations. CITWIN will utilise a virtual scene manager to represent city-scale data and infrastructure interdependencies, such as links between energy grid and telecom networks. What will happen to communications infrastructure in case of a power failure caused by windstorms? In this hypothetical scenario, the simulation engine would be able to capture load loss in the power network, the resulting degradation of communication service, and societal impacts like reduced access to emergency communication.

A 2D simulation of showing societal impact of a critical infrastructures break down in Cyprus

Dynamic Critical Asset Management Recommendation Engine (DYCAMARE) will offer context-aware advice to help prioritise asset deployment to areas with the highest vulnerability. DYCAMARE can be executed with limited computational resources (by a mobile command centre, for instance) and can provide, using a fuzzy inference process, actionable recommendations even when relevant information is lacking.

The logic behind optimal asset deployment in DYCAMARE​

Cascading Effects Scenario Builder (CESER) will help first responders understand how a single incident can lead to a chain reaction of events that can negatively affect critical infrastructures. With CESER, trainers can accurately define all sequential and parallel events of a scenario. The tool will then analyse cascading effects, using real world information and available emergency assets, along with simulated data on citizen self-assessment and conditions in the impacted area e.g. road blocks, floods.

Critical infrastructure interdependency analysis

Vulnerability Assessment Synoptic Engine (VASE) will receive input from the interdependency analysis of critical infrastructures, the scenarios under consideration, and simulation tools to provide a real-time vulnerability assessment of the defined assets (single, ensemble, or networked). The applied modelling and simulation tools will estimate the state of defined assets (e.g. critical infrastructures, available resources) depending on their previous state and/or the states of their interconnected assets.

High-level vulnerability assessment framework

Emergency Communication Mobile App (ECOMAPP) allows citizens to self-assess their situation in an emergency and receive personalised advice on how best to deal with it.

ECOMAPP interface

Emergency Traffic Management Re-routing Platform (ETRAMREP) will model and analyse a city’s transport network and traffic conditions to provide recommendations during a crisis in terms of optimal access or evacuation routes for first responders.

Traffic emergency simulation in ETRAMREP

SPARROW solutions will be tested in three cities.

SPARROW test beds

Trikala, Greece: After the devastating damage of Storm Daniel, providing fast and adequate emergency response to flooding has been a key priority for Trikala policy makers. SPARROW will help the city mitigate the consequences of digital infrastructure breakdowns caused by hydrometeorological disasters by offering alternative communication systems to support fast relocalisation of human resources, machinery and vehicles in affected areas.

The aftermath of Storm Daniel in Trikala

Nicosia, Cyprus: Emergency exercises to help Cyprus deal with compound threats like hydrometeorological disasters (flash floods) and breakdowns in critical infrastructures have not been conducted in an integrated manner. SPARROW tools will be deployed in Nicosia and surrounding districts to improve coordination between first responders and digital resilience systems so as to minimise societal and environmental damage.

First responders during flash floods in Cyprus

Pilsen, Czechia: The use case focuses on a traffic control failure caused by a cyber attack which grinds all traffic to a halt. SPARROW will address the need for immediate alternative methods to manage traffic, and ensure first responders receive priority access in affected areas.

First responders during an emergency in Pilsen

DRI contribution

Digital Resilience Institute, as a member of Plan4All association, will provide training for field trials in all three cities and will assist with the organisation of local hackathons that pilots are going to organise as part of a wider co-creation effort.

Learn more about SPARROW >> https://sparrowproject.eu/