Asian Early Warning Systems: A View

Early warning has been recognized as an effective approach for reducing disaster risk and the loss of life. At the institutional level, there has been a paradigm shift from single hazard to multi-hazard early warning and from providing hazard information to providing risk and impact information. Acknowledging the importance of early warning in reducing disaster risk, the Sendai Framework's Target 7 calls to substantially increase the availability of, and access to, multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people.

This issue of Southasiadisasters.net is titled "Early Warning Systems" and highlights the importance of such systems in helping to minimize the detrimental impact of disasters on communities and assets. The effectiveness of such systems depends upon the active involvement of at-risk communities, facilitation of risk awareness and dissemination of alerts and warnings to ensure a constant state of preparedness.

This issue highlights the various aspects of early warning systems in India and South Asia such as leveraging social media for early warning, early warning in hilly regions, community participation in early warning, etc. This issue also highlights how there are gaps in effective implementation of people-centred, multi-hazard warning systems and what can be done to seamlessly integrate risk knowledge and impact information into such early warning mechanisms.