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Crafting early warning information systems: the case of drought
... Some researchers have focused on the social dimension of vulnerability, arguing that vulnerability includes not only individual characteristics and the ability to protect individuals against danger but also the social mechanisms that cause deprivation [59]. The most important social factors include residents' unity, education, dependence on government, social status, participation in local organizations, access to elites, a sense of place, social capital, and cooperation of children and family members [72,28,78,79]. ...
... The sense of place was the most important parameter in assessing socio-cultural vulnerability. This finding was consistent with the studies of Pulwarty et al. [79] and Figueroa and Rotarou [122]. Therefore, one of the main foundations in rural planning and development for the sustainability of settlements and reduction of migration is the inhabitants' sense of belonging to the place of residence [123]. ...
... Individuals' sense of attachment to their birthplace and place of residence can affect rural communities significantly, leading to the establishment of high-quality environments in rural areas [124]. On the other hand, drought reduces the sense of place, which subsequently increases migration of the rural population due to frequent droughts and their negative effects [79]. Therefore, drought affects the attachment and happiness of rural people negatively [122]. ...
... Some researchers have focused on the social dimension of vulnerability, arguing that vulnerability includes not only individual characteristics and the ability to protect individuals against danger but also the social mechanisms that cause deprivation [59]. The most important social factors include residents' unity, education, dependence on government, social status, participation in local organizations, access to elites, a sense of place, social capital, and cooperation of children and family members [72,28,78,79]. ...
... The sense of place was the most important parameter in assessing socio-cultural vulnerability. This finding was consistent with the studies of Pulwarty et al. [79] and Figueroa and Rotarou [122]. Therefore, one of the main foundations in rural planning and development for the sustainability of settlements and reduction of migration is the inhabitants' sense of belonging to the place of residence [123]. ...
... Individuals' sense of attachment to their birthplace and place of residence can affect rural communities significantly, leading to the establishment of high-quality environments in rural areas [124]. On the other hand, drought reduces the sense of place, which subsequently increases migration of the rural population due to frequent droughts and their negative effects [79]. Therefore, drought affects the attachment and happiness of rural people negatively [122]. ...
Drought is a natural disaster that can influence all aspects of human life with its extensive and long-term implications. Rural communities are more drought-susceptible due to their more closeness to nature and agriculture-based economy. Careful assessment of the drought vulnerability of different areas is a prerequisite for drought management as risk management has replaced crisis management to enable farmers to cope with drought effects. The present study aimed to assess the drought vulnerability of wheat farmers in southeastern Iran. The main data collection instrument was a questionnaire designed based on Me-Bar and Valdez's (2005) study, to which new parameters were added for a more accurate assessment of vulnerability. Using Krejcie and Morgan Table, the sample size was determined to be 395 wheat farmers selected from those living in southeastern Iran with different degrees of drought severity (severe, extremely severe, and critical). The results indicated that farmers were highly vulnerable to drought and strongly affected by economic, socio-cultural, psychological, technical-environmental, and infrastructural damages. In addition, the results revealed that farmers in Sirjan and Rudbar-e Jonubi counties were the most vulnerable. The general results concerning the vulnerability in southeastern Iran show that further drought aggravation increases the farmers' vulnerability because of higher vulnerability levels in regions with more critical conditions. In general, the results can provide new insights into drought management for policymakers.
... Improved early warning systems 5 suppor t a prospective and proactive social process whereby networks of organizations conduct collaborative analyses and develop indicators that can help to identify when and where policy interventions are most needed, specific to geographic and stakeholder requirements (Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). As such, early warning systems facilitate formal and informal decision-making in a way that empowers vulnerable sectors and social groups to assess and mitigate potential loss and damage (Pulwarty ...
... RDrIagri; main panel in Figure 1.16) based on the temporal evolution of the drought hazard, and sector-specific exposure and vulnerability. Continuous improvement of these systems requires close interactions with key users (Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). Therefore, GDO includes a tool to produce ad hoc automatic reports for decision makers (Figure 1.16, bottom-right secondary panel). ...
... As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, the experiences of JRC, IDMP, the National Integrated Drought Information System in the United States of America, FEWS NET and IGAD illustrate that drought early warning can be a proactive social process whereby networks of organizations conduct collaborative situational assessments to guide action. The drought centres align observations, research, forecasts, risk assessment and communication, and embed information in drought response, albeit with varying levels of success (Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013;Vogt et al., 2018;Chapter 2). ...
