The NASA Hydrological Forecast System for Food and Water Security Applications

Abstract Many regions in Africa and the Middle East are vulnerable to drought and to water and food insecurity, motivating agency efforts such as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) to provide early warning of drought events in the region. Each year these warnings guide life-saving assistance that reaches millions of people. A new NASA multimodel, remote sensing–based hydrological forecasting and analysis system, NHyFAS, has been developed to support such efforts by improving the FEWS NET’s current early warning capabilities. NHyFAS derives its skill from two sources: (i) accurate initial conditions, as produced by an offline land modeling system through the application and/or assimilation of various satellite data (precipitation, soil moisture, and terrestrial water storage), and (ii) meteorological forcing data during the forecast period as produced by a state-of-the-art ocean–land–atmosphere forecast system. The land modeling framework used is the Land Information System (LIS), which employs a suite of land surface models, allowing multimodel ensembles and multiple data assimilation strategies to better estimate land surface conditions. An evaluation of NHyFAS shows that its 1–5-month hindcasts successfully capture known historic drought events, and it has improved skill over benchmark-type hindcasts. The system also benefits from strong collaboration with end-user partners in Africa and the Middle East, who provide insights on strategies to formulate and communicate early warning indicators to water and food security communities. The additional lead time provided by this system will increase the speed, accuracy, and efficacy of humanitarian disaster relief, helping to save lives and livelihoods.

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Drought Monitoring in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region: Participatory Engagement to Inform Early Warning Systems

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ◽

10.1175/bams-d-18-0084.1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 101 (7) ◽

pp. E1148-E1173 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stephen Russell Fragaszy ◽

Theresa Jedd ◽

Nicole Wall ◽

Cody Knutson ◽

Makram Belhaj Fraj ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

Environmental Monitoring ◽

North Africa ◽

Early Warning ◽

Water Security ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Extensive Study ◽

Drought Monitoring ◽

Warning Systems ◽

Mena Region

Abstract When drought hits water-scarce regions, there are significant repercussions for food and water security, as well as serious issues for the stability of broader social and environmental systems. To mitigate these effects, environmental monitoring and early warning systems aimed at detecting the onset of drought conditions can facilitate timely and effective responses from government and private sector stakeholders. This study uses multistage, participatory research methods across more than 135 interviews, focus groups, and workshops to assess extant climatic, agricultural, hydrological, and drought monitoring systems; key cross-sector drought impacts; and drought monitoring needs in four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Jordan. This extensive study of user needs for drought monitoring across the MENA region is informing and shaping the ongoing development of drought early warning systems, a composite drought indicator (CDI), and wider drought management systems in each country. Overarching themes of drought monitoring needs include technical definitions of drought for policy purposes; information-sharing regimes and data-sharing platforms; ground-truthing of remotely sensed and modeled data; improved data quality in observation networks; and two-way engagement with farmers, organizations, and end-users of drought monitoring products. This research establishes a basis for informing enhanced drought monitoring and management in the countries, and the broad stakeholder engagement can help foster the emergence of effective environmental monitoring coalitions.

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Volcansmart Early Warning Systems Based Land Surface Temperature at the Disaster-Prone Region of Merapi Volcano, Regency of Sleman

IOP Conference Series Materials Science and Engineering ◽

10.1088/1757-899x/434/1/012206 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 434 ◽

pp. 012206

Author(s):

S R Marudut ◽

W S Bekti ◽

N A Adi ◽

S D R Suryo

Keyword(s):

Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface Temperature ◽

Early Warning ◽

Land Surface ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Warning Systems ◽

Merapi Volcano

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Developing a South‐Eastern European Multi‐Hazard Early Warning Advisory System

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-20645 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Fredrik Wetterhall ◽

Umberto Modigliani ◽

Milan Dacic ◽

Sari Lappi

Keyword(s):

International Development ◽

Data Storage ◽

Early Warning ◽

Warning System ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Economic Losses ◽

Limited Area ◽

Meteorological Forcing ◽

Advisory System ◽

The World

<p>The project &#8220;South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System&#8221; (SEE-MHEWS-A) is a collaborative effort to strengthen the existing early warning capacity in the region. The project was initiated in 2014 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and has been supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank. The project will test a prototype of a flood early warning system using local information and multiple models to better characterize the flood risk in selected catchments. The aims of the project are: (1) is to strengthen regional co-operation by leveraging national, regional and global capacities to develop improved hydrometeorological forecasts, advisories and warnings to save lives and limit economic losses, (2) strengthen national multi-hazard early warning systems by making tools and data available to the participating countries and other beneficiaries, (3) implement impact-based forecasts and risk-based warnings utilizing non-deterministic hydrometeorological modeling to support governments, disaster management authorities, humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders in their decision-making and actions, and (4) to harmonise forecasts and warnings in trans-boundary areas. During 18 month the project will setup a full-hydrometeorological forecasting system, including observational data storage and sharing, limited area modelling of the meteorological forcing data and hydrological forecasting.</p>

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Land Surface Parameter and State Perturbations in the Global Ensemble Forecast System

Monthly Weather Review ◽

10.1175/mwr-d-18-0057.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 147 (4) ◽

pp. 1319-1340

Author(s):

