Early Warning Systems Defined - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 97

Table 5.1 EWS elements according to the UN (UN 2006, p. 2)
Risk knowledge Monitoring and warning service

Systematically collect data and undertake risk
assessments

Develop hazard monitoring and early warning
services

• Are the hazards and the vulnerabilities

well known?

• Are the right parameters being monitored?

• What are the patterns and trends in these

factors?

• Is there a sound scientifi c basis for making

forecasts?

• Are risk maps and data widely

available?

• Can accurate and timely warnings be

generated?

Dissemination and communication Response capability

Communicate risk information and early
warnings

Build national and community response
capabilities

• Do warnings reach all of those at risk? • Are response plans up-to-date and tested?

• Are the risks and the warnings

understood?

• Are local capacities and knowledge

made use of?

• Is the warning information clear and

useable?

• Are people prepared and ready to react to

warnings?

support from the people using and affected by the EWS, in that an EWS in which
people were involved from the beginning is much more likely to be accepted and
successful than a system imposed on people from the outside.
That leads directly to the conceptualisation of 'People-Centred Warning Systems'
(Basher 2006 ). Basher ( 2006 , p. 2170) describes four inter-related and interacting
elements of an EWS to ensure that people are at the centre of it from the beginning,
rather than being an afterthought at the end:

• 'Risk knowledge: knowledge of the relevant hazards, and of the vulnerabilities
of people and society to these hazards'.
• 'Monitoring and warning service: a technical capacity to monitor hazard precur-
sors, to forecast the hazard evolution, and to issue warnings'.
• 'Dissemination and communication: the dissemination of understandable warn-
ings, and prior preparedness information, to those at risk'.
• 'Response capability: knowledge, plans and capacities for timely and appropri-
ate action by authorities and those at risk.' (Table 5.1 )

This description certainly puts forward numerous buzzwords without clearly
indicating what they mean in practice, but some solid and needed elements emerge.
First, the recognition that understanding vulnerabilities as well as hazards is impor-
tant for EWS. Second, the importance of understandable communication, namely
on the people's own terms. Third, the ability to respond appropriately to information
given, which can only be developed by having an EWS incorporate training, educa-
tion, and awareness as a continual process, not just once or after a hazard manifests.
One element, foreseeability, could be highlighted further so that it becomes an integral
component of ensuring that an EWS helps disaster risk reduction and vulnerability
reduction in addition to disaster response.