Droughts have deep, widespread and underestimated impacts on societies, ecosystems, and economies. They incur costs that are borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable people. The extensive impacts of drought are consistently underreported even though they span large areas, cascade through systems and scales, and linger through time, affecting millions of people and contributing to food insecurity, poverty, and inequality. Climate change is increasing temperatures and disrupting rainfall patterns, increasing the frequency, severity, and duration of droughts in many regions across the globe. As we move towards a 2˚C warmer world, urgent action is required to better understand and more effectively manage drought risk to reduce the devastating toll on human lives and livelihoods, and ecosystems.
The GAR Special Report on Drought 2021 explores the systemic nature of drought and its impacts on achievement of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the SDGs and human and ecosystems health and wellbeing.
... Adaptations to reduce vulnerability before drought events, such as improving water use efficiency, are similar to actions recommended or implemented as an event unfolds, differing from emergency response for other hazards. Early warning systems (hereafter EWS) in such contexts are needed not only for event onset, at which a threshold above some socially acceptable or safe level is exceeded, but also for intensification and duration, ranging temporally from a season to decades and spatially from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013). ...
... In the following discussion, the phrase early warning information system is used to describe an integrated process of risk assessment, communication, and decision support, of which an early warning is a central output. An early warning information system involves much more than development and dissemination of a forecast; it is the systematic collection and analysis of relevant information about, and coming from, areas of impending risk that (1) informs the development of strategic responses to anticipate crises and crisis evolution, (2) provides capabilities for generating problem-specific risk assessments and scenarios, and (3) effectively communicates options to critical actors for the purposes of decision-making, preparedness, and mitigation (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013). ...
... In many parts of the world, it appears that societal vulnerability to drought is escalating, and at a significant rate. Two additional elements have now been introduced: awareness that risks are changing and additional risks may arise, and the need for creating and communicating new knowledge about future conditions that is understood, trusted, and used (IPCC 2012;Pulwarty and Verdin 2013). Cognizant of these emerging elements, modern early warning information systems should provide the underpinning of a preparedness strategy aimed at risk reduction, which depends on adequate resources and collaborative networks and engages both the public and leadership. ...
Drought is an insidious natural hazard that results from a deficiency of precipitation from expected or “normal” that, when extended over a season or longer, is insufficient to meet the demands of human activities and the environment. Drought by itself is not a disaster. Whether it becomes a disaster depends on its impact on local people and the environment. Therefore, the key to understanding drought is to understand both its natural and social dimensions.
... The lack of accounting for human drivers of droughts and their impacts in DEWSs results in what we call a "drought monitoring gap": a gap between the monitored data and the drought conditions experienced by human populations. This oversight hinders DEWSs from fully achieving their goals of facilitating proactive, well-informed decision-making and providing vulnerable groups with timely, reliable data (Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013;UNDRR, 2021). The local context's specificity adds to this challenge, as capacities to understand and monitor these human dimensions are complex and context-dependent (UNDRR, 2021). ...
... The term "plurality" is commonly used in the literature on scales and levels (Cash et al., 2006;Wiegant et al., 2020;Poteete, 2012). Plurality refers to the failure to recognise heterogeneity in the way that scales are perceived and valued by different actors, even at the same level. ...
Despite recent studies emphasising the dual human and physical nature of droughts, there is a lag in advancing this insight in drought monitoring and early warning systems (DEWSs). These systems mainly depend on hydro-climatic indices and often overlook the experiences of affected communities, resulting in a drought monitoring gap. This study introduces the monitoring efficacy matrix (MEM) to assess the alignment between officially monitored data, relevant to drought impacts, and the actual experiences of a rural community in northeastern Brazil, which we investigated through interviews. The MEM revealed “drought monitoring challenges”, composed of mismatches and blind spots between the official data and local experiences. Mismatches stem from varying spatial and temporal levels; blind spots arise from the diversity of local resilience strategies, or vulnerabilities, influencing drought impacts. What we define as a “drought monitoring gap” results from the tendency to prioritise specific indices and pragmatic spatial and temporal levels over a comprehensive drought monitoring approach. We posit that a first step to bridging this gap can draw inspiration from recent drought-impact-monitoring initiatives, which are focused on the continuous monitoring of non-extreme events by municipal technical extension officers. However, ultimately bridging the drought monitoring gap remains conditional on the adaptation of DEWS frameworks to accommodate the integration of qualitative and local data representing the relevant drought-related local context.
