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Trans-border Flood Early Warning System in South Asia: Practices, Challenges and Prospects

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Executive Summary

South Asia is a disaster hotspot zone with annual episodes of several hazards causing huge loss of lives and properties across the region. Among hazards, flood ranks the highest in terms of human casualties, loss and damage of property, and the number of households affected each year.

Despite being an annual phenomenon and common problem for the countries of South Asia, EWS interventions for floods have hardly gone beyond the country’s borders.. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) has identified the need for a substantial increase in the availability of, and access to, multi-hazard EWSs and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030 as one of its seven global targets. The Asian Ministerial Conference on DRR (AMCDRR) 2016 has also recognized multi-hazard EWS for DRR as an area where investments, collaborations and global partnerships are needed. The AMCDRR 2018, held in Mongolia, stresses scaling up of EWSs and their translation into early action. Both SFDRR and AMCDRR emphasize global and regional collaborations and partnerships for multi-hazard EWS. However, such collaborations and partnerships are mainly for financial and technical support to each other. It is not very clear how countries collaborate and coordinate with each other for information sharing for effective multi-hazard EWS as hazards cross national boundaries and information, communication and dissemination are essential parts of EWS. The sharing of flood information across borders between countries is often considered as ‘classified’.

This study tries to document the current practices of trans-border EWS across South Asia, primarily between Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR, China)–Nepal, Nepal–India, and India–Bangladesh, together with the challenges and opportunities for promoting trans-border EWS, in context of larger disaster risk reduction initiatives across the region. It is assumed that the output of this study will help to provide a necessary recommendations and basis for decision-makers in south Asia towards effective trans-border EWSs in the region.

The Brahmaputra River (India–Bangladesh), the Karnali River (Nepal–India), and the Poique/ Bhotekoshi River in the Koshi Basin (China–Nepal) were taken as cases for field study. Both secondary and primary sources of information were used. Published and unpublished documents and statistics were collected and reviewed. Primary information was collected through field observations, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, consultative meetings with major stakeholders, and workshops at different levels (viz local community, sub-district, district, and national levels). Three sites were purposively selected for field study. A total of ten communities in three river basins were consulted. Local authorities were interviewed regarding the ongoing practices of cross-border flood EWS. Unfortunately, the study team could not visit Tibet because of time and resource constraints.

The policy framework of the government and social contexts of EWS were analysed and areas of technological improvement were explored. Practices, approaches and status on flood risk knowledge, risk monitoring and warning, warning communication and dissemination, and response capability of local communities, key stakeholders and local humanitarian actors at three trans-border sites were assessed. Existing formal and informal practices of flood EWS between the countries and the communities across the political boundaries were studied. Agreements between the countries concerned and their practices, where relevant, accessible and available, were also reviewed. The study has identified the challenges, as well as the improvements, potentials and prospects of existing practices and systems that need to be addressed and harnessed at various levels of coordination and collaboration between the countries for scaling up and scaling out of EWS at regional and transborder levels.