Issue 5: November - December 2000

Thousands of human casualties and tens of billions of dollars in economic damage will continue to befall the world's developing countries every two to seven years until an investment is made to improve forecasting and preparedness against El Niño, a new international study warns.

The study, a joint project of UN University, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), says more reliable El Niño forecasts and the capability of governments to react quickly to them are critical. In the absence of such capabilities, vulnerable people, infrastructure and economies in many parts of the world will continue to suffer periodically from El Niño's wrath - floods, fires, drought, cyclones, and outbreaks of infectious disease.

Flood cleanup in Bangladesh during the 1997-98 El Niño

The creation of regional organizations to prepare collective responses to El Niño is one of the key recommendations from the 19-month study developed by teams of researchers working in 16 countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The research was made possible with the support of the United Nations Foundation through the UN Fund for International Partnerships.

The study says few forecasters came close to forecasting El Niño's onset in mid-1997 and none were able to grasp the magnitude of the "El Niño of the Century" until it was well under way. National and regional forecasters typically provided predictions of El Niño impacts that in many cases were too general to be used with confidence by national and local decision makers. In some places, authorities were forced to make vital and costly decisions with uncertain - and in some cases misleading - information about El Niño's expected punch.

"El Niño is not a freak occurrence - it recurs every two to seven years on average and is becoming an increasingly predictable part of the global climate system. We need to accelerate our understanding of it and be better braced to deal with its devastating consequences," said Hans van Ginkel, UN Under Secretary-General and Rector of UN University.

Said Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program: "Too little is happening in developing countries to prepare for the next El Niño, despite having endured devastating damage and deaths in 1997-98. Developed countries have a moral obligation to help affected nations prepare for and minimize El Niño's setbacks in their battle against poverty and disease."

While there may have been reasons to excuse the lack of appropriate responses by governments, industries or individuals to the 1997-98 El Niño, the story should not repeat itself when it comes to the next El Niño events, said Dr. Michael Glantz, Senior Scientist at NCAR and the report’s principal investigator.

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Revised: February 22, 2001