By John Handmer, Centre for Risk and Community Safety, Geospatial Science, RMIT University, Melbourne
Abstract
This paper examines the many recent reviews of flood warning systems in North America and Europe. My purpose is to set out the main themes and issues contained in these reviews. It is also interesting and important to establish areas and issues not covered by the reviews, and I try to identify these areas of silence. A serious omission of the US and European material is the failure to explicitly conceptualise the warning task as being about enabling the communities, enterprises and individuals at risk to take action to reduce their risk and property losses. Processes are needed to ensure that the needs of those at risk drive warning system design.
