WMO Disaster Risk Reduction Activities - Introduction

WMO Disaster Risk Reduction Activities - Introduction

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is at the core of the mission of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services(NMHSs) of its 191 Members. WMO, through its scientific and technical programmes, its network of Global Meteorological Centresand Regional Specialized Meteorological and Climate Centres, and the NMHSs, provide scientific and technical services. This includes observing, detecting, monitoring, predicting and early warning of a wide range of weather–, climate- and water-related hazards. Through a coordinated approach, and working with its partners, WMO addresses the information needs and requirements of the disaster risk management community in an effective and timely fashion. Every year, disasters related to meteorological, hydrological and climate hazards cause significant loss of life, and set back economic and social development by years, if not decades. From 1970 to 2012, 8,835 weather, climate and water-related disasters were reported globally. Together they caused the loss of 1.94 million lives and economic damages of US$ 2.4 trillion. The worst ten reported disasters in terms of human lives lost represented only 0.1 per cent of the total number of events but accounted for 69 per cent of the total lives lost (1.34 million). The ten most costly disasters accounted for 19 per cent of overall economic losses (US$ 443.6 billion). Storms, droughts, floods and extreme temperatures all figure on both lists of the worst disasters. Storms and floods accounted for 79 per cent of the total number of disasters due to weather, water, and climate extremes and caused 55 per cent of lives lost and 86 per cent of economic losses. Droughts caused 35 per cent of lives lost, mainly due to the severe African droughts of 1975 and 1983–1984. In 2005, government’s endorsed the “Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters (HFA) to build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. HFA calls for a paradigm shift: from emergency response to a more proactive, holistic and systematic approach with strong focus on risk reduction. The paradigm shift from post disaster response to a proactive risk reduction approach requires meteorological, hydrological and climate services to support science-based risk management decisions, as well as investments in early warning systems (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Elements of a comprehensive DRR Framework based on the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015

The emergence of climate prediction provides opportunities to increase the lead times of early warnings (Figure 3). For instance, seasonal climate outlooks help governments predict – and manage – excessive or deficient rainfall. Historical data has traditionally been used for analysis of hazards patterns. But this is no longer sufficient, because hazard characteristics are changing as a result of climate change. For instance a 100-year flood or drought may become a 30-year flood or drought or, simply said, more severe events could happen more frequently in the future weather and climate services with forecasts from the next hour to seasonal through to decadal time scales are therefore needed to inform long-term investments and strategic planning, for instance, coastal zone management, development of new building codes and the retrofitting of infrastructure to withstand more frequent and severe hazards.

Figure 3: Seamless hydrometeorological and climate services for various risk management applications