EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS:
REFRAMING THE DISCUSSION
Philip H. Hall
28 September 2006
Contents
PUTTING EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS INTO PERSPECTIVE
GOVERNANCE OF THE EARLY WARNING CAPABILITY
For
decades, the international community has discussed and debated the important
issue of natural disaster reduction – how can coordinated, collaborative
international action reduce the loss of life, property damage, and social and
economic disruption caused by natural disasters. The emphasis of the international community
in relation to risk, disaster and emergency management has shifted over the
years from the development of disaster response capabilities to the need to
strengthen risk reduction and control mechanisms and policies. More recently, interest in the design and
implementation of better early warning systems as a major mitigator of natural
disasters has placed increased emphasis on improving science and
technology. These considerations became
the focus of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR)
declared by the member states of the United Nations in 1989. As a result of this focus, a rich body of
literature now exists on the topic of Early Warning and a variety of successful
local initiatives are in place. What has
not resulted is coordinated, collaborative international action.
The lack
of action is keenly felt within the international community, as is evidenced by
the papers presented and workshops held at recent conferences organised around
themes such as “Research to Action” (Programme, World Conference on Disaster
Reduction, Kobe 2005) and “Concept to Action” (Programme EWCIII, Bonn
2006). A more formal acknowledgement
that the years of talk, interest, and concern has yet to produce the desired
results is the “Hyogo Framework for Action”, agreed by 168 nations at Kobe,
Japan in January 2005. While the Hyogo
Framework documents international agreement of the need to move from discussion
and debate to tangible results, it lacks clear cut and precise goals which
would constitute commitments and baseline points of reference for participating
governments and any subsequent evaluation of achievements. The Framework, however, does specifically
emphasise the importance of implementing early warning systems “that are people
centered [sic], in particular systems whose warnings are timely and
understandable to those at risk, which take into account the demographic,
gender, cultural and livelihood characteristics of the target audiences,
including guidance on how to act upon warnings, and that support effective
operations by disaster managers and other decision makers.” (Hyogo Framework,
17 (ii) (d), p. 9)
With so
many of us in agreement on the vision and the importance of translating that
vision into a global reality, why is it, then, that we have not been able to
generate a sustainable effort to make Early Warning an international
achievement? I believe the answer is
that the international community has lost sight of the fact that early warning
is the integration and extension of existing emergency management capabilities,
and therefore, efforts to establish any local, national, regional and
international early warning capability must be led by emergency managers, not
by scientists and technologists.
Emergency
management is a range of measures that bring together the normal everyday
endeavours of private, voluntary, and government agencies in a comprehensive
and coordinated way to deal with the whole spectrum of emergency needs
including prevention, response and recovery.
Through this coordinated effort, emergency managers make use of existing
tools and processes, such as weather forecasting, law enforcement, transport
infrastructure, health services, scientific modelling, telephony, television
and radio broadcasts, and legislation, all of which are used to provide
specialised services to the community on a day-to-day basis. In the broadest sense, emergency managers are
those who carry out any tasks before, during or after a disaster or emergency,
which contribute to enhancing or maintaining the safety of communities from
disasters by using whatever tools and processes that are available. The plans, structures and arrangements
coordinated by emergency managers are people-centric, recognising that the
community owns the risk and must be given all possible assistance in
identifying and dealing with it. (EMA
Web Site)
PUTTING EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS INTO PERSPECTIVE
In 1997,
the UN’s Guiding Principles for Effective Early Warning stated that the
objective of early warning “is to empower individuals and communities,
threatened by natural or similar hazards, to act in sufficient time and in an
appropriate manner so as to reduce the possibility of personal injury, loss of
life, and damage to property or nearby and fragile environments.” (Guiding
Principles, p. ii) Later that year, the
IDNDR Working Group on Early Warning Capabilities summarised years of
international debate and expert advice in a report on global experience and
current practice on the subject, as well as making recommendations for
improvements with particular emphasis on how to ensure that hazard warnings
contribute to risk reduction. The result
was a thoughtful and detailed discussion of early warning, framed unfortunately
in terms of specific systems and sub-systems rather than capabilities.
