To that end, several developments have enhanced FEWS NET’s drought early warning capacities. “This science involves combining and integrating multiple sources of information in ways that build on their relative strengths.” FEWS NET response ![]() “We’re trying to make a scientific discipline out of something that has historically been more ad hoc,” says Funk, the center’s research director. Driven by limited data availability and infrastructure, the system’s assessments were less timely in its early years, assessing conditions as they played out and making recommendations based on technical analyses.Īlong with Husak, UC Santa Barbara researcher Chris Funk joined the network in 1999, founding the university’s Climate Hazards Group, as of 2018 the Climate Hazards Center, in 2003. The US Agency for International Development established FEWS NET in 1987 in response to the devastation caused by the Ethiopian famine three years prior. The juxtaposition between the two events provided an opportunity for the team to reflect on their progress and document their findings. ![]() Preemptive food aid arrived to the region early the following year, well before the spring rains failed. However, better data, new tools, and more effective communication enabled FEWS NET to mobilize governments and NGOs. Predictions suggested it would span a larger area and affect more than twice the number of people as the 2011 drought. In late 2016, FEWS NET forecasted another unprecedented drought. Advances in FEWS NET’s monitoring and communication contributed to a much better outcome when drought hit East Africa in 20 compared to the 2011 Somali famine. The event claimed over 250,000 lives in Somalia alone. FEWS NET was able to issue an early warning, but conflict thwarted an effective response. The 2011 drought over the eastern horn of Africa was one of the worst on record, the paper states, affecting over 12 million people. To illustrate this point, the group highlighted differences between the Somali famine and the East African drought just six years later. Send relief,’ we can now provide advance warning of potential food crises months in advance,” says researcher Greg Husak, principal investigator of UC Santa Barbara’s Climate Hazards Center and part of the FEWS NET team. “Whereas I think decades earlier the reporting would have looked something like, ‘There are people starving here now. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the FEWS NET team detail in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society how the system works, how it has evolved, and advances that have taken place, particularly since the tragic Somali famine in 2011. ![]() FEWS NET covers Africa, central America, and parts of central Asia and the Caribbean. It achieves this by taking advantage of satellite observations, in-situ measurements, Earth systems models, and field scientists’ observations. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, identifies the location, severity, and causes of food insecurity and issues alerts to humanitarian NGOs and government agencies. Tens of millions of people face malnutrition the world over. ![]() University University of California, Santa BarbaraĪ drought early-warning system called FEWS NET has made progress anticipating famines and coordinating aid in the 30 years since its launch, researchers report.
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