Posts tagged Early Warning Systems

AI forecasting deployed to predict Nepal landslides

0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science
As the monsoon season approaches, landslides pose a major risk in many countries of the Asia Pacific region. Photo Credit ©Ritu Dak in Ghes Village (Uttarakhand) India

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 07.06.2024 (SciDev.Net): A landslide forecasting system driven by artificial intelligence (AI) is being rolled out in Nepal, one of the most landslide prone countries in the world, as the monsoon season approaches.

Devastating landslides in Papua New Guinea last month show the need for better forecasting and early warning systems to protect lives and properties, especially in mountainous developing countries in Asia Pacific which lack dedicated disaster monitoring systems and the means to communicate risks to the population.

In Nepal, more than 80 per cent of land is on a slope and much of it was destabilised during the 2015 earthquake in Gorkha, which killed around 9,000 people, according to project lead Antoinette Tordesillas from the University of Melbourne. “With the monsoons due anytime now, we are helping policymakers and risk managers better prepare for future monsoons when increasingly frequent and heavy rains can trigger more devastating landslides,” she said.

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Crisis resilience ‘critical’ to stem rising hunger

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 19.04.2023 (SciDev.Net): A shift towards permanent “crisis resilience” from short-term aid is crucial to mitigate increasingly frequent shocks to the global food system and tackle rising global hunger, say food policy researchers.

Disruption to food systems from multiple crises such as economic downturn, conflict, climate change-related weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic, has caused a surge in acute food insecurity in recent years.

The Global Report on Food Crisis: Mid-Year Update 2022 estimates that as many as 205 million people in 45 countries experienced crisis-level acute food insecurity or worse, nearly double the number in 2016. It says requests for humanitarian assistance reached a record high of US$41 billion.

“Crises, shocks, and volatility are no longer exceptions and may become the new normal,” says Johan Swinnen, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and managing director of the CGIAR Systems Transformation. “We should better predict and prepare, implement effective and accountable governance and institutions, and invest to build resilience against future crises.”

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