The Total Flood Warning System: a review of the concept

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© 2021 Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience
60
The total flood warning system: a
review of the concept
Introduction
The Total Flood Warning System concept is
promoted by the Australian Government and is
widely used in the design of Australia’s early flood
warning systems. The Total Flood Warning System
concept is technically robust in comparison with
international flood warning system frameworks.
However, it is not as ‘total’ as it might be. This
paper looks at six other components identified that
make the system holistic and more effective.
Early warning systems are designed to save lives
and protect property where possible. According to
Mileti and Sorensen (1990, p.2):
A warning system is a means of getting
information about an impending emergency,
communicating that information to those who
need it, and facilitating good decisions and
timely response by people in danger.
In Australia, flood early warning systems are an
important part of the flood risk management
process promoted by the Australian Government
and implemented by the states and territories,
largely via local government and, in Victoria, by
catchment management authorities.
Guidance provided in the Managing the floodplain:
A Guide to Best Practice in Flood Risk Management
in Australia (Australian Institute for Disaster
Resilience 2017, p.61), shows that early warning
systems are a flood response modification option
and are one of ‘a range of measures to reduce
residual flood risk at a community scale’. In
comparison with other flood risk management
options, flood warning is assessed in this national
guide as having a ‘medium’ capacity to address
safety risks and a ‘low’ capacity to address
property damage risks, both in existing and future
urban developed areas (Australian Institute for
Disaster Resilience 2017, p.46).
The Australian Government has provided guidance
to assess and design robust flood warning
systems. It introduced the concept of the ‘total
flood warning system’ (TFWS) to describe the full
range of elements that must be developed if flood
warning services are to be provided effectively.
The lead document for the development of the
TFWS in Australia is Manual 21 – Flood Warning
(Attorney-General’s Department 2009). As shown
in Figure 1 and according to Manual 21, at its
simplest, the TFWS consists of six components.
1. Prediction - detecting changes in the
environment that lead to flooding and
predicting river levels during the flood.
2. Interpretation - identifying in advance the
impacts of the predicted flood levels on
communities at risk.
3. Message construction - devising the content
of the message that will warn people of
impending flooding.
4. Communication - disseminating warning
information in a timely fashion to people and
organisations likely to be affected by the flood.
5. Response - generating appropriate and timely
actions from the threatened community and
from the agencies involved.
6. Review - examining the various aspects
of the system with a view to improving its
performance.
Manual 21 (Attorney-General’s Department 2009,
p.7) stresses that for the TFWS to ‘work effectively,
these components must all be present and they
must be integrated rather than operating in
isolation from each other’.
Cawood, Keys and Wright (2018) describe the
genesis of the TFWS concept emanating from a
series of workshops held after severe flooding
in parts of Australia in 1990. The workshop
participants included representatives from the
Australian Bureau of Meteorology and forecasting
and emergency management professionals. The
document resulting from the workshops, Flood
Warning: an Australian Guide, was published in
1995 (Australian Emergency Management Institute
1995). This guide was updated through revisions to
Manual 21 including the TFWS concept.
Neil Dufty
Molino Stewart, Parramatta,
New South Wales
Permissions information for
use of this content can be
found at https://knowledge.
aidr.org.au/ajem

