Integrating climate forecast in humanitarian decision making: How to get from early warning to early action?

Abstract: Disaster risk management efforts currently focus on long-term preventive measures and post-disaster response. Outside of these, there are many short-term actions, such as evacuation or distribution of water purifications tablets, medical supplies or flood response drills, which can be implemented in the period of time between the warning and a potential disaster to reduce the risk of impacts. However, this precious window of time is often overlooked in the case of climate and weather forecasts, which can indicate a heightened risk of disaster but are rarely used to initiate preventive action. The aim of this thesis is to enhance knowledge about, and how to facilitate, the choices facing humanitarian actors whether to undertake preventive actions in response to climate forecasts to prevent potential impacts of a disaster. In order to meet the thesis aim, three different objectives were set. A scoping study of scientific literature was then conducted in order to meet the objectives. The search strategy under the scoping study identified 1375 papers, of which 20 were identified as primary papers relevant to the research. Data were extracted from these 20 papers to identify challenges and opportunities when implementing early actions. Five categories of challenges and three categories of opportunities were identified upon analysis. Further, papers were assessed to understand the availability and reliability of forecast at different timescales. Likewise, different aspects characterizing decision situation to undertake early action and methods to link early warning with early action were identified. The findings from this paper are expected to help researchers and practitioners in humanitarian sector to understand the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing the early action based on forecast and also benefit from the synthesized knowledge about strategies that are being undertaken to link early warning with early action.