Disaster management on a European level is well developed but still Member States have developed context specific and local approaches to different types of disasters. To enhance the European approach to disaster management, in particular disaster prevention, consultants from Trinomics led a consortium consisting of CIMA, Ecorys, CGIAM and University of East Anglia, supported the European Commission (DG ECHO) to conduct a study on good practices in disaster management in Europe. The study team collected disaster management practices (policy measures, legislation, voluntary schemes, etc.) from a range of disaster types including floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, heat-waves and industrial hazards. Over 500 practices from EU-28 plus a number of non-EU countries such as Turkey, were collected in a database and assessed according to their social, economic and environmental effects. A central task was to understand the potential to upscale or emulate practices in different countries. The project team organized a large number of workshops and interviews with disaster management experts, mainly held in Brussels.