How are combined expertise elements in early-warning systems? Observations and propositions from the French system

Abstract

Warnings can help to prevent damage and harm if they are issued timely and provide information that helps respondents and population to adequately prepare for the disaster to come. Today, many indicators and sensor systems are designed to produce alert and reduce disaster risks. These systems have proved to be effective but they remain complex, include different expertise components, and are difficult to manage. We study in this paper the case of the National Early-Warning System in France (called SAIP), which can be seen as a System of Systems (SoS). A lot of SoSs exist. They can be directed, collaborative, virtual or even acknowledged systems. We study here what type of system corresponds to the French Early-Warning System, which openings may reasonably be considered for this system and we introduce a new category of SoSs: “delimited systems”.