Risk Wise

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] 137

Saving lives through early warning

systems and emergency preparedness

Maryam Golnaraghi Ph.D, Chief; James Douris, Technical Officer and Jean-Baptiste Migraine,

Junior Professional Officer, Disaster Risk Reduction Division, World Meteorological Organization

very year disasters cause significant impacts around the

globe. Disasters caused by meteorological, hydrological

and climate-related hazards such as floods, tropical

cyclones, droughts and heat waves are the most frequent and

extensive geographically, resulting in the largest share of overall

impacts. Statistics from the Centre for Research on the

Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) reveal that during the period

1980-2007, nearly 8,500 disasters caused by natural hazards

worldwide killed about two million people and resulted in losses

of USD1.5 trillion.

During this period, about 90 per cent of disasters caused by natural

hazards were of meteorological or hydrological origin, accounting

for 1.3 million losses of life and 1,200 trillion US dollars (respec-

tively 71 per cent and 78 per cent of overall impacts).

Over the last 50 years, globally, the recorded number of disasters

and their associated economic losses have increased by nearly 10-

fold and 50-fold, respectively. However, the associated loss of life has

decreased ten-fold. This reduction in loss of life is linked to the devel-

opment of effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies and

strategies, particularly related to linking early warning systems to

emergency preparedness and planning at national to local levels.

50 years of international cooperation to support

national capacities for early warning systems

Over the years, the World Meteorological Organization

(WMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, has

acted as an authoritative voice for weather, water,

climate and disasters of hydrometeorological origin, and

has promoted the importance of prevention and

preparedness measures including risk assessment, early

warning systems and sectoral planning to reduce the

impacts of weather, climate and water-related hazards.

Through the coordinated networks of the National

Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of

its 188 members, WMO coordinates the networks of

Global Observing System, Global Telecommunication

System and Global Data Processing and Forecasting

System, providing a wide range of products and services

based on observations, monitoring, hazard analysis, fore-

casting to provide capacities to developing and least

developed countries for issuance of warnings.

One of the core activities of WMO has been the

consolidation of general requirements for global Earth

observations and the coordination of consistent, system-

atic and continuous collection and archiving of

hydrometeorological observations. Furthermore,

through establishment of standards, guidelines and

procedures for data collection, quality control, format-

ting, archiving and rescue, WMO has assisted countries,

through their NMHSs, to enhance their capacity in this

area. WMO continues to work towards ensuring consis-

tent data quality and accessibility across national

boundaries for the purpose of improving risk manage-

ment capabilities at the regional and subregional levels.

Through the WMO Global Observing System, oper-

ated by the National Meteorological Services, data are

collected from 17 satellites, hundreds of ocean buoys,

thousands of aircraft and ships and nearly 10,000 land-

based stations. More than 50,000 weather reports and

several thousand charts and digital products are dissem-

inated daily through the WMO Global

Telecommunication System, which interconnects all

countries through their National Meteorological Services

around the globe. The WMO Global Data Processing

and Forecasting System involves three World

Meteorological Centres (WMCs) and 40 Regional

0.05

2.66

0.17

1.73

0.39

0.65

0.22 0.25

0.67

0.22

0.5

1.5

2.5

56-65

66-75

76-85

86-95

96-05

Geological

Hydrometeorological

decade

casualties per decade (millions)

Decadal loss of life related to geological versus

hydrometeorological hazards

Source: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database,

www.em-dat.net

, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium