Environmental disasters, in the end, while cannot be avoided, can always be mitigated or be prepared for. Amarnath Giriraj, Sub Theme Leader, Water-related Disaster Risk Management at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) explained that prediction of weather forecasts over the recent years has improved substantially with 90 percent of monsoon forecast skills being highly reliable.
“Our drought forecast system for South Asia can predict lead-time of 15-20 days in advance on the probability of drought conditions using climate and weather information,” he said.
Given the advantage of the technology at hand, he proposed that we use active early warning systems such as the nowcasting drought monitor to identify slow motion of drought progress.