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Background
In recent years, climate change, extreme weather, population growth and urbanization have led to an increasing number of people being threatened by compound disaster risks, and it has become a global challenge to mitigate disaster risks and reduce the loss of lives and property, or environmental damage. The need for early warning systems as preventative measure is more crucial than ever. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 explicitly calls for the development of multi-hazard early warning systems to improve their availability; Goal 3 "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages" and Goal 13 "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development encourage countries to develop early warning systems; Article 7 "Enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change" and Article 8 "Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts" of the Paris Agreement also place a high priority on strengthening early warning systems.
With growing awareness and a sense of urgency, the UN Secretary-General has called for new actions in 2022, launching the Early Warnings for All (EW4ALL) Initiative, to ensure every person on Earth is protected by (improved) early warning systems within five years, by the end of 2027.
Early warning systems have proven to be a cost-effective and reliable solution to protect lives and livelihoods from natural hazards such as floods, heat waves, storms and tsunamis. The Global Commission on Adaptation states that giving just 24 hours’ notice of an impending hazardous event can reduce impact and damage by 30 percent. The Global Status Of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2023 also reveals that countries with substantial to comprehensive Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS) coverage have nearly one-sixth lower disaster-related mortality ratio compared to that in the countries with limited to moderate coverage (0.71 mortality per 100,000 population, compared to 4.05). However, although the number of countries reporting the MHEWS existence has doubled since 2015 and increased to 101 countries as of March 2023, only half of the countries worldwide reported having adequate MHEWS, and even existing one struggle with adequate capacities, coverage, communications and resources. Simultaneously, significant gaps still remain between countries, meaning that coverage of MHEWS still remains especially low (less than 50%) in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. These data remind that the coverage and efficiency of early warning systems need to be continuously improved to achieve the ambitious goal of “Early Warnings for All”.
Advances in science and technology have brought new development opportunities to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of early warning. As an all-weather, all-day, full-coverage technology for Earth observation, space-based technologies play an irreplaceable role in disaster risk prevention and management, especially in disaster risk identification, assessment, monitoring, and for early warning. Additionally, the quality of satellite sensors, resolution, availability, and access to and use of satellite imagery and Earth observation services has significantly improved in recent years, with more and more space agencies (and even some private sector entities) embracing open data policies that facilitate access to archived and up-to-date imagery. This is helpful to bring together the broader UN system, governments, civil society and development partners across the public and private sectors to address gaps and deliver people-centered, end-to-end multi-hazard early warning systems that leave no one behind.
In the given context, this International Conference will address issues raised above and continue identifying challenges, highlight solutions, and encourage partnerships for using space technologies in early warning systems to enhance collaboration and accelerate the realization of the EW4ALL.
The conference is organised by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM) of the People’s Republic of China and implemented through the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) and the National Disaster Reduction Centre of China (NDRCC). It follows nine earlier annual conferences held since 2011, after a gap of four years because of the Covid pandemic. Previous conferences covered the themes of “Best practices for risk reduction and rapid response mapping” in 2011, “Risk assessment in the context of global climate change” in 2012, “Disaster risk identification, assessment and monitoring” in 2013, “Multi-hazard disaster risk assessment” in 2014, “A consolidating role in the implementation of the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030” in 2015, “Understanding disaster risks” in 2016, “Building resilience through integrated application” in 2017, “Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective emergency response” in 2018 and “A Policy Perspective” in 2019. These conferences offered a forum for disaster management communities and experts to strengthen their capabilities in using space-based information to identify, assess, monitor and respond to disaster risks and integrate space technology into long-term disaster risk management efforts, and connects them for direct interaction with the satellite technology providers.
The conference is organised in collaboration with the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the Asia Pacific Space Cooperation Organisation (APSCO) and the Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Asia and the Pacific (RCSSTEAP).
Objectives
The International Conference aims to contribute to an increased understanding and use of space-based technology approaches and satellite-based applications primarily in developing countries to respond to challenges posed by natural hazards, with a thematic focus on early warning activities.
More specifically, the event aims to:
- enhance the effectiveness of space-based technology in multi-hazard early warning applications, especially in the identification, analysis, monitoring and risk assessment of disaster-causing factors, improve the availability and usefulness of basic space data, and provide a scientific basis for the government's disaster risk management.
- share and exchange best practices and experiences in the operationalisation of impact-based MHEWS in the international community, promote integration and convergence within the systems, and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of multi-hazard early warning decision support.
- promote the effective dissemination, distribution, understanding and response of early warning information, and discuss and exchange the functions, types, models, contents and recommendations for action of early warning information and decision support products for different user groups.
- advocate for the early warning model of government leadership, multi-sectoral collaboration and public participation, and encourage the building of multi-hazard early warning capacity with the participation of the whole society, all elements and processes, so that the early warning systems can protect everyone.