... (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013) 296 (UNISDR 2011a) 297(Gerber and Mirzabaev 2017b) 298(OECD 2016) 299(Pulwarty and Verdin 2013) ...
... (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013) 296 (UNISDR 2011a) 297(Gerber and Mirzabaev 2017b) 298(OECD 2016) 299(Pulwarty and Verdin 2013) ...
The GAR is the flagship report of the United Nations on worldwide efforts to reduce disaster risk. GAR2019 has a particular focus on the systemic nature of risk, and the transformations to systems-based thinking that must occur if we are to deal with 21st century threats to human and ecosystems health and wellbeing. The GAR is published biennially by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and is the product of the contributions of nations, public and private risk-related science and research, amongst others. The GAR contributes to achieving the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
... This latter dimension emphasizes the structure for developing the capacity to apply knowledge and to evaluate the consequences of actions amongst partners, to ensure the reliability and credibility of the projections of changes in the system outputs and to enable acceptable revisions on management practices in light of new information. Among others, examples of end-to-end information systems in which monitoring and forecasting, risk assessment and engagement of communities and sectors are aligned across the weather-climate continuum are exemplified by NIDIS (National Integrated Drought Information System) and the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNet) which provide coordination of diverse regional, national and local data and information for supporting planning and preparedness (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013). As a result of FEWSNet and efforts on the ground there have been successful cases of drought risk interventions to prevent humanitarian crises including the severe drought in Ethiopia in 2015-2016. ...
... The experience of the JRC, IDMP, NIDIS, FEWSNet and other information and risk management systems illustrate that early warning represents a proactive social process whereby networks of organizations conduct collaborative analyses (see Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). In this context, indicators help to identify when and where policy interventions are most needed and historical and institutional analyses help to identify the processes and entry points that need to be understood if vulnerability is to be reduced. ...
In the context of global warming, droughts are increasingly threatening our societies. They last for months or even years, affecting wide areas and large numbers of people, with single drought events sometimes causing economic damages for several billion Euros. Besides the economic damages, droughts can compromise ecosystems and threat food security in the most vulnerable countries.
To reduce drought impacts, drought risk assessments need to be implemented in order to support policy makers and water managers in developing coping strategies and drought management plans. Due to the wide-ranging direct and indirect, often cascading impacts, drought risk assessments need to include information tailored to specific sectors and oriented to the needs of specific users.
Drought risk as defined here is the likelihood to incur damages and economic losses during and after a drought and depends on the interactions between three dimensions:
1) the severity and the probability of occurrence of a certain drought event,
2) the exposed assets and/or people, and
3) their intrinsic vulnerability or capacity to cope with the hazard.
The characterization of these dimensions and the representation of their interactions over different socio-economic sectors poses several challenges. This document discusses these challenges and proposes a theoretical framework to assess drought risk at global scale in order to provide policy relevant information. Based on the described conceptual approach, the JRC developed the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) as a first operational dynamic drought risk monitor for the entire globe.
... From an adaptation standpoint, many social and economic systems employ buffers to respond to slow onset hazards (e.g. storage, water transfers, purchase of grain) but lack response capabilities as drought intensifies and buffers are depleted (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013). Seismic risks remain in the Americas, in southern Europe, in many earthquake-prone regions of Asia and the Pacific, and in New Zealand. ...
... The latter investment in spacecraft is estimated to be several hundred billion dollars in civilian spacecraft alone. Recent experience with earthquake damage (Zoback 2014), hurricane damage and related flooding from Superstorm Sandy (Rice and Dastagir 2013), massive forest fires (Mersereau 2013) and severe sustained drought in the western U.S. (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013), and flash flooding from extreme rain events in Colorado (Isidone 2013) all suggest that North America is increasingly vulnerable to extreme natural hazards. Superstorm Sandy, in particular, illustrates the fact that one type of natural hazard can trigger other, cascading sequences of societal disruptions that can end up costing tens of billions of dollars and that can have impacts lasting months or even years after the initiating event. ...