(Maskrey)
I say
‘unfortunately’ because despite the fact that few have disputed the validity
and importance of the concepts presented in the IDNDR Working Group’s report,
the international community continues to debate whether early warning systems
should involve the creation of effective preparedness and response mechanisms.
(Viewbook, p. 11) I believe that the
terminology we are using is causing much of this confusion. A ‘system’ is generally described as organised
or structured, with specific functionality.
This description encourages us to think about systems as particular ways
of doing specific things, implies scientific and technical leadership, and
leads to the kind of questions discussed at the EWS Workshop in
From a
strategic viewpoint, an early warning
capability is the management integration of expert local knowledge with
existing specialised systems and processes that are separately owned and
operated by a variety of service providers.
Emergency management and its stakeholders assess the functionality and
integration of these systems and processes for fitness for purpose relative to
a specific hazard, and work with the service providers to extend the
functionality or improve the integration of their systems and processes as
required toward achieving a more effective and sustainable capability. Without question, an early warning capability
provides for preparedness, response, and mitigation mechanisms.
Where a
capability does make use of specialised science- and technology-based systems
and processes, such as those focused on the detection and interpretation of
hazard events, issuing alerts and warnings for those events, and deploying
responses to event alerts and warnings, early warning system is an accurate
descriptor for the functionality provided by those systems and processes. The science- and technology-based early
warning system, however, is not the primary driver for emergency management
processes, yet many current discussions of early warning requirements and
functionality incorrectly position it in that way.
The
scientific and technical research that create and continually improve the
hazard detection, monitoring, predictive and communication services also
provide important hazard-specific content to be used by other technologies,
systems, processes and programs that already exist within the overall emergency
management capability to build and exercise hazard preparedness plans, inform
and educate communities at risk, develop and implement mitigation strategies,
and communicate at all levels from local to international. It is when we focus on the science- and
technology-based early warning system, however, that we find ourselves unable
to decide on whether to include functions that are not scientific or
technical. Functions such as community
preparedness don’t fit comfortably in discussions of the scientific and
technical specifications for sensor networks and telecommunications links. When we focus on the science- and
technology-based early warning system, we are limited by what science and
technology is capable of or willing to do.
An
effective early warning capability uses the best available science and
technology to provide some of the
information needed for decision making and to assist in some of the communications within the all-hazards emergency
management capability, with respect to a specific hazard event. We are, therefore, far more likely to succeed
in meeting the UN’s objective for effective early warning if we recognise that
emergency management agencies must lead the development and govern the
operation of early warning capabilities as an integration of the extensive
hierarchy of emergency management services and processes. To achieve effective risk reduction
functionality, emergency management agencies must fully integrate science and
technology into, but not allow it to drive, emergency management.
By
reframing the discussion on early warning in terms of the physical issue (i.e.
the hazard event), the place of early warning within the context of effective
emergency management can be more easily understood. The hazard event is real; everyone, from the
international community of experts and specialists to the individuals living in
areas that experience the hazard event, can talk about it in tangible terms.
With
respect to the hazard event, these tangible terms relate to two operational or
functional modes; either:
·
Preparing for the hazard event should it occur (i.e. the
·
Dealing with the hazard event when it does occur (i.e. the
The
hazard event itself triggers our transition from one state to the other; when
it occurs, we deal with it and when we have dealt with it, we prepare in case
it should occur again.
This
presentation, simple and tangible, can be communicated clearly. It is understandable across all possible demographic,
gender, cultural, education and livelihood characteristics of the target
audiences. This presentation provides a
realistic structure within which we can manage the myriad of community
awareness, education, scientific, technical, political and logistical details
required to prepare for and deal with hazard events. It provides a basic point of reference for
emergency managers, planners, politicians, scientists, technologists, and the
media; if their actions are not helping prepare for the hazard event should it
occur, or helping deal with the hazard event when it does occur, then they are
not helping!
