Abstract
Abstract. Early warning systems have the potential to save lives and improve resilience. However, barriers and challenges remain in disseminating and communicating early warning information to institutional decision-makers, community members and individuals at risk, including unequal access, insufficient understanding, and inability to act on warning information. Research was undertaken to analyse and understand the current flood early warning system in Nepal, considering available data and forecasts, information flows, early warning dissemination, and decision-making for early action. Data were collected from key informant interviews, community-level questionnaires, and a national stakeholder workshop and qualitatively analysed. The availability and utilisation of simple and complex flood forecasts in Nepal, and their integration into dissemination, and decision support tools were reviewed, considering their impact on improving early action to increase the resilience of vulnerable communities to flooding. Results suggest that as Nepal continues to advance in hydro-meteorological forecasting capabilities, efforts are simultaneously needed to ensure these forecasts are more effectively communicated and disseminated.
Highlights
Warning systems (EWSs) have the potential to save lives and reduce losses, an important component of resilience (UNISDR, 2015; Budimir et al, 2017)
Challenges relating to access, understanding, and capacity to act on information impede preparedness and early action before a flood event (Budimir et al, 2017; Scienseed, 2016; Moser, 2010; Paton, 2008)
This paper aims to analyse and understand the current flood early warning system in Nepal, considering available data and forecasts, information flows, early warning dissemination, and decision-making for early action
Summary
Warning systems (EWSs) have the potential to save lives and reduce losses, an important component of resilience (UNISDR, 2015; Budimir et al, 2017). Barriers still remain in the communication of early warnings to community members and at-risk individuals (Kelman and Glantz, 2014; Budimir et al, 2017). Simple EWSs monitor real-time data (e.g. water levels), using a deterministic model to generate simple evacuate/do not evacuate warnings. These simple deterministic models are, hard to calibrate – if thresholds are set too low they risk false warnings in scenarios when evacuation might not be needed, and if set too high they risk individuals missing out on timely warning. When based on real-time data, in mountainous catchments prone to fast onset floods, they provide limited early warning lead time, and are not adaptable for individuals with varying perceptions of risk or response capabilities. Monitoring stations are located on the first two types of rivers (Fig. 1)
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