Lydia Cumiskey

Middlesex University, UK · Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC)

The 2015–16 El Nino weather was highly anticipated in Kenya. This anticipation arose, in part, from the experiences with previous El Nino events such as the 1997–98 El Nino rains that resulted in widespread losses of lives and destruction of property worth millions of dollars. This study, undertaken in Tigithi Location of Laikipia County in Kenya s...

The 2015–16 El Nino weather was highly anticipated in Kenya. This anticipation arose, in part, from the experiences with previous El Nino events such as the 1997–98 El Nino rains that resulted in widespread losses of lives and destruction of property worth millions of dollars. This study, undertaken in Tigithi Location of Laikipia County in Kenya s...

Private precautionary measures play an increasingly important role in flood risk management. The degree to which private precautionary measures mitigate flood risk depends mainly on the type of measure (and how effective it is) and how frequently and successfully it is implemented. These aspects are influenced by a complex interaction of physical a...

Over decades the concept of integration has been promoted to enhance alignment between policy domains, and to manage trade-offs and maximize synergies across management practices. Integrated approaches have the potential to enable better outcomes for flood risk management (FRM) and society as a whole. However, achieving integration in practice is a...

This article presents a “pressure cooker” approach for building interdisciplinary risk communication capacity in young professionals via an intensive 24 h workshop. The event successfully brought together 35 participants from around the world to work on real-world environmental hazard/risk communication challenges for two areas in Mexico. Participa...

This article presents a 'Pressure Cooker' approach for building interdisciplinary risk communication capacity in young researchers and professionals through an intensive 24-hour workshop. The event successfully brought together 35 participants from around the world to work on real-life environmental hazard/risk communication challenges for two area...

Impact-based forecasting and warning services aim to bridge the gap between producers and users of warning information by connecting and increasing synergies between the components of effective early warning systems. We tested qualitatively whether a warning message based on colour codes is understandable and useful to trigger risk mitigation actio...

This paper introduces a participatory Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA) methodology developed through the Resilience Increasing Strategies for Coasts - Toolkit (RISC-KIT) project and implemented in nine case studies in Europe. The purpose of the MCA was to bridge the disciplinary divide between engineering sciences and social sciences, facilitate the...

Effective coastal risk management often involves the selection and appraisal of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures. Such measures, however, are rarely implemented in isolation and their (inter)dependencies need to be considered to assess the overall contribution to risk reduction. This paper presents a framework that utilises a pathway-based ap...

Collaboration between policy-makers, practitioners and researchers from multiple disciplines and all geographical regions from local, national, regional and international levels is needed to ensure effective (Multi-Hazard) Early Warning Systems (EWS). This article outlines why young professionals play such a pivotal role in developing and implement...

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 underlines the importance of Science and Technology (S&T) and S&T networks for effective disaster risk reduction (DRR). The knowledge of existing S&T networks and their exact role in DRR, however, is limited. This opinion piece initiates a discussion on the role of S&T networks in the imple...

The Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts – Toolkit (RISC-KIT) FP7 EU project (2013-2017) aims to produce a set of innovative and EU-coherent open-source and open- access methods, tools and management approaches (the RISC-KIT) in support of coastal managers, decision-makers and policy makers to reduce risk and increase resilience to low- freq...

River floods affect the vulnerable communities living on the riverine islands in North West Bangladesh. The professional and the responding community implement preparedness and response activities to avoid loss of lives and protect livelihoods. We determined and clustered the information needs of these decision makers during the 2014 floods by cond...

Bangladesh is an extremely flood prone country and an effective flood warning system is essential for preparedness. Although Bangladesh has an extensive flood forecasting system in place it remains a challenge to ensure that the warnings generated are available and accessible to those at risk. Access to mobile services has increased dramatically in...

Recent flood events in Ireland and particularly in County Cork have caused significant disruption to health service provisions, interruption of water and power supplies, and damage to roads and other transportation infrastructure, affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people over a prolonged period of weeks. These events clearly reveal- t...

Scientific and end-user collaboration on operational flood risk modelling and forecasting requires an environment where scientists and end-users can physically work together and demonstrate, enhance and learn about new tools, methods and models for forecasting and warning purposes. Therefore, Deltares has built a real-time demonstration, training a...

This article summarizes and analyzes the Children & Youth Forum and youth participation in the process during and leading up to the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in 2015. An organizing committee consisting of international students and young professionals brought together around 200 young professionals and students fr...

This paper applies a Game-based Learning Evaluation Model (GEM) to assess whether the early warning – early action serious game “Ready!” is an effective component to add to existing Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) training curricula, facilitated by NGO staff and applied at the community level. We developed a paper-based survey with 17 five-level Like...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide recommendations for improving the social performance of warnings using mobile services in flash flood prone communities. A warning cannot be considered effective until it is received, understood and responded to by those at risk. This is defined as the social performance of warning communication tec...