Past webinars
An overview of Italy's landslide early-warning system in operation
Project: LANDSLIP
The Italian National Department of Civil Protection presents this webinar on Italy's landslide early-warning system.
Part 1: the Italian early-warning system in operation. Carlo Cacciamani, head of the Centro Funzionale Centrale of the National Department of Civil Protection, presents the Italian early-warning system, providing an overview of its operation, the main actors in the system, tools used in its operation, procedures in use and the communication of alerts.
Part 2: the methods and model used for landslide forecasting for the evaluation of hydrogeological risk. Presentation by Giovanni Valgimigli, Martia Elena Martinotti and Angelo Corazza from the National Department of Civil Protection.
Risk data to enable early warning and early action
Project: ForPAc
A presentation of some of the latest developments on information management for risk data, including FloodTags, missing maps, InaSAFE/GEOSAFE, GFDRR HEV-E and 510 Global. The webinar explores initiatives and methodologies that could potentially contribute to the advance of scientific research and application to enhance early warning and early action.
Should seasonal total rainfall forecasts be used to prepare for floods?
Project: FATHUM
In light of strong encouragement for disaster managers to use climate services for flood preparation, we question whether seasonal rainfall forecasts should indeed be used as indicators of the likelihood of flooding. Here, we investigate the primary indicators of flooding at the seasonal timescale across sub-Saharan Africa.
Given the sparsity of hydrological observations, we input bias-corrected reanalysis rainfall into the Global Flood Awareness System to identify seasonal indicators of floodiness. Results demonstrate that in some regions of western, central, and eastern Africa with typically wet climates, even a perfect tercile forecast of seasonal total rainfall would provide little to no indication of the seasonal likelihood of flooding. The number of extreme events within a season shows the highest correlations with floodiness consistently across regions. Otherwise, results vary across climate regimes: floodiness in arid regions in southern and eastern Africa shows the strongest correlations with seasonal average soil moisture and seasonal total rainfall. Floodiness in wetter climates of western and central Africa and Madagascar shows the strongest relationship with measures of the intensity of seasonal rainfall. Measures of rainfall patterns, such as the length of dry spells, are least related to seasonal floodiness across the continent. Ultimately, identifying the drivers of seasonal flooding can be used to improve forecast information for flood preparedness and to avoid misleading decision-makers.