Flood Early Warning Systems are critical tools for reducing loss of life and livelihoods during flood events. There is, however, growing recognition of the need to complement technical warnings with nuanced local knowledge. Doing so helps improve not only the accuracy of warnings, but also how the location, scale, and potential impacts of flood risks are understood by communities.

Informal settlements experience particularly severe impacts from flooding—impacts that are intensified by climate change, high levels of exposure and vulnerability, and social and political marginalisation within disaster risk management policy and practice. In these contexts, the effective functioning of community-based flood early warning systems (CBFEWS) is especially critical. While some localised examples of CBFEWS exist, they have rarely been scaled or embedded within wider urban systems.

This section presents case study examples of CBFEWS from the cities of Durban and Beira. It shares key lessons from these experiences, with a particular focus on integrating local and technical knowledge within early warning systems, and offers recommendations for developing CBFEWS in vulnerable areas in other cities.