The occurrence of extreme weather events has resulted in a series of detrimental impacts on the economy, society and the environment. The implementation of early warning systems represents an effective means of safeguarding lives, mitigating the impacts of catastrophic weather and reducing environmental losses.

China has successfully completed the construction of an Early Warnings for All system through the implementation of the four fundamental pillars: disaster risk knowledge and management, observation and forecasting, early warning dissemination and communication, and preparedness and response. China is willing to share the experience and practices with WMO Members.

Pillar 1. Disaster risk knowledge and management

From 2020 to 2023, China carried out the first nationwide integrated risk census of natural disasters to identify and evaluate disaster-prone areas (potential hazard locations) and disaster risk levels. The resulting data provided a scientific foundation for the prevention and control of natural disaster risk sources, precise disaster prevention and control, and an enhanced emergency response capability. The formulation of the census scheme, together with its technical standards, risk zoning and result application, provides WMO Members with a valuable experience reference and an opportunity to gain methodological training.

Pillar 2. Observation and forecasting

The integrated space-,air-and surface-based observing system, comprising satellites, radars, and automatic weather stations, provides global users with monitoring products and technical services.

Relying on the seamless numerical weather prediction (NWP) system, an operational system for forecasting and prediction of global meteorological elements and severe weather and its impacts has been established, which provides a variety of severe weather forecasts, risk early warning techniques and product services.

Pillar 3: Early warning dissemination and communication

The National Early Warning Centre (NEWC) was established in 2015 as the authoritative body for issuing early warnings. Subsequently, a network of one national, 31 provincial, 358 municipal, and 2,016 county-level early warning centres has been progressively established.

An operational mechanism for early warning release has been created, integrating 82 types of early warnings from 17sectors. This guarantees a unified and authoritative nationwide release of multi-hazard early warnings for natural disasters, accidents, public health, and social security.

The National Emergency Early Warning Release System has been established, featuring a two-tier deployment at the national and provincial levels and a four-tier application across the national, provincial, city, and county levels. It is designed to facilitate interdepartmental collaboration with emergency-related departments at all levels, enabling the unified and expeditious dissemination of multi-hazard early warnings through a range of communication channels. 

Pillar 4: Preparedness and response

The Chinese government has established a coordinated and disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief system and mechanism with a clearly defined division of responsibilities. 

A high-level early warning "call and response" mechanism has been established. It is a system based on the requirements of local governments for disaster prevention and mitigation. It comprises two distinct phases: the first involves the issuance of “calls” by agencies responsible for the release of early warning, while the second phase encompasses the “responses” of designated individuals at the community levels. A team for meteorological disaster prevention has been established.

We shared our independently developed cloud-based early warning system with developing countries, which integrates various toolkits for multi-hazard early warning, covering monitoring, forecasting, early warning and information release technologies for meteorological, hydrological, geological, and marine disasters. Furthermore, a Center of Excellence for Urban Multi-Hazard Early Warning was established with the objective of providing support WMO Members engaged in urban multi-hazard early warning. We provide international meteorological training programs through WMO Regional Training Centre (Beijing) (CMA Training Centre), and WMO Regional Training Centre (Nanjing) (Nanjing University of Information and Technology).