Flood early warning in practice: Lessons learned from a comparative analysis

This paper discusses the lessons learned from a comparative analysis of Early Warning Systems (EWS) for floods in Europe (Belgium) and Africa (Egypt, Mali). This paper focuses on the substantial challenges in the effective use of an EWS as a tool to strengthen preparedness and community resilience to floods and droughts.

Among the recommendations for the post-2015 Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) framework in the area of EWS and flood risk management are the following (pp. 22-25):

• better use of science and local knowledge in disaster risk reduction;
• better risk communication;
• local authorities and communities at the centre;
• better loss accounting and vulnerability analysis will further boost the added value of an EWS; and
• think of multiple purposes for an EWS, preferably from the design phase.

​​This document is an input paper for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.