A five-step method for setting up flood early warning systems with municipalities, national agencies and local communities, developed under the Andean programme PRASDES and applied at four sites in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru in 2015-2016.
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Participatory Method for Community-Based Flood Early Warning Systems
General Information
ISIG
A five-step method for building flood early warning systems with local communities, municipalities and national weather and civil defence services in the Andes.
It was developed by CIIFEN, the International Research Centre on El Niño, under the regional programme PRASDES, which Finland’s foreign ministry financed. It joins the four components of early warning set out by the UN disaster-reduction office to an approach of the Organization of American States in which trained community volunteers operate simple rain and river-level instruments.
The steps are: get to know the territory with local actors; choose where to work using vulnerability, flood exposure and institutional support; map the local actors; draw local flood risk maps in community workshops; and develop response actions, namely a participatory response protocol, training, signage, drills and response resources. It was applied in Escoma (Bolivia), Querecotillo and Salitral (Peru) and Zapotillo (Ecuador). Drills were rated good in Escoma, regular in Querecotillo and Salitral, and from good to poor across the Zapotillo neighbourhoods.
Flood-prone communities in the Andean river basins that Peru shares with Bolivia (Suches-Titicaca) and with Ecuador (Catamayo-Chira) often have little hydrological monitoring, and hydrological and hydraulic models are scarce. Heavy rain, thaw and drought are among the most frequent damaging events. Warnings from national services do not always reach residents in a usable form. At most pilot sites the local government had no flood response protocol before the work began.
PRASDES was designed to strengthen the national meteorological and hydrological services of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru (SENAMHI Bolivia, INAMHI and SENAMHI Peru), and the flood early warning systems were one of its strategies for reaching communities. Each country has its own civil defence body (VIDECI in Bolivia, SGR in Ecuador, INDECI in Peru) and a national response protocol. The method requires local protocols to follow the national framework and national law.
The four pilot sites were small: Escoma, a rural municipality of about 7,000 people in Bolivia; the districts of Querecotillo and Salitral in Piura, Peru; and Zapotillo in southern Ecuador. No public information on the population of Salitral and Zapotillo was found in the sources reviewed.
Hazard Type
Geographical Scope - Nuts
Population Size
Population Density
Needs Addressed
Four gaps explain why the method was created:
- Data are scarce. Many flood-prone basins have few monitoring stations and few hydraulic models, so warnings and flood maps cannot rely on instruments alone.
- National warnings do not turn into local action by themselves. Communities need a protocol that sets roles, responsibilities and alert channels in line with the national framework.
- Residents’ knowledge of past floods is rarely recorded or used in planning.
- National agencies, local governments and communities coordinate poorly, and staff turnover and weak agreements make cooperation fragile.
The method advises involving children and young people, because this keeps the process going and helps it spread, and involving women because of their leadership in community improvement. Vulnerability to floods is assessed from biophysical and socio-economic indicators such as poverty, access to health and education, housing and road isolation.
The solution assumes a local government that coordinates flood work through a municipal risk unit and an emergency operations committee, backed by the national civil defence body and the national meteorological and hydrological service. The committee brings together local government units and public, civil, military, voluntary and international bodies. Community organisations take part in mapping, the protocol and brigades. The solution can be applied where local government leads and national agencies set the rules, and where several institutions share roles.
The methodological solution is meant for areas with some institutional base, such as a local risk office and a national framework protocol, that still lack a local flood protocol, trained brigades or tested drills. At the pilot sites it was used to add these.
Drawing from how the pilots worked, the minimum is access to national forecasts and alerts, a phone or radio link to reach community leaders, and a local office that can host the response unit. Optional additions are a computer with internet access for the SAT-GEO platform, simple river gauges, signage, sirens and megaphones, and electromechanical sensors that sound an alarm when the river reaches a set level, which suit flash-flood sites with weak communications. At Salitral municipal internet capacity needed to be increased, according to the reviewed sources.
