warning of disaster is conveyed through
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Answer:
An Early Warning System (EWS) can be defined as a set of capacities needed to. generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information of the. possible extreme events or disasters (e.g. floods, drought, fire, earthquake and. tsunamis) that threatens people's lives.
Answer:
Through history disasters have destroyed lives and livelihoods, killing people and damaging homes and businesses. Disasters in the past 35 years have taken an estimated 2.5 million lives and cost more than US$1.5 billion, mainly in developing countries.
Disasters result from natural and biological hazards (floods or infectious diseases, for example) as well as complex sociopolitical emergencies and industrial hazards (droughts or radioactive leaks).
The extent of the damage caused by a hazard is related not just to its severity, but also to the capacity of people living in disaster-prone areas to prepare for and resist it. Efforts to reduce disaster risk have therefore focused, in part, on developing early warning systems to provide timely and effective information that enables people and communities to respond when a disaster hits.
Early warning systems are combinations of tools and processes embedded within institutional structures, coordinated by international — and sometimes national — agencies. Whether they focus on one particular hazard or many, these systems are composed of four elements: knowledge of the risk, a technical monitoring and warning service, dissemination of meaningful warnings to at-risk people, and public awareness and preparedness to act. Warning services lie at the core of these systems, and how well they operate depends on having a sound scientific basis for predicting and forecasting, and the capability to run reliably 24 hours a day.
Scientific and technological advances (Box 1) have driven marked improvements in the quality, timeliness and lead time of hazard warnings, and in the operation of integrated observation networks. But advances in technology alone are not enough — and in some cases they can even create obstacles to the capacity of vulnerable populations to respond.