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Australian Journal of Emergency Management Volume 36 No. 1 January 2021 61
The TFWS concept is now widely used in flood risk management
in Australia. TFWS is invariably a requirement in the assessment
and design of flood early warning systems by local councils
and catchment management authorities as well as by the
consultants they commission. The National Arrangements for
Flood Forecasting and Warning (Bureau of Meteorology 2018,
p.9) states that ‘Flood warning systems in Australia are designed
using the concept of the Total Flood Warning System’.
The Total Warning System concept has now been recommended
by the Australian Government for all hazards (Australian Institute
for Disaster Resilience 2018). Further TFWS advice as an update
of Manual 21 will be provided in a companion document to Flood
Emergency Planning for Disaster Resilience (Australian Institute
for Disaster Resilience 2020).
A review of the TFWS concept in relation to Australian and
international research was undertaken by the author to ascertain
its ongoing value in guiding the design, implementation and
evaluation of flood early warning systems. In particular, the
review assessed the holistic ideal of the TFWS and the veracity
of the six identified TFWS components (Attorney-General’s
Department 2009).
Figure 1: The components of the Total Flood Warning System
(Attorney-General’s Department 2009, p.6).
Technical legitimacy
The TFWS aligns well with internationally promoted early warning
system frameworks. For example, according to the International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2006), there are four separate
but interlinked elements of effective people-centred early
warning systems:
1. Risk knowledge.
2. Technical monitoring and warning service.
3. Dissemination and communication.
4. Response capability.
‘Risk knowledge’ aligns with ‘Interpretation’ in the TFWS.
‘Technical monitoring and warning service’ aligns with
‘Prediction’, ‘Dissemination and communication’ aligns with the
components of ‘Message construction’ and ‘Communication’ and
‘Response capability’ aligns with ‘Response’. The TFWS provides
an extra ‘Review’ component to those by the International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2006).
Holistic ideal
The TFWS has been criticised for not being as ‘total’ as it could
be. For example, as shown in Figure 2, Molino and co-authors
(2011) argued for an extension of the TFWS to include six
additional components:
1. understanding the flood risk
2. emergency management planning
3. community flood education
4. data collection including location and use of rain gauges and
river level gauges
5. community participation
6. integration of the TFWS components.
The additional components have merit. According to Molino and
colleagues (2011), understanding the flood risk not only relates
to flood risk mapping and modelling as included in the existing
‘Interpretation’ component of the TFWS but also to pre-flood risk
communication (e.g. to residents and businesses).
Flood warning is an integral part of emergency management
planning. All jurisdictions have emergency legislation, policies,
plans and governance that should include provision for effective
flood warning services. For example, in Victoria all local councils
with flood risk are required to have a Municipal Flood Emergency
Plan, which includes details of emergency agency actions related
to triggers such as stream gauge heights.
Community flood education and engagement helps people learn
how to prepare for and respond to floods (including to flood
warnings) and also recover from them. The prime outcome is
public safety, with a secondary outcome being protection of
property (Dufty 2020).
For the effective development of a flood warning system,
preparedness community education content should include
providing learning about flood risk, identifying flood triggers (e.g.
river heights), what people should do to ensure the safety of
Monitoring and prediction
Communication
and
agency
consultation
and
review
Interpretation
Message construction
Communication
Protective behaviour
Review

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© 2021 Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience
62
themselves and others if possible (e.g. their family, neighbours,
vulnerable people in the community) and what people should
do to protect their property, companion animals and livestock (if
applicable). People in flood-prone areas should also be aware of
the possible flood warning lead times to enable them to carry out
safe responses.
An essential basic input to a total flood warning system is rain
and river data. The existing river level gauges (with telemetry)
and rainfall gauges (daily and sub-daily) available to a community
should be assessed prior to the design of a local flood warning
system.
There is a growing body of evidence showing that community
participation is critical in the development of effective early
warning systems. For example, the United Nations International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction provides a checklist for
developing early warning systems (International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction 2006, p.4). It states that communities:
…should be actively involved in all aspects of the
establishment and operation of early warning systems; be
aware of the hazards and potential impacts to which they
are exposed; and be able to take actions to minimize the
threat of loss or damage.
Figure 2: Extended Total Flood Warning System components (Molino et al. 2011).

