With extreme weather conditions posing an increasing threat to lives and assets, South Africa’s disaster management capacity needs to include better early warning systems for key risks such as flooding.
The World Economic Forum has rated ‘extreme weather’ as the top global risk – in terms of likelihood – for the past five years. In particular, floods have been cited as affecting more lives than any other type of disaster.
The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters reported that around half of all lives impacted by natural disasters were attributed to flooding. However, according to Natasha Ramdass, senior civil engineer at SRK Consulting, early warning systems can significantly reduce the impact of flooding on our lives.
“The importance of early warning has been well demonstrated in terms of saving lives in the face of flood disasters,” said Ramdass. “Although the economic losses caused by flooding events has increased by 50 times over the past 50 years, the loss of life has reduced by a factor of 10.”
Underpinning this trend has been the paradigm shift away from post-disaster response, and toward to a more proactive risk reduction approach. This has required meteorological, hydrological and climate services to support science-based risk management decisions – alongside more investment in early warning systems.
“Early warning systems for weather-related disasters such as flooding have been developed and tailored over the past decades across the world,” she said. “First world countries have invested time and resources on tailoring their early warning systems for their respective application, climatic conditions and data availability.”
Read the full article in Why Africa
