A warning system is any system of biological or technical nature deployed by an individual or group to inform of a future danger. Its purpose is to enable the deployer of the warning system to prepare for the danger and act accordingly to mitigate or avoid it.[how?][citation needed]
Warnings cannot be effective unless people react to them. People are more likely to ignore a system that regularly produces false warnings (the cry-wolf effect), but reducing the number of false warnings generally also increases the risk of not giving a warning when it is needed.[2] Some warnings are non-specific: for instance, the probability of an earthquake of a certain magnitude in a certain area over the next decade. Such warnings cannot be used to guide short-term precautions such as evacuation. Opportunities to take long-term precautions, such as better building codes and disaster preparedness, may be ignored.[3][better source needed]
Biological warning systems
- Aposematism (e.g. warning coloration)
- Climate canary
- Fear
- Miner's canary
- Pain
Man-made warning systems
Civilian warning systems
- Alberta Emergency Alert
- Alberta Emergency Public Warning System (replaced by Alberta Emergency Alert)[4]
- Alert Ready (Canada)
- Automatic Warning System
- Child abduction alert system
- Dam safety system
- Earthquake warning system
- Emergency Alert System (EAS) (United States)
- Famine Early Warning Systems Network
- Federal Civil Defense Authority
- Fire alarm system
- Gale warning
- Ground proximity warning system
- Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System
- International Early Warning Programme
- J-Alert (Japan)
- Lane departure warning system
- National Severe Weather Warning Service
- N.E.A.R. (National Emergency Alarm Repeater)
- North Warning System
- Standard Emergency Warning Signal (Australia)
- Traffic Collision Avoidance System
- Train Protection & Warning System
- Tsunami warning system
Military warning systems
Historical beacon-based systems:
- Byzantine beacon system in Asia Minor during the 9th century
Space-based missile early warning systems:
- Defense Support Program (United States, to be succeeded by the "Space-Based Infrared System")
- Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) (United States)
- Oko, also known as "SPRN" (Russia)
Airborne early warning systems:
- Airborne Early Warning and Control ("AWACS" for NATO, many countries have developed their own AEW&C systems)
Ground-based early warning radar systems:
- Ballistic Missile Early Warning System and PAVE PAWS (United States)
- Duga radar, also known as the "Russian Woodpecker" (Russia)
- Dnestr radar (1st generation Russian)
- Daryal radar (2nd generation Russian)
- Voronezh radar (3rd and current generation Russian)
- Chain Home (British, now defunct)
- Chain Home Low (British, now defunct)
- ROTOR (British, now defunct)
Optical sensors:
Emergency broadcasting:
- CONELRAD (United States, succeeded by the Emergency Broadcast System)
- Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) (United States, succeeded by the Emergency Alert System)
See also
Notes and references
- ^ Testing sirens, Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection (page visited on 7 September 2013).
- ^ Sättele, Martina; Bründl, Michael; Straub, Daniel (October 2015). "Reliability and effectiveness of early warning systems for natural hazards: Concept and application to debris flow warning" (PDF). Reliability Engineering & System Safety. 142: 192–202. doi:10.1016/j.ress.2015.05.003. ISSN 0951-8320. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
- ^ "Attempts to predict earthquakes may do more harm than good | Professor David Petley". TheGuardian.com. 30 May 2012.
- ^ [1] Archived December 12, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