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Australian Journal of Emergency Management Volume 36 No. 1 January 2021 63
Manual 21 stresses the need for integration of the components
of the TFWS.
For a flood warning system to work effectively, these
components must all be present and they must be
integrated rather than operating in isolation from each
other. The view that any one component of the system
represents all of it, or is an end in itself, impairs the system’s
effectiveness.
(Attorney-General’s Department 2009, p.7)
Molino and colleagues (2011) note that:
…each of these warning system parts can work well or
can work poorly or at worst, not work at all. The overall
effectiveness of the warning can only be as strong as the
weakest link in the chain and, unlike a real chain, errors or
weaknesses can accumulate as they are passed along the
chain. For example, poor data plus poor interpretation can
be worse than either poor data or poor interpretation.
Thus, the integration of total flood warning system components
should be a separate component to ensure that linkages are
strong and working effectively.
‘Review’ is a critical total flood warning system component as it
leads to warning system improvements before and after a flood.
Manual 21 (Attorney-General’s Department 2009, p.71) provides
a list of possible performance indicators that can be used as a
basis for review. Other guidance to review has been provided
(e.g. Parker & Neil 1990). It is important that flood early warning
systems are reviewed regularly to ensure all components are
working effectively.
It should be noted that recent Australian Government guidance
on total warning systems has embraced some of the suggested
additional total flood warning system components. For example,
Handbook 16 – Public Information and Warnings (Australian
Institute for Disaster Resilience 2018, p.11), acknowledges prior
community education and engagement about warning as an
important part of a Total Warning System. As part of emergency
management planning, the need to set ‘organisational capability,
systems and arrangements in place to warn effectively’ is also
identified.
Conclusion
The TFWS concept promoted by the Australian Government is
entrenched in the Australian flood sector. It compares favourably
to international flood warning frameworks identifying an
additional critical ‘Review’ component.
However, the TFWS should be extended to include at least six
other components, including emergency management planning
and community flood education that require actions prior to
flood events.
References
Attorney-General’s Department 2009, Manual 21 - Flood Warning,
Australian Emergency Manuals Series, Commonwealth of Australia. At:
https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/media/1964/manual-21-flood-warning.pdf.
Australian Emergency Management Institute AEMI 1995, Flood Warning:
An Australian Guide.
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience 2017, Handbook 7 – Managing
the floodplain: A Guide to Best Practice in Flood Risk Management in
Australia, Australian Disaster Resilience Handbook Collection At: https://
knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/handbook-managing-the-floodplain/.
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience 2018, Handbook 16 – Public
Information and Warnings, Australian Disaster Resilience Handbook
Collection. At: https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/public-
information-and-warnings-handbook/.
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience 2020, Flood Emergency
Planning for Disaster Resilience, Australian Disaster Resilience Handbook
Collection. At: https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/handbook-flood-
planning/.
Bureau of Meteorology 2018, National Arrangements for Flood
Forecasting and Warning, Commonwealth of Australia.
Cawood M, Keys C & Wright C 2018, The Total Flood Warning System;
what have we learnt since 1990 and where are the gaps, Australian
Journal of Emergency Management, vol. 33, no. 2, pp.47–52.
Dufty N 2020, Disaster Education, Communication and Engagement,
Wiley, Hoboken, USA.
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction 2006, Developing Early
Warning Systems: A Checklist, Third International Conference on Early
Warning, 27–29 October, Bonn, Germany.
Mileti DS & Sorensen JH 1990, Communication of Emergency Public
Warnings - A Social Science Perspective and State-of-the-Art Assessment,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL-6609, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.
Molino S, Dufty N, Crapper G & Karwaj A 2011, Are warnings working?
Achievements and challenges in getting communities to respond, paper
presented to the Floodplain Management Association Conference,
Tamworth NSW, February 2011.
Parker DJ & Neil J 1990, Evaluating the Performance of Flood Warning
Systems, in Penning, Rowsell, EC and Handmer, J (eds) Hazard and the
Communication of Risk, Gower Technical Press, Aldershot, pp.137–156.
Neil Dufty is a Principal at Molino Stewart Pty Ltd, an
environment and natural hazards consultancy in Sydney,
NSW, Australia. He has designed and assessed numerous
flood early warning systems in Australia and been a lead
evaluator of early warning system performance including
for the 2010–11 Victorian Floods Review.

The Total Flood Warning System: a review of the concept

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