Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 6.1
Classifi cation of
hazard types and subtypes
Type of hazard
Subtype of hazard
Rapid/sudden-onset
Oil spills
Chemical and nuclear accidents
Geological
Wild fi res
Hydrometeorological (except droughts)
Etc.
Slow-onset
Air quality
Drought, desertifi cation, and food security
Climate variability
Etc.
chapter are not related to climate change, it is still useful to review them for two
main reasons: fi rstly, some of them aim at reducing impacts of climate change (i.e.,
hydrometeorological, drought, famine EWS, etc.); secondly, EWSs showcased in
this chapter provide insights and lessons learnt that can be useful for developing/
enhancing EWSs for climate change-related hazards.
Rapid/sudden-onset and slow-onset events are treated differently in this chapter
Slow-onset hazards
are incremental but long-term and cumulative environmental
changes that usually receive little attention in their early phases but which, over
time, may cause serious crises. On the contrary,
rapid/sudden-onset hazards
arrive rapidly and in the case of earthquakes, with very limited warning time.
as they will provide different amounts of available warning time, which infl uences
substantially how EWS operate, are designed, etc. (see Table
6.1
).
This chapter includes existing early warning/monitoring systems that provide
publicly accessible information and products and thus may not completely cover all
EWSs currently present globally, such as the ones that do not provide publically
accessible products. Several sources have been used, such as the Global Survey of
Early Warning Systems (UN
2006
) together with the online inventory of early warn-
ing systems on United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
(UNISDR) Platform for the Promotion of Early Warning (PPEW) website and sev-
eral additional online sources, technical reports, and scientifi c articles listed in the
references. Additional EWSs are known to exist through UNISDR's Hyogo
Framework for Action (HFA) national progress reports for 2009-2011 and are pre-
sented separately in Sect.
6.6
.
6.2
Role of Earth Observation
Earth observation (EO), which includes measurements that can be made directly or
by sensors in situ or remotely (i.e., satellite remote sensing, aerial surveys, land or
ocean-based monitoring systems, Fig.
6.1
), plays a key role in early warning. EO
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