DISARM is aspiring to monitor and protect the complete area of the 3 participating counties, Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus. Despite their geomorphologic and climatic diversity, the unified and comprehensive nature of the proposed observatory and early-warning system enables us to address all areas in a consolidated approach. DISARM will mainly focus on rural and forest areas of the participating countries.
All participating partners are located in the capitals of the 3 countries. The National Observatory of Athens is located in Athens, the capital city of Greece, along with the University of Athens. The National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of Bulgaria is located in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital city. The Cyprus Meteorological Service and the Cyprus Institute are located in Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus. The collocation of each country’s organizations is giving them a big advantage regarding the coordination of their actions and increases the overall efficiency of the consortium.
From a geographical perspective the proposed project will cover the whole territory of the 3 participating countries while it will address two of the most pressing environmental threats in the Eastern Mediterranean, forest fires and drought leading to deforestation and desertification respectively, in all areas of Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus. It aims to contribute to the effort to maintain the forested areas at their current state, by preventing and/or mitigating the impact of forest fires and to provide early warnings on upcoming droughts that are directly connected to desertification and indirectly to forest fires and thus to deforestation. These actions will be beneficial for the 3 participating countries, whereas the successful implementation may act as an example for the rest of the Balkan region and produce positive long-term results for the entire Balkan-Med area. To this end, it is strongly believed that the project has major replication potential.
