IV. NATIONAL CAPABILITIES IN THE REGION
15. The ability of a nation to develop multi-tier information
and early warning systems, as well as to make optimal use
of these systems, depends on a number of elements, such
as abilities in the institutional base (a) to produce hazard/risk
maps, (b) to use them strategically for disaster preparedness,
(c) to use them in hydro-meteorological networks for early
warning and (d) to ensure emergency communication support.
This preliminary review of recent efforts to establish national
or provincial disaster management information systems in
some countries of South and South-East Asia reveals that
the countries attach priority to such efforts and to making
substantial investments in this direction (annex II). 16.
A brief analysis of these initiatives indicates the following:
(a) many of the information systems have been established
as part of capacity-building and institutional development
projects in the disaster management sector; (b) they use
national technical institutions to implement the system
and draw on the available data and information in a country;
(c) they are responding to felt needs within the sector,
primarily for preparedness planning and post-disaster assessment
and needs analysis; (d) relatively limited efforts have
been made to use the systems for mitigation; (e) each initiative
makes use of information technology and space systems to
speed up both the collection and compilation of data, as
well as to package the information in usable products as
part of a decision-support system; and (f) many of the new
systems have been developed with international funding either
as part of broader capacity-building projects or within
a post-disaster reconstruction programme .
A brief analysis of the effectiveness of national capabilities
in the specific context of risk assessment, preparedness
strategies, early warning and emergency communication systems
is presented in the sections below.
A. Existing risk assessment
capabilities
17. Mapping and risk assessment are the basis for policy,
mitigation planning and implementation. If there are weaknesses
in disaster management policies, the entire apparatus (laws,
regulations, institutional arrangements and so forth) for
dealing with risk will be prone to failure. Existing national
capabilities for mapping and risk assessment often have
severe limitations. In most of the countries, risk assessment
is limited to hazard mapping, showing areas where different
levels of hazard can be expected. Another dimension of the
problem is that available risk information is usually too
coarse in spatial and temporal resolution to provide useful
information on increasingly complex and dynamic risk patterns.
Coarse-resolution risk maps give the impression of uniform
hazard and vulnerability patterns over wide areas. Limited
assessment of risk may lead to widespread inaccuracies in
the information produced. For example, a coarse-resolution
risk map may indicate a large coastal area at risk from
tropical cyclones and induced flooding but will be unable
to provide information on significant differences in risk
at the local level. Risk assessment needs to be able to
deal with the increasing complexity of risk in order to
be relevant to disaster reduction objectives. This ability,
in turn, implies improving the risk analysis capabilities
of national disaster management agencies in most of the
countries in the region.
18. The development of risk assessment is hampered primarily
by a lack of adequate data in developing countries. Both
cartographic and attribute data may have incomplete geographical
coverage or be presented in unsuitable scales, be outdated
or of dubious quality, or difficult to obtain. The absence
of conceptual and spatial models capable of representing
the social, economic and cultural dimensions of vulnerability
is another problem. The recent developments in high-resolution
imaging and geographic information system (GIS) modelling
have, to a certain extent, addressed this issue. In the
developed countries, risk assessment is already a tool for
insurance and other regulatory mechanisms. In developing
countries, it is yet to gain momentum. In many developing
countries in the region, national disaster management systems,
particularly at the local level, generally lack the institutional
and technical capacity or resources to create, sustain and
maintain risk assessment.
B. Early warning systems
19. Early warning represents a cornerstone of disaster
reduction. The forecasting challenge presented in providing
early warnings spans a continuum from less than one hour
for tornadoes and flash floods to seasonal and inter-annual
timescales for drought. Warnings for these hazards can be
provided only to the extent that the existing hydrometeorological
infrastructure permits. While the global and regional hydrometeorological
capacities are established operationally by several international
agencies, the weaknesses lie in national and local infrastructures
in many developing countries. Consequently achievement of
overall improvement in early warning for hydrometeorological
hazards requires capacity-building, particularly at local
and national levels, and improving coordination at local,
national and international levels.
20. Flood forecasting networks, serving early warning needs,
have been extensively developed in most of the flood-prone
river basins of the region. Warning messages are issued
in technical terms, namely, water levels and the discharge
rate at various places, thus limiting their value to certain
levels of stakeholders only (higher-level administrators).
The existing flood early warning systems have yet to be
tailored to serve people’s needs, their environment
and their own resources. Successful early warning requires
unrestricted access to data that are freely available for
exchange. It is important to support the development of
early warning capabilities at the community level, based
on local vulnerability and risk assessment.
21. An increasing body of evidence is encouraging disaster
managers and politicians alike to invest in strengthening
early warning systems. This provides additional opportunities
for scientists and technical professionals, working in both
public and private sector endeavours, to provide the benefits
of their knowledge and make improvements in early warning.
In the United States of America, for example, it is believed
that improvements associated with the modernization of the
National Weather Service (NWS) will more than pay for themselves.
A National Institute of Standards and Technology cost-benefit
analysis for the modernized NWS estimates that economic
benefits to the nation will be about eight times greater
than the costs involved, realizing annual benefits to the
extent of US$ 7 billion (ISDR, 2002).
C. Emergency communication
systems
22. Although communication technology has a role in all
phases of disaster management, most of the applications
have traditionally been in the response and recovery phases.
The convergence of technologies leads to greater possibilities
for integrating different communication systems; therefore,
interoperability of various systems, including the Internet,
mobile phones, fax, e-mail, radio and television, is becoming
increasingly functional. As a result, the possibilities
for their use in the mitigation and preparedness phases
are also increasing. An assessment of their use, to a very
limited extent, in developing countries of the region is
summarized in table 3.
Table 3. A matrix showing the elements
of emergency communication in practice
|
