EXTRACTS RELATED TO THE WMO GLOBAL MULTI-HAZARD ALERT SYSTEM (GMAS) FROM RECENT WMO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL SESSIONS

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1 World Meteorological Organization EXECUTIVE COUNCIL WORKING GROUP ON DISASTER RISK REDUCTION (EC-WG-DRR) Expert Group on the WMO Global Multi-hazard Alert System (EG-GMAS) EG-GMAS-3/Doc XI.2018 DRAFT Third Session Geneva, Switzerland, 28 to 29 November 2018 EXTRACTS RELATED TO THE WMO GLOBAL MULTI-HAZARD ALERT SYSTEM (GMAS) FROM RECENT WMO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL SESSIONS 1. Seventieth Session of the Executive Council (EC-70): Decision 4 (EC-70) Development of the Global Multi-hazard Alert System 1 The Executive Council decides: (1) To request the Executive Council Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction (EC WG/DRR) s Expert Group on GMAS (EG-GMAS) to gather additional user requirements according to the Plan developed by EC WG/DRR based on the drafts developed by the EG-GMAS at its meetings held in October 2017 and March 2018 with support from the Secretariat (EC-70/INF. 3.2) 2, (2) To request the EC WG/DRR to: (d) (e) (f) Document best practices of Members regarding multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS)/GMAS and assess how these may help deliver to the documented user requirements, Based on the requirements, develop options for the implementation of GMAS, including a full featured option to meet all of the user requirements, as well as a minimum viable product which delivers to a subset of prioritised requirements, for consideration by Congress, Based on the identified options, assess the budget and funds needed, including the budgetary requirements for NMHSs based on their responsibilities on NMHSs, Finalize the GMAS Concept based on the outcome of the user requirement exercise, Liaise with existing service providers such as the Global Disaster Alerting Coordination System (GDACS) a joint initiative of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) and the European Commission s Joint Research Centre (JRC) which already provide severe weather services to the global community, Undertake a status review of Members, who provide warning products to the WMO Information System (WIS), which would inform the GMAS cost analysis, Concept and implementation plan,

2 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p. 2 (3) To submit the GMAS Concept, along with key elements for a possible implementation plan, including responsibilities, and the additional requirements collected and cost estimates to Congress for approval, (4) To support Members, especially those of developing countries, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDSs), in strengthening their capacity to develop, interpret, disseminate and apply MHEWS information for their decision makers, (5) To encourage regional associations and Members to continue their efforts in the development of and involvement in MHEWS/GMAS in partnership with technical commissions and to share their best practice at national, sub-regional, regional and global levels, such as Meteoalarm of the European Meteorological Services Network (EUMETNET), Meteoalert of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of the Russian Federation (Roshydromet), South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System (SEE-MHEWS-A) and GMAS Asia, (6) To request the Secretary-General to support the EC WG/DRR and its EG-GMAS in the above tasks and to promote and facilitate sharing of lessons learnt and best practices of Members, including multi-hazard alert platforms mentioned above. Decision justification: 1. Recommendations from the EC WG/DRR-II (EC-70/INF. 3) 3, 2. The EC WG/DRR s Expert Group on GMAS (EG-GMAS) developed the GMAS Concept 4, the Strategy 5 and the Plan to document user requirements (EC-70/INF. 3.2) GMAS will neither replace, nor duplicate what already exists and was developed under the auspices of the WMO technical commissions and regional associations. It will be strongly aligned with the World Meteorological Centres, Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) with geographical specialization, for specialized activities, marine activities non-real-time coordination activities and general purpose activities, Regional Climate Centres (RCCs), as well as other centres specified in the Manual on Global Data-processing and Forecasting System, WMO- No GMAS will also be aligned with practices and principles already used in other projects, such as for the Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) and Coastal Inundation Forecasting Demonstration Project (CIFDP). 4. Recommendation by the EG-GMAS as presented to the EC WG/DRR, namely that GMAS could be built on the alert hub technology, prototyped by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Big Data Project, to enable timely aggregation of relevant authoritative warnings and alerts related to high-impact weather, water, ocean and climate events towards an Earth Systems approach, and GMAS can also leverage WIS to maintain a repository of authorized