To use residents’ and local technicians’ knowledge to locate flood-prone areas, safe sites and evacuation routes, and to agree roles and alert channels in a protocol that authorities and communities can apply.
Meetings and interviews with authorities and leaders; community workshops where residents mark flooded areas on a map; stakeholder mapping; participatory writing of the response protocol; training sessions; community brigades; drills; and local radio and printed material.
Residents mark flood-prone zones from their own experience, and the implementing team then validates and completes the maps. Community representatives take part with local authorities, technicians, the weather service and the risk management body in choosing the priority areas. The response protocol is written by local authorities and community members together, within the national framework and law. Brigades are sponsored and trained by the local government. The implementing team, which may include local government, national institute, private-sector and community members, leads the process and holds the technical tools.
Local government staff, community members and brigades are trained by the weather service and the risk management body in how to read alerts and carry out the response. Municipal technicians are trained to use the SAT-GEO platform. Drills let institutions and communities practise the protocol. The method calls for continued training and regular meetings among authorities, the weather service and communities.
Vulnerable Groups
Governance
Emergency Preparedness
Engagement Level
Empowerment Level
Implementation
The solution pairs community participation with technical tools, and gives a fixed sequence of five steps with an expected result for each. Areas are ranked with a simple formula (vulnerability equals susceptibility minus adaptive capacity), with biophysical factors given more weight when choosing sites. Where hydraulic models do not exist, participatory flood maps and field knowledge replace them. The SAT-GEO platform brings together forecasts, weather station observations and thematic maps for local decision-makers. Sensor-activated sirens are proposed for flash-flood sites. The method also includes guidance for the period after implementation.
The method advises using interpreters where communities speak other languages.
CIIFEN, through PRASDES, which is funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. At the pilot sites it worked with the national meteorological and hydrological services, the civil defence bodies and local governments.
Transferable implementers: a local government risk unit or civil protection office; a national meteorological or hydrological service; a research centre, NGO or other organisation able to facilitate community workshops; and community organisations.
CIIFEN is the International Research Centre on El Niño, based in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Under PRASDES it applied the method at four sites in three countries between 2015 and 2016. Any implementer needs experience with participatory mapping, links to national meteorological and civil defence services, and the standing to convene local government.
Local government and its risk unit; the emergency operations committee; the national civil defence body; the national meteorological and hydrological service; response bodies (police, army, fire brigades, hospitals); community organisations, neighbourhood committees and brigades; local radio; schools; and the facilitating organisation (CIIFEN/PRASDES).
- Recognition and outreach: form an implementing team of local leaders with risk management knowledge, led by a local coordinator. Interview authorities and leaders, tour the territory, and hold community workshops on hazards and risk management.
- Choosing implementation areas: with local authorities, the weather service, the risk body and community representatives, rank areas by vulnerability, flood exposure and institutional support. The smallest administrative unit with planning powers is used for social data, and sub-basins for physical data. Where hydraulic models are missing, build the flood map in workshops.
- Mapping local actors: identify who helps or hinders the system and agree on cooperation, including written agreements.
- Local flood risk maps: residents mark flood-prone zones in workshops, and the team validates, completes and digitises the map to show safe zones, shelters, evacuation routes and meeting points.
- Response actions: Preparation -> a participatory response protocol that is simple, clear, legally backed and operational; training in risk management and in reading alerts; signage; and drills with a script, publicity and training. Execution -> the local authority receives the official alert and spreads it through the channels set in the protocol, often by phone to community leaders, with community brigades supporting. Response resources -> signage, educational material, brigade equipment, information tools and, where useful, sensors and sirens.
Steps must follow this order.
Human resources: an implementing team with a local coordinator, staff from the weather service and risk body, municipal technicians, community leaders and volunteers.
Technical resources: maps or satellite images, GIS work, optionally hydraulic models, the SAT-GEO platform, and phone and radio links.
Materials: signage, educational material, brigade equipment, and optionally sensors, sirens and megaphones.
