Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS)

Abstract

The tremendous loss of life resulting from 2004 tsunami emphasized the necessity of establishing and improving tsunami warning systems in countries of the Indian Ocean. For a rapid onset disaster (i.e. tsunami), a robust end to end early warning system is necessary to protect lives and livelihood. Early warning system (EWS) is an integral part of human to influence perceptions, decisions and behaviour in times of adverse conditions and crises. The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and mitigation System (IOTWS) has developed rapidly since its establishment after the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. One of the major elements of the IOTWS is the concept of a Regional Tsunami Service Provider (RTSP). An RTSP is a centre that provides an advisory tsunami forecast service to one or more National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWC). The RTSPs have a number of requirements that they need to meet (IOTWS, Report of intersessional meeting of working group 5, 2009). An early warning system need to integrated science, institutions and society for hazard detection to trigger warning, influences behavior for decision making and community response. The notion of the Last Mile originated from the need that EWS have to reach people at the local and community level with appropriate information in order to ensure that anticipated responses at the Last Mile can take place. The issues of the Last Mile underscore that EWS need to pay more attention to risk knowledge, response capabilities, and vulnerabilities of communities, including aspects of temporary and long-term migration. This chapter discuss about the evaluation of IOTWS, current status, risk assessment and major gaps still remains in the system. This chapter also presented some good practices and lessons learned based on recent incidents to strengthen IOTWS.