3 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p. 3 warnings, alerts and related information and to distribute this information to authorized users. Using WIS will guarantee no-cost implication to NMHSs in implementing this initial module of GMAS. 5. Recommendation by the EG-GMAS as presented to the EC WG/DRR, namely that the World Weather Information Service (WWIS) and the Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC) were considered as initial core components of GMAS. They will be developed further to the so called enhanced SWIC/WWIS that will provide a web-based user interface with a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based map display to GMAS users, ensuring the attribution of WMO and NMHSs as authoritative sources of warnings and alerts. This module is being developed by the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) as an in-kind contribution to the development of GMAS. Furthermore, the Worldwide Met-Ocean Information and Warning Service (WWMIWS) web portal hosted by Météo-France already provides many of the functional requirements of the GMAS Concept aimed at shipping users in a simple, low cost but effective manner. 6. The EC WG/DRR, at its second session in April 2018, appreciated significant work done by the EG-GMAS on developing the Concept, Strategy and the Plan to document user requirements. It was agreed that the additional requirements have to be gathered, verified and analysed before the Concept could be finalized. Gathering of additional user requirements will proceed in parallel with the finalization of the Concept, so that the Concept can be submitted to Cg-18 for consideration. The EC WG/DRR demanded that, in addition to what was requested by EC-69, the Concept should also include a cost estimation. 7. The EC WG/DRR agreed to submit the Plan to document user requirements to EC-70 for consideration.

4 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p Extracts from the Final Report 7 of the 2018 (Second) Meeting of the Executive Council Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction (EC WG-DRR-II), 9-10 April 2018, Geneva, Switzerland From Annex III CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendations on the Global Multi-hazard Alert System (GMAS) and support to UN and Humanitarian Agencies Development of GMAS With regard to the development of GMAS, the Group recommended that, through a draft decision to EC-70, the EC WG/DRR s Expert Group on GMAS (EG-GMAS) should be requested to gather additional requirements, according to the Plan developed by the EC WG/DRR based on the drafts developed by the EG-GMAS at its meetings held in October 2017 and March 2018 with support from the Secretariat, and the EC/WG DRR be requested to: Document best practices of Members regarding MHEWS/GMAS and incorporate them into the GMAS Concept; Assess the cost needed for the implementation of GMAS, including the responsibilities of NMHSs; and, Finalize the GMAS Concept based on the outcome of the user requirement exercise. Furthermore, the EC/WG DRR recommended that EC-70 consider to: Submit the GMAS Concept, along with the additional requirements collected and the cost estimates to Cg-18 for approval; Support Members, especially those of developing countries, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDSs) in strengthening their capacity to develop, interpret, disseminate and apply multi-hazard early warning information for their decision makers; and, Encourage Members to continue their efforts in the development of and involvement in MHEWS/GMAS and sharing their best practice at national, subregional, regional and global levels. 7 The Report by the Secretary-General in the same document also mentions: GMAS was successfully initiated: endorsement was obtained from the 2017 joint meeting of the Presidents of Regional Associations and Presidents of Technical Commissions and the first meeting of Advisory and Technical Teams was organized; An Expert Group on GMAS was established under the supervision of the chair of EC WG-DRR. Work on the concept note was conducted as requested by EC-69. The development and implementation of GMAS-Asia, Meteo-Alert in Russia and SEE (South-East European)- MHEWS-A were facilitated. As well, early warning information was partly aggregated in the new version of WMO Weather Information System (WWIS). Other regional components of GMAS are under development. GMAS has been presented at sessions of the regional tropical cyclone bodies seeking their contribution to the development of the system through integrating existing regional and national tropical cyclone forecasting and warning information into GMAS.