... A comprehensive drought early warning and information delivery system is critical for tracking these changes in spatial coverage and severity. As has been noted, (Monnik, 2000;Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013) the main constraints on early warning information system implementation include: Lack of a national and regional drought policy framework; Limited coordination institutions that provide different types of drought early warning, risk management and risk reduction, that results from a national policy; and Inadequate social impact indicators to form part of a comprehensive early warning system and inform policy response. ...
... The ability to cope with drought also varies considerably from country to country and from one region, community, or population group to another. Assessments of drought early warning and information systems (DEWIS) illustrate that the most successful: (1) integrate social vulnerability indicators with physical variables across timescales; (2) embrace risk communication as an interactive social process and; (3) support governance of a collaborative framework for early warning across spatial scales (Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). Monitoring coping responses, that is the sequential or hierarchical strategies that households use to fend off hunger and preserve their productive assets, is critical but still in its infancy primarily because local observers are needed to determine the meaning of scarcity responses. ...
From the preceding discussions it is clear that in most cases, governments and international organizations have been unable to respond effectively to drought. This inability to respond was recognized by workshop participants as a serious problem of global dimensions that can only be solved through interdisciplinary studies and cooperation between scientists and policy makers.
... From an adaptation standpoint, many social and economic systems employ buffers to respond to slow onset hazards (e.g. storage, water transfers, purchase of grain) but lack response capabilities as drought intensifies and buffers are depleted (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013). Seismic risks remain in the Americas, in southern Europe, in many earthquake-prone regions of Asia and the Pacific, and in New Zealand. ...
... The latter investment in spacecraft is estimated to be several hundred billion dollars in civilian spacecraft alone. Recent experience with earthquake damage (Zoback 2014), hurricane damage and related flooding from Superstorm Sandy (Rice and Dastagir 2013), massive forest fires (Mersereau 2013) and severe sustained drought in the western U.S. (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013), and flash flooding from extreme rain events in Colorado (Isidone 2013) all suggest that North America is increasingly vulnerable to extreme natural hazards. Superstorm Sandy, in particular, illustrates the fact that one type of natural hazard can trigger other, cascading sequences of societal disruptions that can end up costing tens of billions of dollars and that can have impacts lasting months or even years after the initiating event. ...
... The examples from the ISIDIS in Casablanca and elsewhere illustrate that effective early warning depends upon a multisectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among all concerned actors at each stage in the warning process from monitoring to response (Glantz, 2004;Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). ...
... The links between the community-based approach and the national and global EWSs are relatively weak (Birkmann et al., 2011;Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). Monnik (2000) noted, some years ago, that the central constraints on implementation include: ...
Drought is among the most damaging, and least understood, of all “natural” hazards. Although some droughts last a single season and affect only small areas, the instrumental and paleoclimate records show that droughts have sometimes continued for decades and have impacted millions of square kilometers in North America, West Africa, and East Asia. To cross the spectrum of potential drivers and impacts, drought information systems have multiple sub-systems which include an integrated risk assessment, communication and decision support system of which early warning is a central component and output. An early warning system is much more than a forecast – it is a linked risk information (including people׳s perception of risk) and communication system that actively engages communities involved in preparedness. There are numerous drought systems warning systems being implemented at different scales of governance. We draw on the lessons of over 21 drought early warning systems around the world, in both developing and developed countries and at regional, national and community levels. The successes illustrate that effective early warning depends upon a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among all concerned actors at each stage in the warning process from monitoring to response and evaluation. However, the links between the community-based approach and the national and global EWSs are relatively weak. Using the rich experience of information systems across the globe, this paper identifies pathways for knowledge management and action at the relevant scales for decision-making in response to a changing climate.
... A comprehensive drought early warning and information delivery system is critical for tracking these changes in spatial coverage and severity. As has been noted, (Monnik, 2000;Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013) the main constraints on early warning information system implementation include: ...
... The ability to cope with drought also varies considerably from country to country and from one region, community, or population group to another. Assessments of drought early warning and information systems (DEWIS) illustrate that the most successful: (1) integrate social vulnerability indicators with physical variables across timescales; (2) embrace risk communication as an interactive social process and; (3) support governance of a collaborative framework for early warning across spatial scales (Pulwarty and Verdin, 2013). Monitoring coping responses, that is the sequential or hierarchical strategies that households use to fend off hunger and preserve their productive assets, is critical but still in its infancy primarily because local observers are needed to determine the meaning of scarcity responses. ...
