Warning! The use of meteorological information during a
flash-flood warning process
Résumé
Warning is a key issue to reduce flash floods impacts. But, despite many studies, local and national
authorities still struggle to issue good flash floods warnings. We will argue that this failure results from a
classical approach of warnings, based on a strict separation between the assessment world and the action
world. We will go further than the previous criticisms (Pielke and Carbone, 2002) and show that forecasters,
decision makers, emergency services and local population have quite similar practices during a flash-flood
warning. Focusing on the use of meteorological information in the warning process, our case study shows that
more research about the real practices of stakeholders would be another step towards integrated studies.
authorities still struggle to issue good flash floods warnings. We will argue that this failure results from a
classical approach of warnings, based on a strict separation between the assessment world and the action
world. We will go further than the previous criticisms (Pielke and Carbone, 2002) and show that forecasters,
decision makers, emergency services and local population have quite similar practices during a flash-flood
warning. Focusing on the use of meteorological information in the warning process, our case study shows that
more research about the real practices of stakeholders would be another step towards integrated studies.
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