This book describes the interdisciplinary work of USAID's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET) and its influence on methodological and development policies in the US. This book describes FEWS NET's systems, methods and presents several illustrative case studies that will demonstrate the integration of both physical and social science disciplines in its work. The aim of this book is to bring the work of USAID's Famine Early warning System Network into the public domain.
Is it possible to see famines coming, to be prepared and to save possibly hundreds of thousands of lives? Or is this the wrong question? A famine is not a single natural catastrophe: it has different stages. Many societies have sophisticated strategies for coping – but these are becoming dramatically limited. Famine Early Warning System is about the people who are caught up in the process of famine. Peter Walker looks at how they perceive their predicament and what they do to avert mass starvation: and at what genuinely useful help can be offered in order to prevent irreversible disaster. Originally published in 1989
Drought risk management involves three pillars: drought early warning, drought vulnerability and risk assessment, and drought preparedness, mitigation, and response. This book collects in one place a description of all the key components of the first pillar, and describes strategies for fitting these pieces together. The best modern drought early warning systems incorporate and integrate a broad array of environmental information sources: weather station observations, satellite imagery, land surface and crop model simulations, and weather and climate model forecasts, and analyze this information in context-relevant ways that take into account exposure and vulnerability. Drought Early Warning and Forecasting: Theory and Practice assembles a comprehensive overview of these components, providing examples drawn from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the United States Drought Monitor. This book simultaneously addresses the physical, social, and information management aspects of drought early warning, and informs readers about the tools, techniques, and conceptual models required to effectively identify, predict, and communicate potential drought-related disasters. This book is a key text for postgraduate scientists and graduate and advanced undergraduate students in hydrology, geography, earth sciences, meteorology, climatology, and environmental sciences programs. Professionals dealing with disaster management and drought forecasting will also find this book beneficial to their work. Describes and discusses the strategies and components used in effective and integrated 21st century drought early warning systems Provides a one-stop-shop that describes in one book the observations, models, forecasts, indices, social context, and theory used in drought early warning Identifies the latest tools and approaches used to monitor and forecast drought, sources of predictive skill, and discusses the technical and theoretical details required to use these tools and approaches in a real-world setting
Since the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.
The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) is a U.S. government funded partnership working to improve food security in 17 drought-prone countries in Africa. The objective of FEWS NET is to help establish more effective, sustainable, and African-led food security and response planning networks that reduce the vulnerability of at-risk groups.
Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict, Security, grade: 1,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Over 900 million people were suffering from hunger in 2010 and in December the United Nations basic food price index reached a new record. The resulting food insecurity is often of chronic nature but may be temporally increased due to events like draughts, floods or conflicts. To enable timely and adequate response it is important to identify and forecast the most urgent arising food security crises where extensive international aid is needed. For this purpose there exist several food security early warning systems. They track the status of food supply, food access, food utilization and food stability to monitor where a crisis is impending. While a wide range of production indicators covers the supply side, other pillars are lacking behind. Therefore new vulnerability and health indicators are developed for the integration into early warning systems. This paper tries to draw attention to a partially neglected area in the intent to improve food security early warning systems - the link of food insecurity and conflict.
Space-based sensors are giving us an ever-closer and more comprehensive look at the earth's surface; they also have the potential to tell us about human activity. This volume examines the possibilities for using remote sensing technology to improve understanding of social processes and human-environment interactions. Examples include deforestation and regrowth in Brazil, population-environment interactions in Thailand, ancient and modern rural development in Guatemala, and urbanization in the United States, as well as early warnings of famine and disease outbreaks. The book also provides information on current sources of remotely sensed data and metadata and discusses what is involved in establishing effective collaborative efforts between scientists working with remote sensing technology and those working on social and environmental issues.
The use of famine early warning systems to anticipate and mitigate food crises provides a major opportunity to save more lives, protect more livelihoods, check rising costs, and close the widening funding gap. But all too often the link between early warning and early action fails, and the opportunity to mitigate a gathering crisis is lost. Rob Bailey considers in detail the various political, institutional, and organizational barriers to translating early warning of famine into early action to avert it, and he offers recommendations for overcoming them.
Written for a broad audience this book offers a comprehensive account of early warning systems for hydro meteorological disasters such as floods and storms, and for geological disasters such as earthquakes. One major theme is the increasingly important role in early warning systems played by the rapidly evolving fields of space and information technology. The authors, all experts in their respective fields, offer a comprehensive and in-depth insight into the current and future perspectives for early warning systems. The text is aimed at decision-makers in the political arena, scientists, engineers and those responsible for public communication and dissemination of warnings.