This
presentation also enables us to reposition and simplify our understanding and
expectations of an early warning capability within the context of preparing for
and dealing with hazard events. One of the most important objectives of an
early warning capability is to maximise the benefit from our hazard
preparedness strategies and plans through minimising the time from the
detection or suspicion of a hazard event to the initiation of appropriate
community responses to that hazard event.
Science and technology must continually improve the design of systems
and processes to accurately detect, assist human interpretation of, and report
a hazard event at the earliest possible moment.
The community must ensure through its vigilance and participation that
the information from the scientific and technology systems is augmented and
confirmed by local knowledge and observations; in many circumstances, the nature
of the hazard event may dictate that local knowledge and observations will be
the community’s only early warning capability.
The quality and timeliness of information available to emergency
managers are crucial to the ability of emergency managers to effectively
mobilise and direct planned response measures.
Emergency managers must have in place an infrastructure that integrates
state-of-the-art and space-age communications technology with traditional
methods of communication so that they can send alerts, warnings, and critical
emergency response information out over the last mile to every community and
person at risk. (Shah, p. 1-2)
The word
“early” in Early Warning emphasises the need to improve and optimise not only
the science and technology, but also the human capability throughout this
entire range of interactions. “Early”
does not simply mean doing things faster but just as importantly, it means
doing things effectively.
GOVERNANCE OF THE EARLY WARNING CAPABILITY
Reframing
the discussion on early warning relative to the hazard event provides a
practical framework for the governance of the early warning capability by
emergency managers. The overall
emergency management communications strategy, through which emergency managers
agree the terms of and manage relationships with all of their stakeholders, is
the mechanism by which emergency managers govern the early warning
capability. The strategy must identify
appropriate interfaces with and between those strategic service providers whose
support is crucial if the early warning capability is to be effective –
strategic service providers such as scientists, engineers, infrastructure
providers, public officials, community emergency service providers, and the
media.
Effective
governance always depends on the unambiguous articulation of roles and
responsibilities, and provides for clear prioritisation and delegation. With respect to the early warning capability,
I believe it is essential that we clarify and understand the roles and
responsibilities of five primary participants:
emergency managers, scientists, the media, public officials, and the
community.
In the
Science
must provide risk information on hazards that may impact the community, and
with assistance from the media, communicate that information in meaningful ways
to the community. The community has both
the right and the responsibility to be informed about risks on which it is
expected to have an opinion or to take action.
Therefore, it must actively participate with emergency managers in the
development and presentation of hazard preparedness and community education and
awareness programs, ensuring that local knowledge and history is included to
augment and contextualise the scientific information available. Science, the media, public officials and the
community must collaborate with emergency managers on the development of hazard
preparedness and response plans that take into account such things as what can
be done to reduce the potential risks the community faces with respect to a
particular hazard; whether and how an early warning can be realistically
provided to the community for a given hazard; how notifications relative to a
given hazard should be provided to the community for optimal effectiveness; and
how both the strengths and weaknesses of traditional knowledge and local
resources can be managed to ensure the most effective response.
Science
and the community are responsible for maintaining diligent observations and
monitoring with respect to hazards in both the
Responding
to alerts and warnings is the responsibility all stakeholders, led by emergency
management. The role of an emergency
manager in the
Under
many hazard response plans, science is responsible in the
In
governing the early warning capability, emergency managers must take the lead
in dealing with two recurring areas of conflict. One is the reluctance of science to provide
information about a hazard event until the details have been conclusively
confirmed. Science is concerned about
the public response to false or inaccurate warnings, which might result in lack
of faith in subsequent warnings and loss of credibility for the
scientists. However, even when unable to
confirm detection or interpretation, science must provide emergency managers
with early notification of a suspected event that may impact the community so
that the appropriate levels of response can be initiated. Tim Radford, Science Editor of The
Guardian, aptly summarised the situation: “scientists and engineers
concerned with natural disasters have compelling reasons to speak clearly,
vividly and in the vernacular; for them, simple words can and do, literally,
save lives.” (Radford) Because it is
essential that emergency managers be notified of a detected event, or alerted
of a suspected event, without delay, emergency managers must collaborate with
science and the media to inform the community and to establish realistic
expectations of the extent and limits of scientific knowledge with respect to
the hazards that threaten the community.
