Editorial

Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros (CCS) is fully aware that one of the functions conferred upon it by Section 16 c. of its Enabling Statute is “to draw up loss prevention and mitigation plans and programmes and to carry out the corresponding prevention campaigns and measures to implement them”. Therefore, once again CCS dedicates this twenty-fourth issue of its digital magazine to the matter of prevention and the role that insurance can play in it. We did so previously in issue number 12, in the spring of 2020, and in many other articles across various issues, but this issue lies at the heart of the insurance industry, and the risk management community, which are the primary target audience of the Consorseguros Digital magazine.

In this issue, we aim to provide an overview of various prevention-focused projects in which CCS has collaborated in one way or another, as well as tools that are useful for risk prevention and emergency management. Therefore, we feature contributions on the European project MERLIN, focusing on ecosystem restoration through nature-based solutions. This project includes a very interesting section concerning the insurance sector and the possibilities of expanding its role beyond simply compensating for damages to more proactive roles in prevention, aligned with the work of other bodies more specifically dedicated to risk management and reduction. ICARIA is another European project focused on risk prevention. Its case study in Spain concerns the estimation of the economic impacts of flooding in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. CCS has contributed its loss data to this project, and its conclusions are set out in the corresponding contribution in this issue. Undoubtedly, the most significant European initiative regarding Earth observation is Copernicus. In this issue we have a contribution on the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, written by its managers. This service is the tool enabling remote-sensing data to be gathered about different disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or wildfires, and making this data available to the different organisations with competences in civil protection, emergency management or insurance response.

Experts from the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia have contributed another article on forest fire prevention in an emerging risk context, perfectly illustrating the complexities of the interaction between hazard, exposure, and vulnerability as components of the subject to be managed: risk. IHCantabria (Institute of Environmental Hydraulics at the University of Cantabria) has also contributed an article to this journal describing the conclusions of two LIFE projects, in which CCS also collaborated, focused on climate change adaptation and coastal risk reduction: Garachico and AdaptaBlues.

On numerous occasions, we have emphasised that the Directorate General for Water (DGA for its initials in Spanish), and all river basin authorities in general, are among CCS’s main and fundamental allies in the prevention of our most costly risk: flooding. Our colleagues at the DGA have contributed an article on the National Flood Zone Mapping System as a fundamental tool for flood risk management in Spain. In this system, CCS disaster data also plays a crucial role in risk analysis. The General Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergencies concludes the issue with its contribution on its IMPACTO project, the first step towards creating a National Registry of Emergency and Catastrophe Data in Spain, for which CCS loss data are essential.

With this issue, we reach the milestone of 195 contributions, generously provided by many experts since we began this magazine in 2014 autumn. All these contributions remain online, both in Spanish and English, freely accessible to all those interested in learning more about CCS, risks, and the role of insurance in its management and reduction.