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When early warning is not enough

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Abstract

Advances in climate science allow for skillful early warning of high-impact weather at timescales of days to seasons. Improved science, however, might be insufficient to reduce risks of current and future climate stresses. Deeper understanding of the decision-making context as well as barriers to the uptake of early warning, nature of vulnerabilities and risks, and risk-reduction capacities is needed.

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... The existence of these detection tools is the key to reducing disaster risk, but it has not completely reduced disaster risk, public awareness is still needed about the importance of recognizing disaster threats that give rise to disaster risk. (29) The existence of an early warning system is more about the speed at which stakeholders in a disaster can make decisions, when the community must be alert, alert and immediately get out of the danger radius by evacuating, (30) it is the task of the forum to train it. Disaster risk reduction forums as a capacity must be able to map which communities are classified as vulnerable and are located in disaster-prone areas and which communities are at low risk of being exposed to disaster threats. ...
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Disaster risk reduction forums as a capacity in disaster resilient villages often experience difficulties in realizing disaster preparedness. It is necessary to prioritize any element that is immediately realized, so that what is done truly makes society have resilience and toughness. five disaster preparedness parameters that must be prepared by the forum. These five parameters have 25 elements as constructs. Elements as a construct of disaster preparedness parameters become an instrument called Difficulty and Usefulness of Elements in Disaster Preparedness (DUEDP-Questionnaire). This DUEDP questionnaire serves as a guide enumerator for interviewing forum administrators and communities in 23 disaster-resilient villages in the Magetan district. Data was collected for three months starting May-July 2023. The element prioritization technique uses the Quadrant of Difficulty and Usefulness (QoDU) method. This method focuses on elements in the upper left quadrant, namely elements that are very useful but how to make it happen is very difficult. The research results place the elements of involving vulnerable groups in socializing about disasters, providing village funds for disaster management, preparing contingency plan documents, providing early warning system tools, and training families to provide disaster preparedness bags as the main priorities that must be immediately realized by the forum.
... Intense tropical cyclone Idai reached category 4 status in the Mozambique Channel, before making landfall as category 3 hurricane at Beira around midnight on 14 March 2019 (Engelbrecht and Vogel 2021). In the destructive winds, storm surge and pluvial and fluvial flooding that followed, hundreds of people lost their lives. ...
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Southern Africa is a climate change hotspot with projected warming and drying trends amplifying stresses in a naturally warm, dry and water-stressed region. Despite model-projected uncertainty in rainfall change over the eastern escarpment of South Africa, strong model agreement in projections indicates that southern African is likely to become generally drier. Sharply increased regional warming and associated strong reductions in soil-moisture availability and increases in heat-waves and high fire-danger days are virtually certain under low mitigation futures. Changes are detectible in observed climate trends for the last few decades, including regional warming, drying in both the summer and winter rainfall regions, and increases in intense rainfall events. The southern African climate is at risk of tipping into a new regime, with unprecedented impacts, such as day-zero drought in the Gauteng province of South Africa, collapse of the maize and cattle industries, heat-waves of unprecedented intensity and southward shifts in intense tropical cyclone landfalls. Many of these adverse changes could be avoided if the Paris Accord’s global goal were to be achieved, but research is urgently required to quantify the probabilities of such tipping points in relation to future levels of global warming. Adaptation planning is an urgent regional priority.
... Perlu disadari sepenuhnya bahwa ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi dewasa ini sudah mampu menghasilkan alat deteksi bencana; seperti alat deteksi banjir, alat deteksi gunung berapi, alat deteksi gelombang tsunami, alat deteksi tanah longsor, alat deteksi angin putting beliung, dsb. Keberadaan alat deteksi tersebut merupakan kunci untuk mengurnagi risiko bencana, namun belum sepenuhnya mengurangi risiko bencana, masih dibutuhkan kesadaran masyarakat pentingnya mengenali ancaman bencana yang menimbulkan risiko bencana (Engelbrecht & Vogel, 2021). Keberadaan sistim peringatan dini lebih pada kecepatan pemangku kepentingan dalam kebencanaan untuk mengambil keputusan, kapan masyarakat harus waspada, siaga dan segera keluar dari radius bahaya dengan cara mengungsi (Fakhruddin et al., 2015). ...
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Monograf yang ada di hadapan pembaca yang budiman, merupakan salah satu bentuk luaran hasil penelitian dosen Poltekkes Kemenkes Surabaya. Penelitian yang dilakukan fokus pada upaya memprioritaskan elemen yang ada dalam parameter kesiapsiagaan bencana berbasis masyarakat. Terdapat lima parameter kesiapsiagaan bencana, terdiri dari parameter pengetahuan dan sikap, regulasi atau kebijakan, respon tanggap darurat, sistim peringatan dini dan mobilisasi sumber daya. Sebenarnya terdapat tambahan satu parameter yang perlu didiskusikan oleh subyek yang aktif dalam penelitian yaitu parameter pengawasan. Namun parameter pemngawasan menurut pakar kebencananan kurang layak sehingga dihapus dari daftar parameter. Hasil uji kelayakan elemen dalam parameter terdapat 25 elemen yang perlu diprioritaskan. Langkah awal dalam penelitian adalah memprioritaskan enam parameter, mana parameter yang sangat dibutuhkan tetapi sangat sulit pengadaannya/ketersediannyan itulah yang dilakukan dulu. Metode yang digunakan untuk memprioritaskan adalah QoDU (Quadrant of Difficulty-Usefullness). Metode ini mengarahkan bahwa parameter yang berada di dalam kuadran dua (sangat dibutuhkan/sangat bermanfaat tetapi ketersediaanya sangat sulit) itulah yang diprioritaskan. Setelah ditemukan parameter yang prioritas, diikuti seleksi elemen-elemen yang ada dalam parameter prioritas tersebut menjadi fokus kedua untuk prioritas. Berdasarkan hasil analisis QoDU terdapat dua parameter utama yang segera ditindaklanjuti untuk diwujudkan yaitu parameter mobilisasi sumber daya dan sistim peringatan dini. Elemen prioritas yang segera diwujudkan dari kedua parameter ini adalah penyusunan dokumen rencana kontinjensi dan sosialisasi sistim peringatan dini dalam bentuk pelatihan simulasi respon tanggap darurat. Subyek penelitian adalah pengurus forum PRB Destana dan masyarakat terdampak. Oleh karena itu tugas forum beserta masyarakat harus melakukan upaya mewujudkan elemen dalam parameter yang sangat bermanfaat namun sulit diwujudkannya, agar masyarakat lebih siap dan lebih tangguh dalam menghadapi bencana. Terima kasih.
... (12) Millions of people in southern Africa live exposed to the impacts of climate variability and change, including subsistence farmers who depend on rain fed crops and pastures, and communities that live in informal settlements, where housing cannot usually protect against everyday vagaries of the weather not least for extremes such as heat waves, severe storms and flooding. (13) The impacts of rising temperatures, in particular heat waves and oppressive temperatures impacting on human comfort, health and mortality are a major source of concern.(1,3,14) Already in the next 10 years, heat waves of unprecedented intensity are highly likely to occur in the southern African region, posing life-threatening conditions, particularly for elderly people living in informal housing without easy access to cool water. ...
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