The project Building inclusive resilient communities and schools to face rapid-onset hazards in risk-prone areas in Mozambique affected by cyclone Idai, strengthening the link early warning to early action, carried out together with WW-GVC and funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Civil Protection and European Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO), was aimed to strengthen resilience and risk management capacity in the country’s most vulnerable communities, working in particular on Early Warning Systems and coordination mechanisms in the areas affected by Cyclone Idai in 2019.
The project
Active from April 2020 to January 2022, the project focused on the central provinces of Manica and Sofala and especially on the Buzi river basin, whose overflow in 2019 (caused by Cyclone Idai) led to the flooding of a large area and considerable damage. The activities of the project were carried out at both the operational-local and technical-central level. At the local level, the project was aimed to improve resilience by working with communities and with a particular focus on schools, which are both flood vulnerable infrastructures and a strategic node for raising awareness and spreading information among the population.
As far as the technical-central component is concerned, the project intended to activate an operational system for flood forecasting (the Flood-PROOFS chain), calibrated on local data and based on hydraulic and hydrological models able to work in real time.
Results
- Probabilistic flood forecasting chain (fed by the GFS ensemble) over the Buzi river basin
- Detailed modelling of hydraulic risk in the Dombe community (Manica)
- E-learning module on the Continuum hydrological model
CIMA Research Foundation’s contribution
CIMA Research Foundation was involved in this last area of intervention, working on the development of a hydrological-hydraulic operational chain able to provide national institutions (The National Institute for Disaster Management, INGD and the National Directorate for Water Resources Management, DNGRH) with detailed forecasts on the probability, and related impact, of a flood. The objective was to link this information to the mechanisms of alert and preventive action that, in synergy with the dialogue and training actions planned for schools and municipalities, allow for the reduction of the impact of floods.
Based on the project results is the REDE-EDUCAMA initiative, funded by DG-ECHO and running until March 2023, which aims to consolidate and expand national and local capacities for hydro-meteorological disaster prediction and preparedness.