Maria Gehne ◽

Thomas M. Hamill ◽

Gary T. Bates ◽

Philip Pegion ◽

Walter Kolczynski

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Land Surface ◽

Initial Conditions ◽

Ensemble Forecast ◽

Ensemble Prediction ◽

Systematic Bias ◽

Perturbation Scheme ◽

Forecast System ◽

Vegetation Fraction ◽

Land Surface Parameter

Abstract The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) is underdispersive near the surface, a common characteristic of ensemble prediction systems. Here, several methods for increasing the spread are tested, including perturbing soil initial conditions, soil tendencies, and surface parameters, with physically based perturbations. Perturbations are applied to the soil initial conditions based on empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) of differences between normalized soil moisture states from two land surface models (LSMs). Perturbations to roughness lengths for heat and momentum, soil hydraulic conductivity, stomatal resistance, vegetation fraction, and albedo are applied, with the amplitude and perturbation scales based on previous research. Soil moisture and temperature tendencies are also perturbed using a stochastic perturbation scheme. The results show that surface perturbations, through their impact on 2-m temperature spread, have a modest positive impact on the skill of short-range ensemble forecasts. However, adjusting the forecasts using an estimate of the systematic bias shows that bias correction has a greater impact on the forecast reliability than surface perturbations, indicating that systematic bias in the model needs to be addressed as well.

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Aeroecology meets aviation safety: early warning systems in Europe and the Middle East prevent collisions between birds and aircraft

Ecography ◽

10.1111/ecog.04125 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (5) ◽

pp. 899-911 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Hans van Gasteren ◽

Karen L. Krijgsveld ◽

Nadine Klauke ◽

Yossi Leshem ◽

Isabel C. Metz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Aviation Safety ◽

Warning Systems

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Hydrodynamic and Waves Response during Storm Surges on the Southern Brazilian Coast: A Hindcast Study

Water ◽

10.3390/w12123538 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (12) ◽

pp. 3538

Author(s):

Andre de Souza de Lima ◽

Arslaan Khalid ◽

Tyler Will Miesse ◽

Felicio Cassalho ◽

Celso Ferreira ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sea Level Rise ◽

Sea Level ◽

Storm Surge ◽

Storm Surges ◽

Coastal Communities ◽

Brazilian Coast ◽

Forecast System ◽

Modeling Framework ◽

Meteorological Forcing ◽

The Impact

The Southern Brazilian Coast is highly susceptible to storm surges that often lead to coastal flooding and erosive processes, significantly impacting coastal communities. In addition, climate change is expected to result in expressive increases in wave heights due to more intense and frequent storms, which, in conjunction with sea-level rise (SLR), has the potential to exacerbate the impact of storm surges on coastal communities. The ability to predict and simulate such events provides a powerful tool for coastal risk reduction and adaptation. In this context, this study aims to investigate how accurately storm surge events can be simulated in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean employing the coupled ADCIRC+SWAN hydrodynamic and phase-averaged wave numerical modeling framework given the significant data scarcity constraints of the region. The model’s total water level (TWL) and significant wave height (Hs) outputs, driven by different sources of meteorological forcing, i.e., the Fifth Generation of ECMWF Atmospheric Reanalysis (ERA 5), the Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2), and the Global Forecast System (GFS), were validated for three recent storm events that affected the coast (2016, 2017, and 2019). In order to assess the potentially increasing storm surge impacts due to sea-level rise, a case study was implemented to locally evaluate the modeling approach using the most accurate model setup for two 2100 SLR projections (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). Despite a TWL underestimation in all sets of simulations, the CFSv2 model stood out as the most consistent meteorological forcing for the hindcasting of the storm surge and waves in the numerical model, with an RMSE range varying from 0.19 m to 0.37 m, and an RMSE of 0.56 m for Hs during the most significant event. ERA5 was highlighted as the second most accurate meteorological forcing, while adequately simulating the peak timings. The SLR study case demonstrated a possible increase of up to 82% in the TWL during the same event. Despite the limitations imposed by the lack of continuous and densely distributed observational data, as well as up to date topobathymetric datasets, the proposed framework was capable of expanding TWL and Hs information, previously available for a handful of gauge stations, to a spatially distributed and temporally unlimited scale. This more comprehensive understanding of such extreme events represents valuable knowledge for the potential implementation of more adequate coastal management and engineering practices for the Brazilian coastal zone, especially under changing climate conditions.

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The CARE Telematics Network for the Surveillance of Influenza in Europe

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1634617 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 34 (05) ◽

pp. 518-522 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

M. Bensadon ◽

A. Strauss ◽

R. Snacken

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Warning Systems ◽

Surveillance Networks ◽

Spanish Flu ◽

The 1950S ◽

National Networks ◽

First Time

Abstract:Since the 1950s, national networks for the surveillance of influenza have been progressively implemented in several countries. New epidemiological arguments have triggered changes in order to increase the sensitivity of existent early warning systems and to strengthen the communications between European networks. The WHO project CARE Telematics, which collects clinical and virological data of nine national networks and sends useful information to public health administrations, is presented. From the results of the 1993-94 season, the benefits of the system are discussed. Though other telematics networks in this field already exist, it is the first time that virological data, absolutely essential for characterizing the type of an outbreak, are timely available by other countries. This argument will be decisive in case of occurrence of a new strain of virus (shift), such as the Spanish flu in 1918. Priorities are now to include other existing European surveillance networks.

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