Preliminary Programme
Day 1
- Inauguration and keynote speeches
- Session 1: Disaster risk knowledge and management
- Knowledge about risk is the first component of a successful early warning value chain. To be effective, this risk knowledge requires a deep and locally-grounded understanding of hazards, vulnerabilities, livelihoods, social inclusion, and exposure among other important aspects to contextualize disaster risk knowledge. Space technology could play functional roles for disaster risk monitoring before/during/post disaster, therefore, could provide evidence-based decision-making for early warning. But still facing challenges in systematically collecting data, conducting risk assessments, easy to understand interpretation from technology into instruction. This session will demo the best practices and showcases on how space technology supporting hazards and risk monitoring for effective early warning as well discuss the challenges and gaps in understanding, accessing, and application of space technology in disaster early warning.
- Session 2: Detection, observation, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting
- Early Warning Systems are underpinned by a global upward reporting of surface and space-based observation data and exchanged freely between all countries. Taking early actions to mitigate threats, produce information on the evolution of threats and taking necessary action for the underlying risk is the core and essential function for MHEWS. By developing and running an effective MHEWS by a global upward reporting of surface and space-based observation data needs consistent warning messages, interoperability, regular drills and exercises, common standards for issuing alerting protocol for sharing data and forecasting products freely between all countries. This session will provide the opportunity to share and exchanging the ongoing practices, science research and technology advancing and way forwarding discussion in the above-mentioned area to support optimization and sustainability of hazard monitoring and early warning systems development.
Day 2
- Session 3: Warning dissemination and communication
- The fundamental purpose of an early warning system is to ensure people receive warnings in advance of impending hazardous events, so that they can take the necessary actions to save lives, livelihoods and to support longer-term resilience. Effective early warning services are co-designed with the ‘clients’ they serve and have feedback mechanisms to help ensure messages reach people through preferred and trusted communication channels, in actionable formats and in a timely manner to support decision making. This session aims to ensure that early warnings are effectively and timely disseminated to reach everyone, especially those most at risk. This session will discuss MHEWS can help minimize the harm to people, assets, and livelihoods by triggering early action that is well prepared and tested though communicating risk information and early warnings.
- Session 4: Preparedness and response capabilities
- MHEWS must be operated within the framework of national and local DRR strategies, laws and regulation, contingency planning as well as the SOP at the frontier for all -people-centred, public participation and whole-process engagement. So, this session will elaborate the institutional capacity building, seamless matching mechanism building, multi-stakeholders participation, and local and community engagements for governance to take pre-emptive early actions to prepare for and respond to incoming disasters upon receiving warnings.
Day 3
- Session 5: Strengthening international and regional cooperation in multi-hazard early warning
- Partnership and cooperation are essential in developing MHEWS. It is in an urgent need for promoting international and regional cooperation for deepen and scaling up the ongoing partnerships for more scientific knowledge exchanging and capacity building in MHEWS. With the support of the Member States, Regional Support Offices and other partners, UN-SPIDER has built a wide network of governmental agencies, international/regional agencies, NGOs, scientific societies and private companies. As a part of technical advisory support services of UN-SPIDER, several technical advisory missions, capacity building programmes, and outreach activities have been carried out in Asia, the Pacific, Africa and Latin America. This session will provide an insight into the activities supported by UN-SPIDER in partnership with national disaster management agencies and discuss the ways and means of making these activities more effective and relevant to the needs of Member States. This session will elaborate the success showcase for international and regional cooperation and provide the new opportunity for deep thinking the way forwarding.
- Closing ceremony
Additional Information
Target Audience for the Conference
Disaster managers, policy makers, providers of space technology solutions/tools/applications from governments, academia, research, NGO and corporate sector.
How to Apply and Application Deadline
Please register online through following link: (Link will be shared here as soon as registration opens)
Please note that the final deadline for registration is 20 September 2024. Online registration is mandatory for all participants. We encourage early registration, especially if seeking financial support.
Financial Support to Participants
Due to significant funding constraints, the organisers will be able to offer support to only a limited number of participants from the relevant Member States and organisations engaged in developing- or intending to develop a partnership with UN-SPIDER, with a focus on LLDCs and SIDS mainly in the Asia-Pacific region. The support will defray the cost of travel (round-trip ticket – most economic fare – between the airport of international departure in their country of residence and Beijing) and/or room and board expenses during the duration of the event.
Points of Contact
Technical matters: Ms. TANG Tong (tong.tang [at] un.org)
Logistics: Ms. GAO Yuan (yuan.gao [at] un.org)
Training Programme
Prior to the Conference, a training programme on “New Satellite Resources for Emergency Response: Disasters Charter, Charter Mapper and other commercial solutions”, co-organised with the APSCO, the NDRCC and the RCSSTEAP/Beihang University will be offered to approximately 25 conference participants. Interested participants for this training programme can sign up through the conference registration platform (question number 19). Please note that the final deadline for registration remains 20 September 2024. Online registration is mandatory for all participants.