5 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p. 5 From Annex IV SUMMARY NOTES AND MEMBER COMMENTS Coordination of DRR activities across WMO Overview of key activities Global Multi-Hazard Alert System (GMAS) Dr Ivan Čačić, the co-chairperson of the Expert Group on Global Multi-Hazard Alert System (EG-GMAS), introduced a proposal for a draft Decision on GMAS to be submitted to EC-70 for consideration. Subsequently, Mr James Douris, presented a Plan to document user requirements (see EC-70/INF. 3.2), followed by Dr Miroslav Ondráš who introduced the GMAS Concept. The draft Decision on GMAS, the Plan to document user requirements, as well as the GMAS Concept were developed by the EG-GMAS at its meetings held in October 2017 and March The EC WG/DRR appreciated significant work done on developing the Concept and the Plan to document user requirements. However, participants agreed that additional requirements have to be gathered, verified and analyzed before the Concept can be finalized. It was agreed that the finalization of user requirements can proceed in parallel with the finalization of the Concept, so that the Concept can be submitted to Cg-18 for consideration. The EG-GMAS will continue its work according to its ToR as outlined in agenda item 6. The EC WG/DRR would however need to review the results of the user requirements analysis, as well as the Concept tuned to those requirements. In finalization of the GMAS Concept, the EG-GMAS was requested to address issues presented during the discussion, namely to: (d) (e) (f) Define who are the decision makers referred to in the GMAS Vision; Explain the principle of the alert hub technology; Discriminate between authoritative and non-authoritative information provided by different providers; Explain better the role of UN and humanitarian organizations, as well as the private sector, being possible providers; Better define the user group; and, Arrange for a translation of the Concept in other WMO languages. The EC WG/DRR agreed that, in addition to what was requested by EC-69, the Concept should also include a cost estimation. It was recognized that there is certain urgency to enable an easy access to authoritative information, including a provision of an expert advice, to UN and humanitarian agencies. The EC WG/DRR agreed that a provision of information to UN and humanitarian agencies should be augmented by a consultation and interpretation to enable the full value of the information to be translated into their efficient and effective action. Therefore, the EC WG/DRR decided to address this requirement at the EC-70. In this regard, the EC WG/DRR agreed on the two recommendations presented above.

6 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p Sixty-ninth Session of the Executive Council (EC-69): Decision 3 (EC-69) WMO Global Multi-hazard Alert System 8 THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, Recalling: (1) The WMO Convention (WMO-No. 15) which affirms the vital importance of the mission of the National Meteorological, Hydrometeorological and Hydrological Services in observing and understanding weather and climate and in providing meteorological, hydrological and related services in support of relevant national needs which should include the following areas: (d) (e) (f) (g) protection of life and property; safeguarding the environment; contributing to sustainable development; promoting long-term observation and collection of meteorological, hydrological and climatological data, including related environmental data; promotion of endogenous capacity-building; meeting international commitments; contributing to international cooperation ; and Members need to work together to coordinate, standardize, improve and encourage efficiencies in the exchange of meteorological, climatological and hydrological and related information between them, in the aid of human activities and considering that meteorology is best coordinated at the international level and considering that there is a need for close cooperation with other international organizations, (2) Resolution 10 (Cg-17) Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and WMO Participation in the International Network for Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems (IN-MHEWS) calls for the necessity of enhancing multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) and that the Member States of the United Nations called for strengthened regional and international cooperation to develop science-based methodologies and tools to support MHEWS, (3) Paragraph of the general summary (Cg-17) in which Congress highlighted global target (g) of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) , which reads substantially increase the availability of and access to multihazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people by2030, (4) Resolution 9 (Cg-17) Identifiers for Cataloguing Extreme Weather, Water and Climate Events in which Congress decided to develop identifiers for cataloguing weather, water and climate extreme events in cooperation with institutions having competences about possible impact of those weather events can provide an unambiguous reference for associated losses and damages and can promote consistency in the characterization of extreme events, 8

7 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p. 7 (5) Annex to paragraph of the general summary (Cg-17) which states that NMHSs are the official authoritative source and in most countries, a single voice, on weather warnings in their respective countries, and, in many, they are also responsible for climate, hydrology, air quality, seismic and tsunami warnings and for space weather forecasts and warnings, (6) Resolution 2 (Cg-17) Implementation of WMO Strategy for Service Delivery in which Congress considered that Members, through regional associations, technical commissions and various WMO activities, expressed a need for improved service delivery to the public, to the disaster community and to social and economic sectors, (7) Decision 5 (EC-68) Provision of Multi-Hazard Impact-Based Forecast and Risk- Based Warning Services to the Public in which EC considered that there is a need to make every effort to assist Members to be more responsive to changing societal needs, thus fulfilling their role as the authoritative voice, (8) The decision taken in paragraph of the general summary (CBS-Ext.(2014)) Open Programme Area Group on Public Weather Services (OPAG/PWS) in which the CBS strongly encouraged the engagement of Members in: the WMO Register of Alerting Authorities initiative; and adopting the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) technology for communicating weather warnings and alerts, and in this connection to promote the WMO Alert Hub as performer of a service that is complementary to the international Register of Alerting Authorities to reinforce the principal of a single authoritative voice for alerting, (9) Resolution 5 (Cg-17) Public Weather Services Programme requested the Secretary-General to liaise with the Member that hosts the SWIC website to carry out the enhancement necessary to enable the website to disseminate weather warnings that would be provided in CAP format by Members, Recognizing that: (1) Early warnings for weather, water and climate hazards have demonstrated to be very effective in reducing loss of life and property, (2) Impacts related to hydrometeorological hazards affect an increasingly exposed and vulnerable population at the national, regional and global levels which necessitates that warning information from all countries should be made more easily available for decision makers with in the United Nations humanitarian agencies and economic sectors and the general public, (3) There have been significant advancements in the accuracy, reliability and timeliness of observing, forecasting and warnings of severe weather phenomena, (4) The global indicators to measure success of warnings (i.e. those for the global targets of the Sendai Framework) will require coordinated reporting from Members, (5) The World Weather Information Services (WWIS) and Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC) websites provide an example and Hong Kong, China is willing to enhance these websites to disseminate weather warnings provided in CAP format and other equivalent formats by Members, (6) Regional, sub-regional and national platforms such as Meteoalarm of the European Meteorological Services Network (EUMETNET)and Meteoalert of the Federal Service