An informed community, with realistic expectations, can accept false
alarms without becoming apathetic or devaluing the professional capabilities of
the scientists involved.
A second
recurring area of conflict involves public officials who often resist
initiating or escalating within the hazard response plan because they are concerned
that information and warnings about hazard events will create panic and have
adverse reactions within the community.
Rational fear – fear of situations that are liable to occur – does not
usually result in irrational actions. (Sandman) In fact, rational fear often
motivates people to engage in constructive actions to deal with the situation
they fear. Emergency managers must
collaborate with public officials and the media to provide the community with
factual information about the risks the community faces and the options the
community has to mitigate and manage those risks. An informed community is unlikely to panic,
and adverse economic reactions will be directly related to the hazard event
itself.
To
successfully govern an early warning capability, emergency managers must
provide active leadership, not only in engaging both the community and the
strategic service providers (such as scientists, engineers, infrastructure
providers, public officials, community emergency service providers, and the media)
in the development of the early warning capability, but also in strengthening
and sustaining that capability through a continuous cycle of review, assessment
and improvement activities with the community and the strategic service
providers.
The
international emphasis on early warning systems has shifted the focus, and the
funding, from emergency management to science and technology. As a result, scientists and technologists are
more and more considered to be leading the development of a global early
warning capability. While there are
important benefits to be gained from improving our detection and interpretation
systems for natural hazards, these benefits will not be realised unless these
systems are fully integrated into the all-hazards emergency management
capability. Adopting an all-hazards
approach, in which local needs are clearly identified and provided for in
national and regional policies, generates synergies and efficiencies that can –
and must – be leveraged in international strategic planning for early warning
capabilities.
To do
this, emergency managers need to establish additional, and strengthen existing,
international collaboration and exchange of information mechanisms on early
warning capabilities just as science has done with early warning system
technology. Emergency management must assume the role of ‘Champion’ and
actively lead the dialogue at all levels, working with the community at risk
and strategic service providers – in particular science, public officials and
the media – to develop effective local, national, regional and international
early warning capabilities.
EMA Web Site, www.ema.gov.au I have adopted the definition of Emergency Management
developed by Emergency Management Australia as it reflects the all-hazards
approach endorsed by the international emergency management community. EMA’s definition also recognises the need to
make use of business tools and practices such as risk management and
performance improvement, contextualised for emergency management, as a part of
mainstreaming emergency management.
“Hyogo Framework for Action 2005
– 2015: Building the Resilience of
Nations and Communities to Disasters”, extract from the final report of the
World Conference on Disaster Reduction, UN ISDR, 18 – 22 January 2005, Kobe,
Hyogo, Japan
“Guiding Principles of Effective
Early Warning”, IDNDR Early Warning Programme, August 1997,
Maskrey, Andrew et al. “Report on National and Local
Capabilities for Early Warning”, IDNDR Early Warning Programme, October 1997,
Programme, Third International
Early Warning Conference, “From Concept to Action”, 27 – 29 March 2006,
Programme, World Conference on
Disaster Reduction Thematic Session, “From Research to Action”, 18 – 22 January
2005,
Radford, Tim. “It’s the Way You Tell Them”, Environmental
Times No. 3,
Sandman, Peter M. and Lanard, Jody. “Tsuanami Risk Communication: Warning and the
Myth of Panic”, published on Peter Sandman’s Riskcommunications Website (www.psandman.com),
Shah, Haresh. “The Last Mile: Earthquake Risk Mitigation
Assistance in Developing Countries”, published
Viewbook, Early Warning System
Workshop, “Early Warning Systems Do’s and Don’ts”,
20 – 23 October, 2003,
Faerber Hall ©2006