Detection, Alert and Warning Systems
By Dr Peter Williams co-chairs ARISE-US. His background includes 30 years in IBM, where he became an IBM Distinguished Engineer, and extensive experience in creating DRR tools such as the UN City Disaster Resilience Scorecard and its many offshoots, now used by hundreds of cities (and countries) globally. His PhD is in Politics.
Amid the UN Secretary General's "Early Warnings for All" initiative it is evident, from the US at least, that the warning systems we do have may not always work effectively. Complaints to this effect were heard from survivors of the recent LA wildfires. Before that we had widely divergent responses from different emergency management districts in California to a tsunami alert in December 2024, that turned out to be a false alarm; and the well-publicized non-use of the warning system in Lahaina, Hawaii wildfires in 2023.
Where they are provided, detection, alert and warning systems around the world suffer from many shortcomings:
Detection and transmission speed - in disaster events where speed is of the essence, transmission times and bureaucratic delays may reduce the time available to take action.
Reliability - false negatives (failure to detect or activate) and also false positives which undermine the credibility of the system. Related, there is the issue of warnings that are too broad, for example where people receive evacuation notices when they are far enough from the event or its impact that they do not need to evacuate.
Multi-hazard capability - the ability (or lack thereof) to differentiate between different disaster events, resulting potentially in wrong actions being taken. The ability to deal with cascading hazards (for example an earthquake followed by a dam failure) is a subset of this problem.
Reach - the ability to be received simultaneously by 100% of the affected population, via whatever channel, and in whatever language(s), work most effectively for them. For example, there may be an assumption that a smartphone based alerting system, perhaps combined with sirens, offers complete coverage - when segments of the population may not have smartphones, or may be out of earshot of the sirens (or both).
Overlap and inconsistency - often resulting from overlapping agencies and jurisdictions that have not coordinated thresholds, responsibilities and processes for the area in question.
Lack of context - for example, graduations to denote "be ready" and then "evacuate now".
Digestibility - alerts and warnings are delivered in a format, and with whatever supporting information may be required, to enable rapid, appropriate action by recipients, when this may be different for groups of recipients from different parts of the event area.
Accessibility – over 1.3 billion people across the globe have disabilities, and many more experience low or no literacy. Everyone needs actionable information in multiple formats that enable them to take personal protective measures and to assist their family and community.
Technology non-availability - for example, earthquake warnings are only now being developed and may be some years from widespread adoption.
Technology take-up - under-use of the technologies that are available, for reasons of cost, lack of awareness or trust, or inertia.
Integration with critical systems - PA systems, radio, TV, automated shut-down systems (eg for metros, safety-critical industrial processes).
ARISE-US has embarked on a program to identify possible solutions to these issues, whether in the form of policy changes, alerting protocols, jurisdictional collaboration, system interoperability or whatever. We will be holding a free symposium, with a stellar set of speakers - to explore the issues (sign up here - access code if needed is 689440). We look forward to welcoming you to this important new ARISE-US program!