Three days a week, he is Scientific Lead at 510, a part of the Dutch Red Cross. 'The number 510 is a reference to the earth’s total surface area: 510 million square kilometres. That indicates our focus: to help Red Cross societies worldwide to accelerate and improve humanitarian aid,' explains Van den Homberg. The other two working days he supervises research at the UT. 'My work here is twofold. We are working on both anticipation of natural disasters and mitigation of them through natural solutions.'
Early action
With volunteers and students from ITC, Van den Homberg is working on digital calculation models to interpret big data from natural disasters around the world. 'Over several years, we look at the course and humanitarian impact of floods, droughts, cold waves and tropical hurricanes, among other things.'
Van den Homberg and his team train models that predict the effect of upcoming weather, based on its expected severity and how the local communities are doing. 'The Red Cross on the ground uses these forecasts to make early preparations if necessary. For example, by providing materials to strengthen houses, distributing extra clothing or food, or offering money to bring livestock to safety. In this way, we hope to limit damage and suffering.'
Inventory and analysis
'We work closely with meteorological institutes around the world. For example, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and National Disaster Management Authorities. We convert predictions into expected humanitarian impact. We sometimes summarise that as 'Don't look at what the weather will be, but what it will do.''
An essential part of Van den Homberg's work consists of collecting risk and impact data. He supplements this with the help of AI techniques. 'We let AI analyse reports of previous disasters online. By combining eyewitness accounts with meteorological and official impact data from that moment, the expected course of how a natural disaster will unfold can be easily deduced.'
Van den Homberg and his team can use this to draw conclusions for the next, similar weather condition. Language barriers form a challenge. 'Large Language Models work very well with commonly used languages such as English and French, but a local language from Mali, for example, is less well embedded for the time being. Additionally, poor and vulnerable people in these areas are not always well-connected digitally. That's why our local volunteers are so important.'
Volunteers are crucial
The Red Cross is active in 191 countries, Van den Homberg describes. 'I think the first aid workers who help out in disasters are probably well known. For the analytical work, however, we needed specialists in data science or who understand geographic information systems. People with a commercial background who are used to analysing large amounts of data, and want to do something for their fellow human beings. Fortunately, we soon had a large group.'
The scientific analyses are not oblivious to reality. 'We don't want to develop tunnel vision for our models. In addition to looking at data from satellites and information from previous disasters, we listen very carefully to local knowledge. If farmers in Malawi indicate that they expect drought because they noticed a shift in wind directions, we will of course take that into account.'
Many of the international students Van den Homberg works with come from vulnerable areas themselves. The Dutch students, too, are very driven. 'I am continually in close contact with local Red Cross units. That happens online as much as possible, but to get a complete picture of the situation and to coordinate solutions, I also have to experience the situation on the ground. There, you really experience how important this work is.'
Green and grey solutions
The second and growing part of his focus is in so-called nature-based solutions. In collaboration with, for example, the World Wildlife Fund, the Red Cross tries to make adjustments to the landscape to mitigate the effects of natural disasters. 'We distinguish between green and grey solutions. A grey solution is, for example, a storm breaker or dike. One green solution is to plant mangrove forests, for example in the Philippines. Research shows that a mangrove forest can reduce a tidal wave from six meters to just two meters high. You can imagine how much that helps people who live on the coast.'
Another solution is to plant fruit trees on slopes that are prone to erosion, such as in Haiti. 'The roots hold the soil,' explains Van den Homberg. 'Here the challenge is often that people live in poverty and cut down the forests because they need wood for cooking. This aggravates soil erosion, and can cause mudslides and landslides during severe weather conditions. By choosing fruit trees, the newly planted forests gain lasting economic value. But we will have to explain this to local communities.'
Unforeseen circumstances
Van den Homberg also sees the effect of climate change around the world on a daily basis. 'We are getting more and more unprecendented events, events that are so rare that we have never experienced them before. For example, the floods in Germany, Belgium and the south of the Netherlands of 2021 happened unexpectedly in the summer, while they are normally expected in the winter. A warning for heavy rainfall was issued early on, but some meteorologists did not believe the predicted values at first. Local authorities and residents also could not imagine what that would mean in practice and assumed that it could not be worse than in 2001 and 2016. Unfortunately, the predictions were exactly right.'
Due to climate change, Van den Homberg also expects extreme weather conditions to follow each other in short periods of time. 'And not just far from our beds,' he knows. 'In addition to heavy rainfall, we will probably experience more heat waves here. If you are young, the heat may be nice, but for the elderly it can be fatal.'
He also warns against long-term climate migration. 'Areas that had tough living conditions to begin with, may soon become unliveable. People then have no choice but to find somewhere better. That in turn puts pressure on the people who already live there. So it is not just altruistic to help people in need far outside the Netherlands, but necessary to alleviate the challenges of tomorrow.'
About the Princess Margriet Chair
The Princess Margriet Chair is a collaboration between the University of Twente and the Red Cross. This chair is affiliated with the Faculty of Geo-Information Sciences and Earth Observation (ITC). In honour of her 75th birthday, the chair was dedicated to Princess Margriet because of her many years of commitment to the Red Cross and disaster prevention in general.
