WMO to ensure global early warning systems coverage in 5 years

WMO to ensure global early warning systems coverage in 5 years

Subject: Geography

Section: Climate

Context:  On World Meteorological Day March 23, 2022, António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general said. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) will lead an effort to ensure every person on Earth is protected by early warning systems within five years

Concept:

An early warning system for floods, droughts, heatwaves or storms, is an integrated system which alerts people to hazardous weather. It also informs how governments, communities and individuals can act to minimise the possible impacts of the weather event.

The report had highlighted 10 climate-related disaster events, each of them costing $1.5 billion or more. The most expensive such event was Hurricane Ida that cost $65 billion. Two of these events occurred in India — Cyclone Tauktae and Cyclone Yaas.

Between 1970 and 2019, a weather, climate or water-related disaster has occurred on average every day — taking the lives of 115 people and causing $202 million in losses daily, according to a 2021 WMO report on disaster statistics.

In June 2020, the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, in collaboration with the disaster management department, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, launched the Integrated Flood Warning system for Mumbai, referred to as iFLOWS-MUMBAI.

iFLOWS-MUMBAI:

• It is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)
• The warning system will relay alerts of possible flood-prone areas anywhere between six to 72 hours in advance.
• The system can provide all information regarding possible flood-prone areas, likely height of the floodwater, location-wise problem areas and calculate the vulnerability and risk of elements exposed to flood.
• Mumbai is only the second city in the country after Chennai to get this system. Similar systems are being developed for Bengaluru and Kolkata.

Working method:

• Amount of rainfall, tidal waves and storm tides are the primary source for the system.
• The system includes weather models from the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), India Meteorological Department (IMD), and field data from the rain gauge network of 165 stations.
• In the last two years, researchers have been conducting studies to provide real-time weather information by measuring the city’s rainfall, how much water drained out, topography, land use, infrastructure development, population, lakes, creeks and data on river bathymetry of all rivers namely Mithi, Dahisar, Oshiwara, Poisar and Ulhas.