8 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p. 8 for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of the Russian Federation (Roshydromet), WMO Alert Hub, and, for example, Google Public Alerts serve as good examples that could be leveraged in the development of WMO GMAS, (7) Members are the authoritative source for issuing disaster warning and alerting products in their respective countries, Noting that: (1) The UN Secretary General has recently called for enhanced information for the UN Operations and Crisis Centre (UNOCC) to support decision making, (2) The UNOCC will require close coordination with WMO to facilitate and consolidate weather, climate and water information, (3) A first GMAS concept was presented and well received at the meeting of the Presidents of Regional Associations and the Presidents of Technical Commissions (PRA/PTC, 9 11 January 2017, Geneva, Switzerland) and the 16th session of WMO RA II (12 16 February, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) and the 17th session of RA IV (27-31 March 2017, San José, Costa Rica), (4) In addition to national early warning systems, further regional / sub regional multihazard alarm systems and partnerships are being set up by Members: the South East Europe Multi-Hazard Advisory Systems project will shortly publish its Implementation Plan and is supported by the USAID and the World Bank, the Pilot Project to Enhance the Capability of Meteorological Disaster Risk Reduction in RA II has been proposed and is being coordinated by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA)and the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO)based on the implementation of CAP, and the experience of the HKO in hosting the WWIS and SWIC websites of WMO as per Resolution 5.2/10 (RA II-16), Having been informed: that the WMO Secretary-General has established an Advisory Group on the WMO GMAS and the outcomes from its consultation meeting (13-15 March 2017, Geneva, Switzerland) contributed to the development of the first Concept Note of GMAS, Endorses the GMAS vision in the Annex as an initial draft statement which will be further advanced through the guidance of the Executive Council Working Group on DRR (ECWG/DRR); Requests the EC WG/DRR to: (1) Further advance the GMAS concept and the development of a strategy that emphasizes the following components: (d) Focuses on the benefits to and requirements of the users, Emphasizes that NMHSs are the official authoritative source and in most countries, a single voice, on weather warnings in respective cases, Considers the role of RSMCs in providing guidance to Members (e.g. tropical cyclones, and climate products), Considers both the meteorological and hydrological aspects,

9 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p. 9 (e) (f) (g) Accommodates public and private capacities and use cases, Takes into account other service providers such as GDACS, Utilizes the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) or other industry standards to enable a robust mechanism for aggregating warnings from Members; (2) Develop a project plan that to encompass to key deliverables: A detailed plan aimed at gathering the requirements, Development of a detailed proposal to be presented to EC 70, which leverages existing working mechanisms (for example, CBS Management Group Task Team on DRR, where available) in consultation with regional associations and technical commissions; Urges Members, regional associations, technical commissions and technical programmes to participate and contribute to the development of WMO GMAS; Requests the Secretary-General to: (1) Support the EC WG/DRR to incorporate the work already conducted under the Advisory Group on the WMO GMAS into their own agenda; (2) Mobilize the resources for the EC WG on DRR; (3) Communicate this initiative to the Multi-Hazard Early Warning Conference (22-23 May 2017) and the 2017 Global Platform for DRR (22-26 May 2017) both in Cancún, Mexico, and receive feedback from stakeholders. Annex to Decision 3 (EC-69) WMO GLOBAL MULTI-HAZARD ALERT SYSTEM VISION 1. Introduction 1.1 Early warnings for weather, water and climate hazards have been demonstrated over the past decade to be very effective in reducing loss of life and property. These warnings, which come from the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of each country, provide the foundation on which early action to take precautions against hazards by the responsible authorities and public can be realized. 1.2 However, as the impacts related to these hazards affect an increasingly exposed and vulnerable population at the national, regional and global levels there is a need for warning information from all countries to be made more easily available and understandable for decision makers in the humanitarian agencies, economic sectors, the general public and travellers. It is proposed that a WMO Global Multi-Hazard Alert System (GMAS) be developed that would provide target users with authoritative hydrometeorological hazard warnings and related information.

