Local early warning systems for drought – a possibility to add value to nationally disseminated seasonal climate forecasts

Local early warning systems for drought – a possibility to add value to nationally disseminated seasonal climate forecasts 

This policy brief gives insight to why seasonal climate forecasts are not used to their full potential for local planning and provides some suggestions of how a local early warning system could be designed. This is based on experiences from the development of a prototype of such a system in a pilot study, carried out by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Limpopo Province in collaboration with Swedish researchers.

Please download the policy brief for more detailed description [PDF].

For more information, please feel free to contact the project team:
Lotta Andersson (a) , Julie Wilk (b) , L. Phil Graham (a) , Jacob Wikner (c) , Suzan Mokwatlo (d), Brilliant Petja (e,f)

• a. National Centre for Climate Adaptation, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Sweden (lotta.andersson@smhi.se, phil.graham@smhi.se) 
• b. Environmental Change Unit, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden (julie.wilk@liu.se) 
• c. Department of Electrical Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden (jacob.wikner@liu.se) 
• d. Research Directorate, Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Limpopo Province, South Africa (MokwatloS@agric.limpopo.gov.za) 
• e. Water Research Commission, Pretoria (petjamb@gmail.com) 
• f. Risk and Vulnerability Science Centre, University of Limpopo, Turfloop (petjamb@gmail.com)