Global Assessment Report 2015
Global Assessment Report 2015
Priority for Action (PFA) 2 – Core Indicator (CI) 3: Early Warning Systems are in place for all major Hazards with outreach to communities.
Coordinating Lead Author: Maryam Golnaraghi, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction programme, WMO
1) Context
The second high-priority area of the HFA stresses the need for, “identifying, assessing and monitoring disaster risks and enhancing early warning.” The HFA further stresses that EWS must be an integral component of any nation’s disaster risk management strategy, enabling governments at national to local levels and the communities to take appropriate measures toward building resilience in anticipation of disasters. The Second International Conference on Early Warnings (2003) concluded that effective EWS are comprised of,
§ Monitoring and warning service: Hazards are detected, monitored, forecasted, and hazard warnings are developed;
§ Risks knowledge: Risks are analyzed and this information is incorporated in the warning messages;
§ Dissemination: Warnings are issued (by a designated authoritative source) and disseminated in a timely fashion to authorities and public at-risk;
§ Response capacity: Community-based emergency plans are activated in response to warnings, to reduce potential impacts on lives and livelihoods.
Indeed, many good practices around the world have demonstrated that EWS should be developed with a multi-hazard, multi-sectoral and multi-level (national to local) approach. Implementation of these components requires coordination across many agencies at national to local levels for the system to work. Failure in one component or lack of coordination across them could lead to the failure of the whole system. The issuance of warnings is a national responsibility; thus, roles and responsibilities of various public and private sector stakeholders for implementation of the EWS should be clarified and reflected in the national to local regulatory frameworks, planning, budgetary, coordination, and operational mechanism.
Various assessments and the outcomes of the mid-term HFA review in 2010 have revealed that many nations around the globe operate EWS for various natural and man-made hazards. However, the governmental priority, stage of development and overall effectiveness of the EWS at national to local levels, vary widely. Many countries, especially those with the highest risks and least resources, remain highly challenged in building and sustaining their EWS at national to community levels.
2) Objective
The GAR15 input on this core indicator will serve five primary objectives, including, (1) document country, regional and global coordinated initiatives for development of Early Warning Systems (EWS) underpinned by HFA (2) assess current state of implementation of EWS at the country level spanning governance, key drivers (e.g., risk-based), institutional coordination (national and local), sectoral penetration, operational and technical aspects, (3) assess current state of (sub) regional efforts, for development of inter-operable national EWS, (4) evaluate different approaches among developed and developing countries and fundamental principles that have led to the implementation of effective EWS, irrespective of different governance and institutional structures, socio-economic, cultural aspect as a way to develop a framework for monitoring and measuring performance at the country level, and (5) latest trends and future developments of EWS.
3) Key Partners
Key partners will likely include OECD, UNDP, IFRC, FAO, UNESCO and its IOC (floods and Tsunami), ITU, UN-OCHA, UNICEF, UNEP, UNITAR, World Bank, WFP, WHO as well as EU and its JRC-Ispira as well as regional DRM agencies associated with socio-economic groupings such as CDEMA of CARICO, African Union, ECOWAS, IGAD, and other groupings in Africa, ASEAN ADMEER, SOPAC, etc. Furthermore, co-authored papers will be sought from official government institutions of the member States. Furthermore, information from documentation of good practices in a number of countries and regions in collaboration with Member states and DRM regional agencies as well as d lessons learned for 40 or so national Multi-Hazard EWS projects being implemented by WMO with a number of partners will be included.
4) Evaluation of Effective National Early Warning System (see Annex 1 for the template)
5) Areas of Strategic Focus
a) Drivers of decision-making at national levels for investment and development of EWS
i) Understanding and quantifying risks (multi-hazard, all hazard, etc.)
ii) A major event with impacts
iii) International framework agreement and regional strategies
iv) Evolution and implementation of early warning systems in developed and developing countries
b) Multi-Hazard approach to EWS (natural, man-made, security aspects)
i) Natural (meteorological, hydrological, climate-related, geological, etc), man-made (chemical, biological, industrial, etc) and their inter-linkages
ii) Cascading hazards (e.g., Tropical Cyclone, and related sever rain and flooding, land slides, tornadoes, storm surges and coastal inundation)
iii) Complex natural and man-made events (e.g., Japan Earthquake/Tsunami/nuclear)
c) Multi-level aspects
i) International, regional, sub-regional, trans-boundary, national, local aspects from the various perspectives (policy and institutional coordination, monitoring and warning, risk, communication and emergency planning and response measure)
ii) Trans-boundary and large scale Hazards spanning many political borders ((e.g., basin level flood warning systems spanning political boundaries, large scale hazards such as droughts, forest fires, tropical cyclones and tsunamis
iii) Coordination for development of warnings
iv) Key factors for empowering local emergency planning and action
d) Multi-sectoral aspects
i) From a DRM issue to a multi-sectoral framework emergency planning and response operations
e) Temporal aspects of the warning:
i) Preparing and responding to short-term event driven warnings versus long-term probabilistic warnings
f) Role of science, technology and engineering
i) Science and technology for predicting the hazard
ii) Managing uncertainties associated with science
iii) From technical information to actionable warnings
iv) Advancement on communication technologies
g) Future trends
i) From warning of natural and man-made hazards to save lives to comprehensive approach that also includes related warning systems for security, financial, civil unrest applications
6) Proposed Methodology and Process
Data for this study will be based on substantial field-based primary information and secondary data collection, significant body of systematic research based on practitioners experiences and development in EWS. Furthermore, this work will reach out to Technical Working Groups and Broader consultations within and through outreach of partner organizations networks. WMO Expert Advisory Group on Multi-Hazard EWS, comprised of leading experts from technical, emergency management, telecommunication and other relevant expertise will be utilized for the review process. UNESCO-IOC and other agencies working groups and teams will be consulted for the review of the papers.
7) Call for Papers and Other Partners
Specifically the call for papers will be utilized to invite a broader range of partners to contribute primarily on the strategic themes in the paper and possibly on some aspects of component 3. Demonstration of practical experience of the authors with respect to implementation of EWS as part of the submission of the abstract is fundamental. Furthermore, papers with multi-authorship demonstrating a more holistic view as opposed to components of EWS would be highly welcomed as EWS is a cross cutting issues spanning various sectors, levels, time scales and institutional boundaries.
8) Editing and Publishing Rights
As agreed previously with UN-ISDR, WMO will retain the right to use and publish the materials produced under this initiate for other purposes and products. Similarly, while all the background papers chosen through the call for papers may not be utilized for the input paper, WMO will retain the option to publish and edited compendium of these background papers as part of other knowledge products.
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