10 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p Vision 2.1 To be recognized globally by decision makers as a resource of authoritative warnings and information related to high-impact weather, water, ocean and climate events. 3. Rational 3.1 In 2015, governments, agencies, NHMSs representing their countries in WMO, WMO representatives and the wider disaster risk reduction community gathered together in Sendai, an area itself devastated by the Great Japan Earthquake, to discuss and formulate what has now become the ground breaking Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. 3.2 In Sendai all agreed that we need to do more. We need to enhance our services, strengthen regional and global collaboration and develop science based methodologies to support Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems. 3.3 Even prior to Sendai the demand for access to multi-hazard information was growing as decision makers including the likes of the UN, realized the power of assimilating environmental information into both their short-term response and longer-term decision making processes. Impacts related to hydrometeorological hazards continue to affect an increasingly exposed and vulnerable population at the national, regional and global levels which necessitates that warning information from all countries should be made more easily available for decision makers. However, into this arena we have seen a growing number of information providers, social media has become the norm and non-authoritative and irresponsible sources continue to proliferate which at times causes decision stagnation due to simple information overload. 3.4 This is an ever changing environment in which the NMHS in partnership with their national civil protection agencies have continued to deliver those vital multi-hazard services at times learning vital lessons along the way in respect of communicating to those at risk. 3.5 We now want to share this knowledge and our learnings with the global DRR community to ensure that we meet the needs of the users in the 21st century. We want to catalyse an energized conversation with all stakeholders across the wide spectrum which is DRR, we want to engage with those already providing multi-hazard information to develop services and systems that truly meet their needs. 3.6 NMHSs are the official authoritative source and in most countries, a single voice, on weather warnings in their respective countries, and, in many, they are also responsible for climate, hydrology, air quality, seismic and tsunami warnings and for space weather forecasts and warnings (Annex to paragraph of the general summary (Cg-17)). We now want to build on this to ensure that the global community receives the multi-hazard information which they so desperately need. 3.7 WMO members are now committed to the delivery of a detailed outreach programme to truly understand those diverse requirements. Under the banner of the WMO GMAS members will work with all users to understand their requirements. We will learn from best practice elsewhere and we will ensure our own best practices (standardization, harmonization, interoperability) are applied to our discussions. We will ensure that national mandated authorities for issuing warnings remain at the heart of our discussions, but we will also ensure that where necessary our own complex hydrometeorological language is translated into information which can be actioned by decision makers. 3.8 Ultimately we will ensure our services for the future provide high quality information with accountability and traceability to ensure we continue to enhance our service delivery in line with an ever changing world. Furthermore, the cooperation and utilization between neighbour countries will be improved for cross-border events.

11 EG-GMAS-3/Doc. 2.2, DRAFT 1, p In summary the GMAS initiative will reach across the traditional Enhance Recover, Prevent, Prepare, Respond Disaster Risk Management spectrum across all timescales through the utilization of authoritative multi-hazard information. It will thereby provide a solid foundation for those making critical decisions and thereby ultimately contribute to saving lives. Extract: REPORT BY THE PRESIDENT OF REGIONAL ASSOCIATION VI (EUROPE) TO EC-69 9 : (e) The president RA VI led the mission of WMO and EUMETNET to Roshydromet to explore the ways of potential collaboration related to hydrometeorological early warning systems in the framework of DRR agenda (Roshydromet Meteoalert and EUMETNET Meteoalarm systems). It was agreed to facilitate cooperation between EUMETNET and Roshydromet under the WMO umbrella. This collaboration had implications in setting-up of a WMO driven cross-regional meteo-alerting system. Meeting acted as an initial building block towards Global Meteo Alarm System (WMO GMAS). 9