Early Warning Systems in the context of Disaster Risk Management Countries

Countries have long been concerned about the huge impacts that natural disasters have on society in developed and especially in developing countries. Unfortunately, societies have not adapted their frameworks of development to the natural environment surrounding them and the losses and costs associated with disasters of natural origin. On the contrary societal catastrophes are growing by the decade; global annual disaster costs of fifty billion US dollars are common. Between 1960 and 1990 the economic losses of disasters increased five times due to rising vulnerability (MunichRe, NatCatSERVICE; Geo Risks Research, 2005). Our vulnerability to natural hazards is growing, because population increases and more people are living in risky places. Nearly a million people have been killed over the last decade by disasters caused by storms, droughts, floods. While some material losses seem to be unavoidable, especially in the case of very large and infrequent events, in some cases the loss of human lives could have been avoided if the proper precautions and measures had been in place. This would have been the case for the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which provoked fatalities surpassing a quarter of a million people. People-centred early warning systems empower communities to prepare for and confront the power of natural hazards. However, the efficiency of such systems is to be measured in terms of lives saved and reduction in losses, which is directly related to the execution of an anticipated response by the people and institutions once a warning is issued. This paper addresses traditional views on early warning systems, and what it takes to transform them into efficient, people-centred systems. In Sri Lanka, over 34,000 people lost their lives due to the lack of a tsunami early warning system. While there would have been sufficient time to warn some of the coastal population, the lack of awareness regarding tsunamis, the lack of an early warning system, and the lack of training to respond to a warning inhibited the authorities and the local population from executing the proper measures which would have significantly reduced the loss of lives. The traditional framework of early warning systems is composed of three phases: monitoring of precursors, forecasting of a probable event, and the notification of a warning or an alert should an event of catastrophic proportions take place. An improved four-step framework being promoted by national emergency agencies and risk management institutions includes the additional fourth phase: the onset of emergency response activities once the warning has been issued. The purpose of this fourth element is to recognize the fact that there needs to be a response to the warning, where the initial responsibility relies on emergency response agencies (see figure). Effective early warning systems require strong technical foundations and good knowledge of the risks. But they must be