Weather and Climate Information Services Early Warning for Southern Africa (WISER- EWSA)
Project background
The WISER-EWSA team of meteorologists, academics, economists, and user engagement specialists from South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and the United Kingdom will work with Disaster Risk Management Agencies and non-governmental organizations, focusing on women and people with disabilities to reduce disaster risk through the co-production of new weather information services and early warnings. Working with people living in cities, including disadvantaged groups (such as women and people with disabilities) we can help to ensure that everyone receives these warnings, and knows what action to take, to reduce the risk of negative impacts. Adding to a growing range of weather and climate information services, nowcasting technology has recently been applied to early warning in other parts of Africa and beyond but this is the first project to do this in southern Africa. We will work directly with communities in Lusaka (Zambia), Maputo (Mozambique) and Katlehong (South Africa).
Objective(s)
- Strengthen capacity for co-producing nowcasts and short range forecast EWSs across the Southern African regional network.
- Reduce risk of extreme storms for diverse urban populations.
- Identify business models to ensure sustainability of nowcasts and short range forecast EWSs.
- Stimulate regional demand for nowcasts as part of a suite of weather and climate information across the full range of timescales for risk reduction.
Outputs
- Strengthen capacity for co-producing nowcasts and short-range forecast EWSs across the Southern African regional network;
- Reduce risk of extreme storms for diverse urban populations;
- Identify business models to ensure sustainability of nowcasts and short-range forecast EWSs;
- Stimulate regional demand for nowcasts as part of a suite of weather and climate information across the full range of timescales for risk reduction.
Expected outcomes
In the near term, there will be sustainable (technical and funded) capacity for co-producing nowcasts in countries of Africa; greater demand for nowcasts within a suite of weather and climate information across timescales from diverse user groups; and strengthened institutional links between NHMS and DRR organizations and user groups for sustainable generation, communication and use of EWSs. Together these will contribute to the longer-term outcome of a regional co-produced EWS to complement seasonal contingency planning and longer-term risk reduction. These contribute to WISER outcomes of sustained improvements in weather and climate information services in Africa (adopted at scale and sustained post-WISER and geographically) with a particular focus on community users who see positive changes in economic and/or non-economic values and preparedness levels to extreme weather events, achieved through better access to enhanced weather and climate information services amongst users; and improved awareness of the value of using weather and climate information indecision-making amongst users.
Achievements
- Capacity development and training events
- Testbed1 in Zambia in January and February 2024
- Testbed2 (remotely) in October, with face-to-face event scheduled in early 2025 in Mozambique
- Workshops allowed for links to communities and disaster risk Managers to complete the full value cycle with co-design and co-production
- Region:
- Region I: Africa
- Disaster Risk Reduction
- Capacity Development
- Observations
- Data Management
- Forecasting
- Service Delivery
- Early Warnings
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