Flood Early Warning in Papua New Guinea​ (PNG)

Papua New Guinea is the biggest and most populated country in the Pacific, and is exposed to adverse effects of environmental and climatic changes. The rising sea-level causes salt-water intrusion which puts groundwater resources at risk causing negative effects on agricultural production and water supply. Flooding may destroy housing as well as crop fields that, combined with droughts, increases the adverse effects of climate change on agricultural production and ultimately on food supply, as only insufficient storage is kept.

The highlands, with 2.2 million people in thousands of small villages, are subject to extreme weather  conditions, in particular heavy rainfall and drought. Landslides are increasingly occurring due to population pressure on  uncontrolled land use. Coastal areas and the many coral atolls are low-lying and nearly 500,000 people living in 2,000 coastal villages are vulnerable to weather extremes and flooding. In addition, a sufficient rise in sea temperature would kill sea coral, with consequences for fish breeding and for natural coastal defense mechanisms against extreme storms.

In order to provide solutions to the challenges faced, the assessment of the principal hazards, as a first step to tackling them, was of primary importance. Therefore, UNDP assigned Antea Group to study the climate risks in five pilot provinces (East Sepik, Madang, Morobe and Northern and New Ireland).

The knowledge base was created based on readily available data and the following assessments were undertaken by Antea Group and its partners:

Community risk assessment

The aim of the community risk assessment was to develop risk assessment maps at community level. This was implemented using previously tested and well documented tools and approached developed by World Vision (Antea Group’s partner in the project). Community risk assessments were conducted using a representative sample of 2 communities per district (a total of 50 communities). They provided valuable input for the province and district assessments by adding more detailed information. 

Province/district hazard-vulnerability-risk assessment

Assessments at province and district level were based on various national and international data sources, specific site visits to provinces (and selected districts), data derived from models, remote sensing, etc. The outcome of this phase was a hazard-vulnerability-risk assessment report, highlighting physical, social and economic vulnerability.

Composite risk assessment

The information gathered in the previous phases was compiled following a particular methodological framework and presented to the client with the help of Composite Risk Atlas that contained map products and a report on community risk assessment.

In the final stage, the findings of all three assessments (at all levels, covering all domains) and the recommendations were presented to the client and key stakeholders at national level.

Drawing on the conclusions of these assessments, we embarked on a participatory process to identify enabling factors to establish flood early warning systems. All these efforts resulted in a roadmap to implement an innovative multi-agency collaboration platform by bringing together the required expertise and resources to create and operate early warning systems.