Mid-term Early Warning – anticipating crisis 6 months ahead

This report is one of the joint deliverables for The Joint Research Centre's Portfolio 25 “Enhanced Situational Awareness for Crisis Management”. It focuses on advancing towards integrated mid-term early warning system that will aim at anticipating disasters and crises within a 6-month window. Ability to detect crisis a few months in advance that are likely to have major cross sectorial impact is on high demand because it provides another opportunity for the transition from reactive to proactive crisis risk management strategies. The objective of this report is to understand which expert groups in JRC have skills to provide signals for crisis within this time window, collect knowledge within the same multi-hazard framework and identify challenges of midterm early warning to define the way forward. This report outlines the approach adopted for achieving Portfolio 25's objectives by harnessing existing forecasts and monitoring tools from JRC units specializing in an array of different hazards or their already manifested adverse impacts, such as: river flooding, armed conflicts, droughts, tropical storms, food insecurity, health, nuclear threats, and migration. The methodology utilizes “signal templates” completed by experts on a quarterly basis in 2023 to capture significant potential crisis signals and their expected impacts. Signal templates served as a structured format for provided information that can be efficiently up-taken by decision-makers. Furthermore, the information compiled over time formed the basis for creating causal loops that summarize key findings, illustrate the connections between hazards and impacts, reveal the compound effect of interrelated risks, and identify opportunities for anticipatory actions. This represents a first attempt to move from a single hazard view to a multi-hazard framework. The signal template exercise served to encourage the broad use of the tools developed at JRC on one side and highlight the gap between the production of knowledge and its practical application in addressing potential crisis within 6-month window. Results, challenges and next steps are described in the report.