Summary

SAI Thailand audited the early warning system in flood- and landslide-prone areas. Auditors identified a number of issues affecting the effectiveness of the emergency monitoring, surveillance and warning system, including insufficient coverage of high-risk areas by early warning stations. A review of databases containing information on 4,423 villages in flood- and landslide-risk zones (as of 2011) revealed that 2,042 settlements (46,17%) lacked warning stations or their actual locations did not allow them to cover the warning zones. At the same time, early warning stations were installed in 3,672 villages that were not considered high-risk zones due to technological limitations in installing them in upstream areas. SAI concluded that outdated databases and complex terrain resulted in residents in vulnerable areas not receiving timely warnings. Most early warning stations failed to issue signals until actual flooding occurred. The audit found that early warning signals were absent in 72,31% of cases, with some stations issuing false alerts when actual flooding did not occur SAI also found that 264 early warning stations (12.24% of the total) were inoperable. The most common problems included damage to control panels, signal transmitters and malfunctioning signal processing equipment. Furthermore, local administrations lacked a backup plan for early warning systems. Moreover, the EWS DWR emergency warning app was little known and practically unused. The information it contained was incomplete. SAI Thailand recommended that auditees address the problems with the early warning system by developing appropriate technologies, updating the database of settlements at risk and developing an action plan for station failures.