Early Warning Systems in Disasters: Is Technology the Sole Determinant of Effectiveness in India Milieu?

Exclusion of the marginalized social groups plays a role in the reluctance of such social groups to evacuate leaving the already meagre livelihood assets that they possess.

Exclusion of the marginalized social groups plays a role in the reluctance of such social groups to evacuate leaving the already meagre livelihood assets that they possess. The fear among the least possessed of getting further dispossessed play a role in rendering Early Warning messages ineffective.   During the 2017 floods, a man hangs on barely to tend to his assets even when everything around is inundated. Herds of cattle are stranded as the flooding is still reported to be on a rising trend on 16th of August 2017 at Elginbridge in Uttar Pradesh.  (Photo: Animesh Prakash/Oxfam India)

With abrupt and erratic weather patterns as the new normal, disasters are becoming unmanageable.    
The monsoon floods of 2019 has engulfed as many as nine states at the end of August month. The reported human casualties thus far is alarmingly high. Talking of floods, India accounts for one-fifth of global deaths. This situation warrants adoption of the principles of “zero casualties” deep within the system.

The need of the hour is a much stronger adoption of two critical elements of prevention and mitigation within the disaster management framework. This calls for innovative approaches in disaster management establishing a continuum in entire spectrum from humanitarian response to disaster prevention and mitigation.

We, however, need to take note of the fact that India has taken giant strides in disaster management after the Super Cyclone of 1999. The super cyclone and every successive large disaster like Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Bhuj earthquake have led to some incremental system reforms. The strengthening of the early warning systems is one of these. The 2004 tsunami, which claimed nearly 200,000 lives brought home the need of an architecture for coordinated early warning system in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, the intergovernmental Oceanographic commission adopted a resolution to establish a global early warning system framework for ocean related hazards. In the subsequent year in 2005, the Hyogo Framework for Action was adopted which included risk assessment and early warning as one of its five themes and upheld equal importance in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

There are great examples where reforms have been adopted and actioned. Odisha has made strides from the time of Super Cyclone to Phailin to Fani. And yet among these silver linings we find that the death toll in some of the recent disasters in other parts of the country clearly points to the fact that there are still gaps in early warning systems and that it is an unfinished agenda.

Now, let us examine the state of flood forecasts and the loss of human lives. Between 1986 and 2008, India relayed 145349 flood forecasts with 95.35 percent accuracy. During the same period at least 34674 human casualties were reported in floods. Poor early warning dissemination is attributed as one of the major reasons for high casualties in disasters. The evolution of systems for dissemination of early warning to the local communities has not kept pace with the development of forecast technologies. 

In 2015, Oxfam India conducted an early warning gap assessment to analyse the existing structure of early warning systems in Odisha and identify the areas which may results into late dissemination and negative community actions particularly in disasters with less lead time.

The assessment highlighted that the ‘last mile’ connectivity to the ‘at risk’ communities still largely depends upon manual systems. On the side of community, it was found that the trust on accuracy of EW messages and the time of warning dissemination played a role as well. The assessment also suggested that the experiences of exclusion of the marginalized social groups plays a role in the reluctance of such social groups to evacuate leaving the already meagre livelihood assets that they possess. The fear among the least possessed of getting further dispossessed also play a role in rendering EW messages ineffective.   

In the end, technology is an important determinant of EW systems but the less acknowledged socio-economic factors too are important determinants in the success of early warning efforts. 

Low cost and low tech solutions should go hand in hand with the existing sophisticated high end technologies particularly in countries like India very large number of people are risks. Low cost solutions will enable blanket outreach. End to end early warning system should lay equal focus on all the four stages including risk assessments, forecast, communication and dissemination and community action. Efficiency of a robust early warning system is determined in the last mile which can be actualized through collective action only. And as rivers and disasters are not bound by political boundaries, transboundary approaches should also be built more strongly in the disaster management instruments at country and regional level. 

This article was first written for South Asia Disaster Report 2019