Role of ICTs in early warning of climate-related disasters: A Sri Lankan case study

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have increasingly been recognised as innovative ways of managing environmental challenges, including climate change. As shown in the existing literature, ICTs have contributed to face the negative impacts of climate change in numerous ways, in varying degrees, and in various contexts. Although it has been evident that the growth of the ICT sector is remarkable during the past few decades in Sri Lanka, little is known about its applications and roles in facing the challenges of climate change.  It is an important development in this regard that ICTs are used as an adaptation tool in disaster early warning in Sri Lanka.  Being an island nation, located in the lower latitude of the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka is particularly vulnerable to acute impacts of climate change. As the country has been experiencing increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as storms, cyclones, floods etc, there is an essential need for having an effective early warning system to disseminate timely and important information to vulnerable groups to enable them to take immediate response measures and thereby minimize potential negative impacts.

Early warning is a ‘public good’ and developing countries in most of the cases are faced with resource constraints for the establishment and implementation of disaster early warning systems.  Although a number of research studies have recommended public-private partnerships to overcome such constraints, there is lack of research-based evidences to show the successfulness of such initiatives in effectively disseminating disaster information especially in the case of developing country contexts.  In the backdrop, the proposed case study is expected to shed light on the said research gap, based on the Disaster and Emergency Warning Network (DEWN), which is a mass alert emergency warning system, established and undertaken by a private sector mobile subscriber in collaboration with the Disaster Management Centre, the key government agency responsible for undertaking disaster management issues in Sri Lanka. There has been no or little research conducted to assess the system so far in a comprehensive manner. The objective of the proposed case study is to evaluate the DEWN in terms of ways of ICT application, role of DEWN in adaptation and coverage, stakeholders involved, costs and benefits to the stakeholders, degree of success and constraints (both in the supply side and receiving side) faced by them. The study finds that the DEWN presents an ideal illustration for using public-private partnership in adapting to the disaster related impacts brought about by global climate change.  It is based on a developing country context, where the government does not have adequate capability to provide effective disaster early warning systems using ICTs. As the mobile telecommunication sector of the country has been showing considerable developments in terms of the number of subscribers, the DEWN has become much more suitable to the context, although it requires further expansions in terms coverage.