Saving lives: Ensemble-based early warnings in developing nations

Natural disasters disproportionately affect the developing nations due to the lack of effective early warning systems. In this chapter we present the need, challenges and opportunities of early warning systems in developing nations for decision making in disaster risk management and demonstrate the added value of ensemble forecasting in particular in data and infrastructure scarce regions. First, we review the global extent of flood and drought disaster damages in the last few decades on human lives and the economy, and demonstrate that a disproportionately high rate of death (per event) occurred in developing regions, where there is no (or ineffective) operational early disaster warning systems. Next, we present the everyday needs and challenges of preparing for and responding to natural disasters in Nigeria, a typical developing country with fragmented data infrastructure and limited national early warning system capability. Particularly, we share experiences from the most recent major flood disaster and demonstrate a potential value of ensemble-based flood early warnings, using streamflow forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System. However, forecasting of disasters alone is not sufficient if the information is not translated into actionable advice at local community level. This is particularly important for ensemble forecasting which requires training for the forecasters as well as the receiving authorities. In order to achieve this, technical knowledge and communication infrastructure are needed to deliver the early warning information to the relevant communities and concerned authorities. Multi-stakeholder partnerships bringing together scientific community, policy and decision makers and end-users from international to local level could facilitate humanitarian aid organisations and decision makers understand and use the ensemble predictions on timely basis before, during and after disaster strikes. The chapter concludes with highlighting the multi-stakeholder partnership initiatives on floods (Global Flood Partnership) and droughts (Integrated Drought Management Programme), established with the common goal of reducing flood and drought risk across the globe.

HIRPA Feyera Aga;  FAGBEMI Kayode;  AFIESIMAM Ernest;  SHUAIB Hassan;  SALAMON Peter; 

2016-09-23

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

JRC98153

978-3-642-40457-3,   

http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-642-40457-3_43-1,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC98153,   

10.1007/978-3-642-40457-3_43-1,