There is increasing concern worldwide about the ineffectiveness of current drought management practices that are largely based on crisis management. These practices are reactive and, therefore, only treat the symptoms (impacts) of drought rather than the underlying causes for the vulnerabilities associated with impacts. Through the adoption of national drought policies that are focused on risk reduction and complemented by drought mitigation or preparedness plans at various levels of government, the coping capacity of nations to manage droughts can be improved. The time for adopting an approach that emphasizes drought risk reduction is now, given the spiraling impacts of droughts in an ever-increasing number of sectors and the current and projected trends for the increased frequency, severity and duration of drought events in association with a changing climate. This paper discusses the underlying concepts of drought, the principles and objectives of national drought policies and a drought planning process that has been effective in the preparation of drought mitigation plans.
... Before farmers and villagers leave the agricultural sector, they use savings and precautionary reserves [103]. Because of their deep attachment to the agricultural sector, they rarely leave it until the environment and the agricultural sector satisfy their needs, so they continue to work in that sector [104]. To maintain the resilience of farmers in the agricultural sector, post-and preagricultural activities must be developed so that villagers can compensate for the drop in income caused by the drought by working in these sectors. ...
In recent years, rural-farmer families have encountered a higher level of vulnerability to drought than all other communities in the world including Iran. As well, their vulnerability has been intensified due to the gap in the previous research on resilience and the lack of a comprehensive program for their sustainability in drought conditions. To fill this gap, this research pursued two goals: (i) studying the resilience level of rural-farmer families in drought conditions and (ii) studying the factors underpinning resilience improvement. Given the drought severity in the region, the statistical population consisted of all rural farmers in Kerman province, southeastern Iran. Data were analyzed in the SPSS software package. The main research instrument was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was estimated by Cronbach's alpha. Rural households in the study had weak resilience and livelihood assets, and their situation worsened with increasing drought. The results also revealed a negative significant relationship between drought severity and the resilience of rural-farmer families. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis revealed that 24 indicators of livelihood assets (financial, social, human, natural, physical) accounted for 84% of the variance in improving rural households' resilience under drought conditions.
... Flash drought, which is not explicitly addressed by the current WMO framework, emphasizes the need for early warning systems to be restructured as fully coupled integrated information systems based on understanding both the physical processes underlying drought propagation and impacts, and the human role in exacerbating and mitigating drought. An early warning information system is much more than a forecast; it is an integrated risk information and communication system that actively engages communities involved in preparedness and response (Pulwarty and Verdin 2013;Pulwarty and Sivakumar 2014). Effective drought early warning depends upon continuous multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication among all concerned actors throughout the process, from monitoring to response and evaluation. ...
Flash droughts, characterized by their unusually rapid intensification, have garnered increasing attention within the weather, climate, agriculture, and ecological communities in recent years due to their large environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Because flash droughts intensify quickly, they require different early warning capabilities and management approaches than are typically used for slower-developing “conventional” droughts. In this essay, we describe an integrated research-and-applications agenda that emphasizes the need to reconceptualize our understanding of flash drought within existing drought early warning systems by focusing on opportunities to improve monitoring and prediction. We illustrate the need for engagement among physical scientists, social scientists, operational monitoring and forecast centers, practitioners, and policy makers to inform how they view, monitor, predict, plan for, and respond to flash drought. We discuss five related topics that together constitute the pillars of a robust flash drought early warning system, including the development of 1) a physically based identification framework, 2) comprehensive drought monitoring capabilities, and 3) improved prediction over various time scales that together aid 4) impact assessments and 5) guide decision-making and policy. We provide specific recommendations to illustrate how this five-fold approach could be used to enhance decision-making capabilities of practitioners, develop new areas of research, and provide guidance to policy makers attempting to account for flash drought in drought preparedness and response plans.
... Increasing public responsibility for water supply, continuously promoting, evaluating user feedback and demonstrating the effects and ways of mitigating drought are important issues for society. Another important issue is that communication with decision-makers should be clear, and the level of preparedness for mitigation needs to be increased (Pulwarty & Verdin, 2013). There are lots of examples of building relationships with government agencies, NGOs, university research groups and the public to help mitigate the impact. ...
