1. Introduction - 1.1 META-OBSERVATIONS - 2. What it Means to be El Niño Ready - 3. Case study overviews - 4. Africa - 4.1 ETHIOPIA - 4.2 KENYA - 4.3 SOUTH AFRICA - 4.4 ZIMBABWE - 5. Asia - 5.1 CHINA - 5.2 VIETNAM - 5.3 THE PHILIPPINES - 6. South Pacific Island Region - 6.1 PACIFIC ISLAND REGION - 6.2 FIJI - 7. South Asia - 7.1 THE MALDIVES - 7.2 PAKISTAN - 7.3 SRI LANKA - 8. Central America & The Caribbean - 8.1 CENTRAL AMERICA - 8.2 CUBA - 8.3 PANAMA CANAL - 8.4 SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA - 8.5 TIJUANA, MEXICO - 9. Portal Review - 9.1 SIX CALLS-TO-ACTION - 9.2 INTRODUCING “ENSO READY NATIONS”: EL NIÑO, LA NIÑA AND NEUTRAL - 10. Crosscutting Themes - 10.1 El Niño’s Characteristics - 10.2 Forecasts - 10.3 NMHSs (National Meteorological and Hydrological Services) - 10.4 Governance - 10.5 Awareness - 10.6 Media including Social Networking - 11. Summary of the Executive Summary
Prof. Dr. Michael H. Glantz is Director of the Consortium for Capacity Building (CCB), an educational, outreach, and networking organization at the University of Colorado – Boulder in the USA.
Earlier he was a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), where he served as the Head of the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG). The author has been the only Senior Scientist from the social sciences in NCAR’s 50-year history.
Until August 2008, Prof. Dr. Glantz served as NCAR’s Director of the Center for Capacity Building, an innovative program focused on, but not limited to, undergraduate educators and students. His research and applications activities center on how climate, water, and weather affect society as well as how society affects climate. The author’s research relates to African drought and desertification; food production problems and prospects; societal impacts of climate anomalies related to El Niño and La Niña events, climate variability and change; to the development of methods of forecasting possible societal responses to the regional impacts of climate variability and change; and the use of climate-related information for economic development. He also has coordinated joint research in the Central Asian Republics of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Prof. Dr. Glantz, who was honored with the United Nations Environment Program’s Global 500 Award in 1990, has authored or edited over 30 multidisciplinary books on climate and development- related issues.
El Niño can have drastic effects on livelihoods in affected regions. As the climate changes, there will also be changes in El Nino behavior and therefor in its impacts around the globe on human activities such as agriculture, water resources and weather extremes. The country-specific studies covered in this book are undertaken by experts on climate, water and weather-related fields in the countries being studied. Furthermore, aspects from other disciplines, for example from social sciences have been drawn upon in order to cover crosscutting themes which are identified: depicting similarities and differences in responses to El Nino's impacts such as drought, floods, famines, health-related issues and the like.