Forecasting Messiness: Probabilities and Anticipatory Action
Welcome to the Wheel of Anticipation! Where we will explore how probabilities help inform our anticipation of potential extreme events and our understanding of disaster risk. After a quick game of chance, an all-star disaster risk reduction panel will examine uncertainties translating hazard forecasts (in space and time) to disaster impacts, and how to use uncertain information to reduce risk. Anticipatory Action (AA) is an exciting humanitarian initiative that seeks to find forecast triggers for launching actions to reduce risk. Most AA literature refers very little to the uncertainties inherent in any attempt to predict the future. This panel will explore how understanding the risk (the product of probability and consequence), with and without forecasts, as well as uncertainty of outcome, should inform the selection of actions taken before a potential disaster event.
Organized by: USAID/BHA United States Agency for International Development/Bureau for Humanitarian Response