The extraterrestrial impacts on our planet can be broadly divided into two groups. The first is the activity of the Sun, which is the source of life on Earth. The second is the impact of meteor showers, which cause impacts, or impact phenomena, which form small or large circular symmetrical craters. This compilation describes the physical background of these processes and their effects on the living environment. Extraterrestrial impacts ranging from small disturbances (small earthquakes) to major ones (the extinction of dinosaurs in the Upper Cretaceous in Earth’s history) can significantly impact humanity. The damage from impacts is much less likely to occur than any of the natural hazards analysed earlier, but we outline the options available to mitigate the adverse impacts.
... Drought has several major impacts including loss of production, increased poverty, food insecurity, reduced incomes, reduced human well-being, and increased mental illness (Calzadilla et al., 2013;Anik et al., 2021). Consequently, droughts reduce the sense of belonging in rural households, leading to increased out-migration from rural areas (Pulwarty & Verdin, 2013). Drought thus affects rural households in terms of livability and sustainability (Figueroa B & Rotarou, 2016). ...
Rural areas, where most people depend on agriculture, are extremely vulnerable to the drought that destroys agriculture, depopulates villages, and drastically reduces rural household livability (RHL). However, previous studies tended to focus on the adoption of drought adaptation strategies without defining and prioritizing their effectiveness to improve RHL. This study aimed to fill this gap in previous research by evaluating drought adaptation strategies' effectiveness to explain RHL in Iran. The participants of the study were all rural households in Hindijan city, Khuzestan province (southwest of Iran). To evaluate the adaptation strategies at RHL level, 42 strategies were classified into six categories (farm management, crop management, financial management, irrigation and water management, social activities and physical infrastructure management). According to the results, the studied rural households in southwestern Iran had low livability. The results also showed that the six adaptation categories explained 64.2% of the variance in RHL under drought conditions, which is quite a significant level. The most important adaptation classes under drought conditions were farming strategies and crop management. Overall, these results can be used to improve RHL and drought management for policymakers in this area.
... The study was conducted over California and Nevada in the western U.S. Recently, the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) began development of the California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System (CA-NV DEWS) [24] with a goal of providing information on drought and wildfire to CA-NV DEWS stakeholders and the wildland fire management community. Predictive Service Areas (PSAs), spatial boundaries used by Predictive Services for wildland fire activity monitoring and forecasting, were used as spatial averaging domains for all indices. ...
Relationships between drought indices and fire danger outputs are examined to (1) incorporate fire risk information into the National Integrated Drought Information System California–Nevada Drought Early Warning System and (2) provide a baseline analysis for application of drought indices into a fire risk management framework. We analyzed four drought indices that incorporate precipitation and evaporative demand (E0) and three fire indices that reflect fuel moisture and potential fire intensity. Seasonally averaged fire danger outputs were most strongly correlated to multi-scalar drought indices that use E0 (the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)) at approximately annual time scales that reflect buildup of antecedent drought conditions. Results indicate that EDDI and SPEI can inform seasonal fire potential outlooks at the beginning of summer. An E0 decomposition case study of conditions prior to the Tubbs Fire in Northern California indicate high E0 (97th percentile) driven predominantly by low humidity signaled increased fire potential several days before the start of the fire. Initial use of EDDI by fire management groups during summer and fall 2018 highlights several value-added applications, including seasonal fire potential outlooks, funding fire severity level requests, and assessing set-up conditions prior to large, explosive fire cases.
... The study was conducted over California and Nevada in the western U.S. Recently, the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) began development of the California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System (CA-NV DEWS) [24] with a goal of providing information on drought and wildfire to CA-NV DEWS stakeholders and the wildland fire management community. Predictive Service Areas (PSAs), spatial boundaries used by Predictive Services for wildland fire activity monitoring and forecasting, were used as spatial averaging domains for all indices. ...
Relationships between drought and fire danger indices are examined to 1) incorporate fire risk information into the National Integrated Drought Information System California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System and 2) provide a baseline analysis for application of drought indices into a fire risk management framework. We analyzed four drought indices that incorporate precipitation and evaporative demand (E0) and three fire indices that reflect fuel moisture and potential fire intensity. Seasonally averaged fire danger indices were most strongly correlated to multi-scalar drought indices that use E0 (the Evaporative Demand Drought Index [EDDI] and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index [SPEI]) at approximately annual time scales that reflect buildup of antecedent drought conditions. Results indicate that EDDI and SPEI can inform seasonal fire potential outlooks at the beginning of summer. An E0 decomposition case study of conditions prior to the Tubbs Fire in Northern California indicate high E0 (97th percentile) driven predominantly by low humidity signaled increased fire potential several days before the start of the fire. Initial use of EDDI by fire management groups during summer and fall 2018 highlights several value-added applications, including seasonal fire potential outlooks, funding fire severity level requests, and assessing set-up conditions prior to large, explosive fire cases.
