Assessment of Early Warning Systems for inland and coastal flooding in Papua New Guinea

The purpose of this work is to assess the status of Early Warning Systems (EWS) and the emergency communication network for inland and coastal flooding and to provide recommendations for the improvement of the same and/or establish new systems.

Specifically, the assessment covers the following:

  • taking stock of existing capacities of relevant departments and agencies involved in monitoring, generation and dissemination of early warning related to inland and coastal flooding
  • identification of gaps in the existing EWS and procedures including areas where capacity needs to be enhanced including scientific and technical mechanisms, coordination and management of the information systems and effective information dissemination capabilities at different levels for effective monitoring and dissemination of warnings
  • recommendation of hardware and software requirement to enhance the data observation, forecasting, monitoring, processing and management, and early warning dissemination capabilities of various agencies at different levels; further provision of recommendations on nominating reputable suppliers where hardware and software can be procured with provision of regular update and systems support.
  • recommendation of a set of actions to be undertaken and corresponding resources requirements that needs to be undertaken to establish/enhance EWS for inland and coastal flooding in Papua New Guinea.
  • Identification of human and knowledge capacity constraints and provision of recommendations for training, specific to an agency or a sector

Actual services provided by our staff within the assignment:

  • building up of an encompassing knowledge database and assessment of the current situation in country (meteorological conditions and available data, assessment of existing spatial data, assessment of existing EWS and the underlying institutional complexes, identification of different stakeholder groups and preparation of detailed surveys,
  • identification of communities/institutions to be included in survey / visits and extensive stakeholder consultations on national and provincial level
  • review of existing EWS protocols and systems
  • analysis and development of recommendations (institutional landscape, SWOT of ongoing projects, risk assessment, monitoring systems, forecasting systems, warning capabilities, capacity gap analysis)
  • presentation of results at national stakeholder workshop
  • regular reporting (inception, interim, final).

Name of client: UNDP/ Antea Belgium N.V.
Start date (month/year): 01/2015
Completion date (month/year): 09/2017