DEMOCRITE integration platform

NOTE: The following text is partly taken from the DEMOCRITE project file taken from the ANR booklet N°10 ” Natural risks and disasters “, published in October 2019.

The French Departmental Fire and Rescue Services (SDIS), as well as the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP) and the Marseille Marine Fire Battalion (BMPM), are responsible for preparing and periodically updating risk analysis and coverage plans for the areas they serve. These documents provide a basis for the organization of emergency services and the planning of human and financial resources. They rely on detailed analyses of the territory, but there are no operational tools to help quantify these elements.

There is an urgent need to develop operational tools. In recent years, there has been a steady increase in interventions (+3% to +4% per year, for a total of around 500,000 in 2017 for the BSPP), new threats (intentional nuisances to be distinguished from risks, which are accidental nuisances) and a greater need to manage major events, potential targets for attacks (World Cup 2016, Olympic Games 2024, etc.) on highly complex territories, particularly in urban environments.

At the start of the DEMOCRITE project in 2014, the need to develop risk analysis and coverage tools had become pressing for BSPP, which had carried out preliminary work on the subject. These tools had to be able to fit into the common GIS base set up at the Paris Police Prefecture, to best meet people’s expectations and BSPP’s commitments.

In response to these needs, a large-scale research project was set up [see DEMOCRITE article]. The DEMOCRITE project was coordinated by the CEA (Emmanuel Lapébie, founder of APEX solutions). It involved the BSPP, ITLINK and SYSTEL, as well as laboratories from the PPRIME institute, IMT Alès and CERDACC, and a joint INRIA/X team. The project began in March 2014 and lasted 55 months. It received ANR funding of €995,426 for an overall cost of around €2.7 million, with SGDSN and DGA co-funding it. DEMOCRITE has been accredited by the RISQUES cluster (now SAFE cluster).

The DEMOCRITE software platform, developed by IT Link, is one of the project’s major achievements. It uses multi-source data (IGN, fire brigade RETEX, etc.) to produce maps on different dimensions of risk: occurrence probabilities, spatio-temporal evolution, vulnerability of specific issues, etc. It can also integrate rapid hazard models: an explosion model in an urban environment was developed during the project (CEA, E. Lapébie and R. Soulié). Lapébie and R. Soulié) and a fire propagation model (PPRIME and IT Link) were implemented, then the PORTEAU hydraulic model from IRSTEA (now INRAE) was added during the ANR Franco-German ResiWATER project.

This integration platform is APEX solutions’ preferred choice when it comes to integrating new fast models or specific mappings, tailored to its clients’ needs. The related work will be done in partnership with IT Link.