Warning Value Chain Project
Value Chain Approaches to Evaluate the End-to-End Warning Chain
A
joint project of the WWRP HIWeather Project and SERA Working Group
Effective
warnings of weather-related hazards result from the successful interaction of
many people and organisations, each contributing their specific capability and
knowledge. The "value chain" provides a useful way to describe the generation
and communication of warning data, information, and processes between different
stakeholders. By using this approach to study end-to-end warning chains for hazardous
weather events, we can learn what worked well and what can be improved.

This
project has two main aims:
-
To review value
chain practices used to describe weather, warning and climate services to
assess and provide guidance on how to apply value chains in a weather
warning context involving multiple users and partnerships;
-
To create a searchable
Warning Chain Database that researchers and practitioners can use to explore
the organisation and performance of actual warning chains for high impact
events and assess their effectiveness using value chain approaches.
To develop guidance on how to use value
chain approaches we will:
-
develop a conceptual value chain framework for
hydrometeorological services that aligns to WMO's Science to Services focus;
-
develop an inventory of
existing examples of where the value chain has been applied, based on a
systematic review of academic and grey literature and workshops;
-
create a catalogue of value chain usage types and their suitability for assessing
efficiency, planning and execution, evaluating projects, quality control, and testing replicability;
-
prepare an overview of metrics and methods
for measuring aspects of the value chain and the whole value chain;
-
provide a high-level value
chain framework tool for decision makers, and guidance and tools for more specific
usage.
To develop the Warning Chain Database we
will:
-
collect information on
relevant high impact weather events from case studies and post event reviews, linking
to existing collections such as the emerging WMO Catalogue of Hazardous Events
(WMO-CHE), ECMWF Severe Event Catalogue, and DRR databases;
-
review the governance,
structure and organisation of selected weather-related warning systems, including
identifying the type of value chain used, to define an outline database
classification;
-
conduct in-depth analysis of selected events that highlight an issue of
importance to some or all of the warning chain;
-
design and build a searchable database (aligned with WMO-CHE) to hold and augment the collected data, to enable easy use of the information to answer questions identified by
practitioners.
The project kicked off in November 2020
with an international project team of physical and social scientists. It will
run until the completion of HIWeather and deliver:
-
A high
level value chain framework tool for decision makers
-
Guidance
and tools for more specific and context-appropriate usage of value chain
approaches in hydrometeorology
-
A
glossary of value chain and warning chain terminology in a hydrometeorological
context
-
A
living database of hazardous weather events with rich information covering (as
much as possible) the components of the forecast and warning value chain, that
complements WMO efforts such as the WMO Catalogue of Hazardous Events (WMO
2019).
-
Analysis
and advice on best practice warning value chains (from simple to complex)
analysed from the database
-
Exchange and integration of
practical experiences (NMHSs and partners) and weather-related natural, social,
and interdisciplinary science (research community)
Some of the many
research questions of interest to HIWeather include:
-
What
are the average predictability horizons for different types of HIW events and
how do these horizons relate to the dominant governing processes?
-
What
are the improvements in hazard prediction from convection-permitting models
related to advanced methods of mesoscale DA, the inclusion of high-resolution
observations, or better NWP models?
-
To
what extent have we been able to define, measure, model, and predict
constitutive aspects of risk (dynamic exposure, vulnerability, sensitivity) for
individual and cumulative (multi-hazard) threats?
-
What
is the efficacy of co-producing/ communicating/sharing this risk and impact
knowledge with various actors (i.e., as measured in terms of comprehension,
application/use in decision- or policy-making, behavioural intent, behavioural
response, impact outcomes)?
-
What
elements of a warning (e.g. hazard, impact, guidance; text, graphics,
analogies; scenarios, probabilities, likelihood terms) can be tweaked to ensure
a more effective warning and response?
-
How
does the level of uncertainty in the forecast affect the overall impacts i.e.
did cases with higher forecast certainty result in better outcomes in terms of
action to prevent impacts than those cases with more uncertain forecasts? And
if so why?
The concept proposal gives greater detail on the Value Chain project, including the types
of data to be collected and research questions that could be addressed by the
warning chain data. You can also hear a brief
(4-minute) description of the Value Chain Project at the HIWeather YouTube channel.
We are
currently preparing a more detailed plan and will seek funding to support some
of the work.