Early Warning Systems

Disaster risk within a country has its roots in development decisions that do not adequately address disaster concerns, and the resulting disasters are coming at the cost of development and poverty reduction. By not considering disaster risk in development planning, new risks could be unintentionally created or existing ones exacerbated through investments in infrastructure and public services, and through improper planning and regulation. Thus it is essential that the process of development planning identifies and analyzes the underlying causes of risk, and factors in measures for risk reduction. By mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into national development processes, disaster risk considerations can be made an integral part of development processes, especially in priority sectors such as agriculture, education, health, housing and roads. This course has been developed to enhance the capacity of government officials, development partners and stakeholders involved in development planning to mainstream disaster risk reduction into development activities and practices.

This course is intended for audiences who form disaster management teams working in government agencies, NGOs, and Community Members working in governments, funding agencies, and research and non-government organizations for Emergency response and other Development programmes.

Upon completion of the course, participants will:

• Understand operational mechanisms and procedures for the prediction, forecasting, monitoring and response to warning
• Examine the kinds of tools and products that are available or could be developed to integrate information into forms most useful for them to make decisions at various levels; and set-up appropriate contingency plan or options to guide members of their organization against various hazards of different timescales.
• Design end-to-end early warning systems for several types of hazards including, action planning for disaster preparedness, emergency management and social response with respect to early warning;
• Develop tools for early warning audits, identify current gaps in existing early warning systems and put in place enhanced people-centered early warning system

• Harmonization of early warning system and disaster mitigation for effective disaster risk reduction

• Undertake risk assessment and design of multi-hazard end-to-end early warning systems for disaster risk reduction

• Develop strategies to institutionalize early warning systems into the process cycle of disaster risk reduction and development planning, emergency response, and preparedness activities
• Interpret and translate scientific information products into user friendly formats and prepare & communicate tailor made early warning information products to elicit response from at risk communities
• Design and implement community based early warning systems that are people centered and that can effectively contribute to the risk management process/risk reduction
• Evaluate and introduce public education and training programme for the community based early warning systems
• Apply emerging new generation climate prediction technologies for anticipating and managing disaster risks associated with climate change & variability

• Introduction to End-to-End Early Warning System
• Overview to Basic Terminology & Concepts in DRM
• Overview of Hazards and possibility of EWS
• End-to-End EWS Framework and its Elements
• Institutional mechanism/ framework for EWS
• Hazard Detection, Monitoring, Forecasting & Information for Warning (HDMFW)
• Hazard Identification Process
• Risk Analysis: Probabilities and Consequences
• Risk Management: Options Analysis
• Detection, Monitoring, Forecasting & Information for Warning-Drought
• Detection, Monitoring, Forecasting & Information for Warning-Flood/Flash Flood
• Detection, Monitoring, Forecasting & Information for - Warning-Volcanoes, Earthquake and Tsunami
• Application of Risk Assessment & Risk Communication for Early Warning
• Use of Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment and Risk Maps for Early Warning
• Risk Communication Process and Tools
• Contingency Plans
• Organizational Preparedness and Response Preparation
• GIS and RS in Early Warning Systems
• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Early Warning Systems
• Table-Top Exercise & SOP Development
• Community-level focus
• Good practice and lessons learned across the globe -Monitoring and Evaluation of EWS
• Monitoring the performance of EWS through quantifiable indicators and tools
• Post Training work plan
• Course Evaluation