... Drought Early Warning System (CA-NV DEWS) [24] with a goal of providing information on 94 drought and wildfire to CA-NV DEWS stakeholders and the wildland fire management community. ...
Relationships between drought and fire danger indices are examined to 1) incorporate fire risk information into the National Integrated Drought Information System California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System and 2) provide a baseline analysis for application of drought indices into a fire risk management framework. We analyzed four drought indices that incorporate precipitation and evaporative demand (E0) and three fire indices that reflect fuel moisture and potential fire intensity. Seasonally averaged fire danger indices were most strongly correlated to multi-scalar drought indices that use E0 (the Evaporative Demand Drought Index [EDDI] and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index [SPEI]) at approximately annual time scales that reflect buildup of antecedent drought conditions. Results indicate that EDDI and SPEI can inform seasonal fire potential outlooks at the beginning of summer. An E0 decomposition case study of conditions prior to the Tubbs Fire in Northern California indicate high E0 (97th percentile) driven predominantly by low humidity signaled increased fire potential several days before the start of the fire. Initial use of EDDI by fire management groups during summer and fall 2018 highlights several value-added applications, including seasonal fire potential outlooks, funding fire severity level requests, and assessing set-up conditions prior to large, explosive fire cases.
... Los vínculos entre los enfoques de base comunitarios y los Sistemas de Alerta Temprana nacionales y globales son todavía relativamente débiles (Birkmann et al., 2011;Pulwarty & Verdin, 2013). A pesar de que, Monnik (2000) ha señalado, hace unos años que las limitaciones centrales sobre su aplicación incluyen: ...
RESUMEN Las sequías se encuentran entre los tipos más comúnes de desastres, generando enormes impactos socioeconómicos, especialmente cuando se considera el carácter silencioso que tienen. Son cada vez más frecuentes, intensos y de mayor duración, el cúal nos da una idea de lo que puede suceder con la acentuación del cambio climático. Este artículo tiene por objetivo proporcionar una visión general de las medidas y políticas que abordan la prevención y la preparación para sequías, frente a los impactos del cambio climático, en el Estado de Ceará, Brasil, con el fin de permitir la comprensión de las políticas y programas, experiencias y perspectivas del proceso de la elaboración del Plan de Gestión Integral de Riesgo de Desastres del Estado de Ceará, Brasil; así como en el desarrollo del Sistema de Alerta Temprana (SAT), frente a la coordinación política, lo que dio lugar a la creación de la Comisión de las Sequías. Como resultado, entendemos esta estrategia, de preparación para sequías, como una herramienta capaz de aumentar la capacidad de adaptación y resistencia de los procesos políticos. En este sentido, se presentan las experiencias acumuladas por el Estado de Ceará, en los procesos de gestión de sequías que muestran un potencial prometedor para la replicabilidad en otros países de América Latina, también son objeto de amenazas el cambio climático que puede imponer, en combinación con el análisis de los riesgos asociados-políticos/institucionales/culturales-, en el desarrollo de políticas públicas para, así presentar conclusiones, lecciones aprendidas y recomendaciones. Palabras-clave: Preparación para Sequías, Políticas contra Sequías,
Despite recent studies emphasising the dual human and physical nature of droughts, there is a lag in advancing this insight in drought monitoring and early warning systems (DEWS). These systems mainly depend on physical indices and often overlook the experiences of affected communities, resulting in a drought-monitoring gap. This study introduces the Monitoring Efficacy Matrix (MEM) to assess the alignment between officially monitored data, relevant to drought impacts, and the actual experiences of a rural community in Northeast Brazil, which we investigated through interviews. The MEM revealed 'drought-monitoring challenges', composed of mismatches and blindspots between the official data and local experiences. Mismatches stem from varying spatial and temporal levels; blindspots arise from the diversity of local resilience strategies, or vulnerabilities, influencing drought impacts. What we define as a ‘drought-monitoring gap’ results from the tendency to prioritise specific indices and pragmatic spatial and temporal levels over a comprehensive drought-monitoring approach. We posit that a first step to bridge this gap can draw inspiration from recent drought-impact-monitoring initiatives, which are focused on the continuous monitoring of non-extreme events by municipal technical extension officers. However, ultimately bridging the drought-monitoring gap remains conditional on the adaptation of DEWS frameworks to accommodate the integration of qualitative and local data representing the relevant drought-related local context.