At the pilots, an external programme provided facilitation and equipment, and national and local institutions gave staff time.
The method has five sequential steps, followed by guidance on what to do after implementation. It sets no standard duration. The pilots ran for about nine to eleven months: from November 2015 to September 2016 in Escoma, and from January to September 2016 at the Peruvian and Ecuadorian sites.
Experience of the Implementing Organisation in DRM
Target Audience
Resources Required
Timeframe & Phases
Participation Results
- The order of the five steps matters.
- National civil defence and weather services should join from the first stage, and one member of the team should stay in regular contact with the community to build trust.
- Interpreters, respect for local beliefs and calendars, and the inclusion of women, children and young people widen participation.
- At Zapotillo, drills in two neighbourhoods were rated poor because few residents took part, which shows how much depends on turnout.
- Formal community brigades strengthen the link between residents and the system.
- At three of the four sites the booklets report a response protocol as still to be drafted or finalised, which suggests the final step needs more time and local ownership than the others.
Work in indigenous communities requires interpreters and a plan that avoids local festivals.
Data are scarce, so participatory maps and field knowledge stand in for models.
In flash-flood sites with weak communications, sensors that trigger a siren give a first alert before the official one.
Staff rotation is handled by reviewing roles in the protocol regularly, and equipment needs scheduled maintenance.
The pilots also show where the method ran into trouble: the response protocol was drafted at Escoma but still missing at Querecotillo and Salitral, drills were rated only regular at both Peruvian sites, municipal internet capacity at Salitral was flagged as needing an upgrade, and low community turnout led to a poor rating in two Zapotillo neighbourhoods.
The method names specific risks and matches them to responses: language barriers (interpreters), clashes with local festivals (calendar planning), missing hydraulic models (participatory flood maps), flash floods with limited communications (sensor-activated sirens), staff turnover (regular review of protocols), equipment failure (maintenance), and weak coordination (written agreements and regular meetings).
Risk & Mitigation Plan
Scalability and Sustainability
The method rests on bodies that already exist: the local risk unit, the emergency operations committee and the national protocol, plus the weather service, which hosts and maintains the SAT-GEO platform. Continuity is meant to come from written agreements, routine training, regular meetings, periodic drills and municipal budget lines. The programme that supported the pilots was funded until 2016, and no public information on later funding was found. It can be inferred that continuation depends on municipal and national commitment.
The five steps and their tools are scalable: (workshop mapping, the vulnerability ranking, the actor table, the protocol flow diagram with its four design criteria, and the drill outline), and the SAT-GEO platform, which was made available through the three national weather services.
What must be localised: the link to each country’s national protocol and law, the language, the local calendar, the type of flooding (seasonal or flash) and the alert channels. The method needs a national weather service and a civil defence body willing to take part, and a local government with a risk unit. It was tested only in small administrative units for floods, in the aforementioned three Andean countries.
The SAT-GEO platform is hosted by the national weather services and shows forecasts, weather station observations and map layers on a web viewer. Alerts travel by phone, radio and, at flash-flood sites, sensor-activated sirens. Community gauges are read by hand.
The pilots relied on an external programme, and the method recommends local budget commitments.
Costs include the implementing team and coordinator, workshops and mapping materials, GIS and satellite imagery, training, signage and educational material, brigade equipment, and optionally sensors, sirens, a computer and the set-up of the platform.
Ongoing costs include municipal risk unit staff, maintenance of sensors, sirens and equipment, platform hosting by the weather service, repeat drills and training, updates to vulnerability and protocol documents, and brigade renewal.
The method treats an early warning system as a living arrangement that needs regular upkeep. It recommends written agreements between the municipality, local radio, the weather service and the risk body; continued training; periodic updates of the technical documents as towns, roads and rivers change; regular review of the protocol roles given staff turnover; scheduled maintenance of sensors, viewers, sirens and megaphones; periodic drills; and a place for the risk management unit in future municipal budgets.