International severe weather and flash flood hazard early warning systems: Leveraging coordination, cooperation, and partnerships through a hydrometeorological project in Southern Africa

This article explores the role of National Meteorological and Hydrologic Services (NMHSs) in providing early warnings for severe weather events such as as cyclones and flash floods. While the NMHS is generally the authority solely responsible for issuing warnings for these hazards, the linkages and interfaces between the NMHS and other agencies are often weak or non-existent, in many regions of the world.

In this context, several agencies have partnered with NMHSs to strengthen coordination and collaboration mechanisms from national to local levels in Southern Africa countries. Roadmap activities suggested by the authors for the NMHSs are:

• the reviewing and developing of disaster management policies;
• the reviewing and developing of operational capacities for observing, forecasting, and warning;
• developing guidance products and protocols;
• developing communication and dissemination mechanisms.

Water, Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2016, 258. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.