The chapter deals with the issues of water abundance and water scarcity. In general, too much water means the dangers of increased water runoff and discharge. In the first part, the different types of floods and inland excess water are summarised, along with their causes and the human and financial consequences of this natural hazard. It also deals with flash floods, a specific type of flood, which are becoming more frequent and destructive due to climate change. It details the drought due to water scarcity, which is the most serious natural hazard in many regions of the world. This hazard is regionally differed due to climate change, but its increasing size and intensity sometimes causes damage at least as severe as earthquakes. However, the spread of information about this hazard is slow by nature and therefore does not appear to be a serious problem. The risk of soil and wind erosion is also analysed in this chapter. This process is often not considered a natural hazard in the strict sense of the term, because it is generally not a natural hazard from a human point of view but can cause significant damage from an economic point of view. This chapter also looks at ways of reducing this effect.
Statement of the Problem: The agricultural and rural livelihood sector in Iran has faced successive droughts in recent years and has posed a major challenge to the sustainability of rural communities. Many rural households left rural areas due to the inability to cope with the drought and migrated to urban communities. Therefore, identifying the factors affecting mental ability in critical situations is of great importance. Purpose: The main aim of the present study was to investigate the role of spatial belonging on the psychological ability to deal with drought in the central part of Bavi County. Methodology: The statistical population of this study consisted of all rural households in Bavi County of Khuzestan province. Using the Cochran formula and the stratified proportional sampling method, 190 individuals were selected as the study sample. The data collection tool of the study was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts, and its reliability was established by calculating Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient (α > 0.7). Data analysis was done using SPSSwin18, Lisrel8.54, and Arc GIS10.5 software. Results: The results of correlation analysis showed a positive and significant relationship between all dimensions of the sense of spatial belonging (cognition of behavior, social bond, spatial identity, and emotional attachment) of the studied families and their psychological ability. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the dimension of rural spatial belonging with the coefficient of determination 0.46 (γ= 0.68, t= 5.46) had a positive and significant effect on the psychological ability of the households. Innovation: Considering that no research has been done in this field in Khuzestan province due to the unfavorable weather conditions, the present study is considered as an innovative aspect for the present study.
Drought information systems have multiple sub-systems which include an integrated risk assessment, communication and decision support system of which early warning is a central component and output. There are numerous drought systems warning systems being implemented at different scales of governance from the international to the community. An early warning system is much more than a forecast-it is a linked risk information (including peoples’ perception of risk) and communication system that actively engages communities involved in preparedness. The successes illustrate that effective early warning depends upon a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among all concerned actors at each stage in the warning process from monitoring to response and evaluation. However, the links between the community-based approach and the national and global EWSs are relatively weak. The paper identifies pathways for knowledge management and action at the relevant scales for decision-making.
Integrated water resources management provides an often-recommended governance framework to manage water resources in a sustainable way. The application of this framework on Transboundary Rivers brings additional challenges, which can be exacerbated due to climate changes and extremes (such as droughts). These changes affect the operation of water infrastructures and will affect water management practices. Thus, the understanding and development of adaptation measures (across socio-economic, environmental and administrative systems) are critical, mainly on drought prone transboundary river basins. The paper draws on research conducted to 1) assess climatic risks in those watersheds, 2) describe the challenges in water resources management in the context of climate change, and 3) draw lessons for improving the use of research-based information. Two case studies were selected, the Colorado River Basin (North America) and the Guadiana River (Iberian Peninsula), the latter of which in the context of the five river basins shared between Portugal and Spain. Research and experience in these Basins show that several paradoxes in multistate water management and governance across borders militate against the accurate assessment of socio-economic impacts and the effective use of scientific information for meeting short-term needs in reducing longer-term vulnerabilities. Lessons drawn from both studies, but not always learned in practice, abound. These lessons include an expanded use of incentives for improving collaboration, water-use efficiency, demand management and for the development of climate services to inform water-related management as new threats arise. Recommendations are established for more effectively linking risk assessment approaches with resilience strategies that are applicable in practice and available to decision makers in a changing climate.
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