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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FANFAR (Reinforced cooperation to provide operational flood forecasting and alerts in West Africa)

Teaser

Summary

Flooding is a rapidly growing concern in West Africa. Several floods have occurred in recent years with severe consequences including loss of lives, displacements, disruption to public services, destroyed homes, damaged infrastructure, and delayed transportation. Flooding is also projected to increase with climate change. Hence, there is an urgent need for improved flood management in the region.
Access to operational forecasts and alerts is a critical component in addressing the flood challenges in West Africa. FANFAR is an European Union-financed project that co-designs, co-adapts, and co-operates a short- and medium-term hydrological forecasting and alert pilot system for West Africa (http://fanfar.eu/). FANFAR aims to provide key stakeholders with reliable and timely access to operational forecasts and alerts enabled by a robust forecast production system adapted to regional conditions and operated by West African institutions. Moreover, FANFAR enhances the capacity of West African institutions to forecast, alert for and manage floods.
The overall objective of FANFAR is to reinforce the cooperation between West African and European hydrological modellers, field observers, data managers, operative forecast analysts, emergency managers, developers of information and communication technologies (ICT), satellite experts, and decision analysts in order to provide a co-designed, co-developed, integrated, and co-operated hydrological forecasting and alert pilot system for West Africa.

Work performed

FANFAR employs an iterative process to design, develop, operate, test, and refine the flood forecasting and alert system, as well as to demonstrate, train and support its target users. In this process, a variety of actions have been carried out, described briefly below.
The FANFAR partners have co-developed a forecasting and alert pilot system that produces flood forecasts across West Africa. Every day, new forecasts and flood risk notifications are distributed through a range of channels including the FANFAR website (http://fanfar.eu/ivp/), SMS, email and API. The FANFAR system is deployed on the cloud-based ICT environment Hydrology-TEP (https://hydrology-tep.eu) to ensure operational robustness despite frequent cuts to electricity and internet supply in the region. A range of refinements have been carried out to enable this pilot, including (i) improving access to input data sources, (ii) selecting, adapting and deploying HYPE models in automated forecasting data production chains, (iii) derived and refined the flood-risk information produced from the model outputs and deployed operationally, (iv) developed prioritized distribution channels (i.e. online visualisation, SMS and email notifications), and (v) operating and adapting the Hydrology-TEP platform (e.g. enabling automated execution and monitoring of processing services, and developing support systems).
The FANFAR team has organized two successful stakeholder workshop gathering representatives from 17 West and Central African countries as well as external partner countries (http://fanfar.eu/about/). The workshops contribute to co-designing the forecasting and alert system by identifying user needs, comparing them with the currently operational pilot system, and soliciting feedback on how to improve the system. This is being achieved by applying Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. In this process we identified the set objectives for the flood forecasting and alert system considered most important by the target stakeholders, as well as a range of system options that can be used to fulfil those objectives. A significant part of the workshops were also devoted to hands-on capacity development and training on how to access, utilize, operate and customize the forecasting system and utilize the support channels.
The West African partners of FANFAR - NIHSA and AGRHYMET - have begun to test forecasting and alert system in practice, e.g. through weekly forecast outlooks in Nigeria. All workshop participants can also test the system. To support this the FANFAR partners have developed the FANFAR support systems: Knowledge Base, Forum and HelpDesk (http://fanfar.eu/support/).
To facilitate sustainable uptake and long term operations of the system, the FANFAR partners have initiated and contributed to a variety of dialogues in West Africa, such as with national hydrological agencies and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Final results

Empirical evidence points to more and more frequent floods in the region. For example Niamey in Niger, has been flooded two times between 1971 and 2000, but six times between 2000 and 2016. The economic impacts have been significant. Flood management is not generally well developed in West Africa, hence stakeholders are typically taken by surprise leading to a post-catastrophe crisis management. Several ongoing initiatives are aimed at improving flood forecasting, alerts and management. In this context the FANFAR project is very timely, making several advancements beyond the state-of-the-art, for example: (1) providing daily updated flood forecasts, (2) mapping the flood risks for the entire West Africa, (3) assimilating local observations and EO data to improve forecast accuracy, (4) distributing of flood notifications through accessible technologies, and (5) operating using robust cloud-based ICT infrastructure. These technical advancements are also framed by activities to reinforce human capacity to set up, operate, customize and improve the operational forecasting system, as well as to utilize the support channels.

Overall, the expected results until the end of the project are to provide a co-designed, co-developed, integrated, and co-operated hydrological forecasting and alert pilot system for West Africa; to analyze behavioural responses and understand technology adoption processes while introducing of the forecasting system in the region, and to pave the way for sustainable application and long-term operation of the system in the region.

The potential impacts of FANFAR are significant and far-reaching. FANFAR directly addresses the societal challenge of securing societies against flood hazards, which is an urgent challenge in West Africa. The FANFAR consortium consists of key organisations with mandate and ambition to exploit the developed system for societal benefit. The participatory and iterative approach employed in FANFAR ensures that relevant technologies are developed responding to the needs in the region, and that the forecasting system can be utilized, operated and further improved by West African organizations beyond the end of the project. FANAR also provides good opportunities for business development by linking SMEs offering cloud-computing solutions to the concrete need for such technologies in West Africa (having frequent cuts in electricity and internet). When fully integrated in practical flood management, the flood forecasting and alert system will raise the value of public services, private enterprises (e.g. water and agriculture consultants), and NGOs (e.g. emergency aid agencies).

All-in-all with better flood forecast and alert information, societies, NGOs, businesses and citizens in West Africa can begin to move from post-catastrophe crisis management to pre-event informed preparation and planned response. This in turn would enable many positive effects on society such as less infrastructure damage, more efficient energy production, and saved lives.