DROP is a two-year project in collaboration with the Municipalities of Bellinzago Lombardo, Gessate, Cambiago and Masate, and with researchers from Politecnico di Milano, Poliedra, Eurac and University of Potsdam. The project is funded by Fondazione Cariplo under the Safe Territories 2024 scheme, focusing on flood risk management. DROP is based on the evidence that effective flood risk management needs a shift from an approach predominantly focused on controlling natural phenomena (i.e., hazard reduction) to one that emphasizes the adaptation of exposed territories and communities, to foster coexistence between human activities and flood events while enhancing community resilience. This adaptation cannot take place without the active involvement of citizens and the support of all the stakeholders, co-producing feasible and effective solutions. For this reason, public engagement is a crucial aspect of every action implemented within the project.

The main objective of DROP is to provide local and regional decision-makers with new tools for defining and prioritizing, in a participated way, flood risk management measures, in order to facilitate the adaptation of territories and communities.

The project is devoted to:

• developing community-based tools for monitoring and predicting damage to the population and the environment, the two exposed elements for which available tools are particularly weak;
• calibrating, using the studies available in the pilot area and organising ad hoc participatory processes, the Decision Support System (DSS) aimed at guiding risk management at the regional level, developed as alpha version with the Lombardy Authority;
• operationally involving the community in designing non-structural, “soft”, measures for flood risk management at local level.

Poliedra has been commissioned by DICA-Politecnico di Milano to support the realization of the project, with particular attention to participatory processes and community engagement and to the DSS for risk management at the regional level.