Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
NH9.14 | Data services in disaster risk reduction and resilience building in mountain and glacier environments
EDI
Data services in disaster risk reduction and resilience building in mountain and glacier environments
WMO and UNESCO
Convener: Luna Bharati | Co-conveners: Dipesh Chapagain, Washington Otieno
Technological advancements and data acquisition methods have greatly improved our ability to observe and understand the Earth's hydrological, climatic and cryospheric systems. Global meteorological and hydrological services have made substantial progress, leading to improved weather information services. Various hazard-specific and Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS) have been put in place. Additionally, disaster recording systems have also improved with several global disaster database and national disaster portals. However, the effective translation of these observations into actionable information remains a major challenge. Notably, there still exist prominent data-to-policy gaps in critical areas such as Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and the fortification of resilience in vulnerable environments. Furthermore, there are still gaps in incorporating citizen science to the warning value chain.
Therefore, despite the significant advancements, its uptake to policy and implementation is still limited in effectively reducing the impacts of disasters. The United Nations Secretary-General in 2022 announced the early warning for all action plan, with the objective of achieving universal early warning coverage by 2027 and urged all member states to support the aim of zero climate disasters by 2030. Nonetheless, the current progress in attaining these goals and targets presents significant challenges. The situation is particularly worse in developing countries and regions with high socio-economic and geographic challenges.
The further development and sharing of methods/tools by the scientific community is necessary to translate scientific information into a format that facilitates education, decision-making and policy formulation (UNESCO IHP IX, 2022-2029).
This session aims to explore the central role of data services in bridging the gap between observations and informed decision making in DRR and resilience research and planning in mountain and glacier environments. We focus on the following areas:
- Case studies demonstrating the importance of operational observation networks, global and national databases to improve DRR, CCA and early warning systems at national, regional and global scales.
- Citizen science and indigenous knowledge as an entry point in community-based early warning systems
- Contributions on interdisciplinary collaborations and existing hydrological initiatives, organisations and networks that provide modalities and frameworks