This study is about experiences that have been made in connection with the development of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency’s (MSB) NDB during 2006-2015. The database came after a government mission to the Swedish Rescue Services Agency 2005, asking for "... a database of statistics that provides a comprehensive picture of natural disasters in Sweden based on the authorities' experiences…". During the years, the Centre for Climate and Safety at Karlstad University has repeatedly been tasked with updating the database with new events and older ones that occurred back to 1950. The SRA-E 2018 presentation intend to introduce experiences and achieved knowledge about existing data sources and reflectively put such data compilation in relation to learning strategies and methods within risk science in general.
In Swedish society a learning practice has evolved that has a connection to scale, or extent, and frequency of accident types, which plays a major role in how the NDB has been possible to design. For a country of Sweden's size, it is not meaningful to process data statistically from major accidents that rarely occur. Instead, causes and consequences as well as coping capacity of involved actors, are analyzed in depth and put in comparison with current regulations and procedures in safety work. Both authorities and private actors conduct such investigations, either because of their assignment instructions or as obliged through laws and regulations. However, the complexity of accidents related to natural hazards poses a problem as regards the ability to put together an overall picture. Authorities at different levels, divide their responsibilities in a "downpipe" manner, clearly defined and delimited. This is rational from a focal point, but in the fast dynamic development of society new risks are constantly evolving, which is not as easily subsumed and requires collaborative forms. Complex risks are characterized by a non-linear relationship between cause and effect, and domino effects between single or double-dependent systems. The lack of an actor trying to put together a comprehensive picture from all the various authorities' investigations was also the background to the government mission that the Swedish Rescue Services Agency received in 2005.