Climate science powers anticipatory action during Cyclone Ditwah
Early warning is protecting more than 500,000 people in Sri Lanka through flood and drought preparedness.
Key result story taken from our 2025 annual technical report.
A new science-driven platform developed by IWMI and CGIAR is transforming climate early-warning systems into anticipatory action. In Sri Lanka, the AWARE platform is already helping protect more than 500,000 people through earlier flood and drought preparedness — and is now being scaled across more than 10 climate-vulnerable countries to turn climate intelligence into life-saving decisions before disasters strike.
In May 2025, IWMI launched AWARE (Early Warning, Early Action, Early Finance) in Colombo — a new generation of disaster risk management systems that links real-time climate intelligence with decision-making tools to enable governments and humanitarian agencies to act before climate shocks strike. Developed with Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and CGIAR's Climate Action Program, AWARE aims to transform climate risk management from reactive to anticipatory.
Six months later, when Cyclone Ditwah made landfall in Sri Lanka in November 2025 — bringing more than 300 millimeters of rainfall in just 24 hours and affecting over 43,000 people — AWARE would be put to the test. Flood extent and population exposure analysis indicated that approximately 2.3 million people were exposed to cyclonedriven flooding nationwide, highlighting the scale of risk and the critical need for anticipatory action and early warning systems.
Turning climate data into actionable intelligence
At its core, AWARE is a science and coordination platform among humanitarian actors. AWARE builds on more than a decade of IWMI’s Water Risk Program and CGIAR research on climate risk analytics, drought monitoring, hydrological forecasting, and earth observation science.
The platform then translates this scientific information into localized risk forecasts — identifying which communities, infrastructure, and livelihoods are most exposed to potential impacts.
This capacity to combine multiple datasets and represent uncertainty enables decision-makers to move beyond binary “yes/no” warnings toward risk-informed planning. Instead of reacting once disaster strikes, governments and humanitarian agencies can assess the likelihood and severity of impacts in advance — allowing anticipatory action to be triggered before peak hazard events.
What changed during Cyclone Ditwah?
When Cyclone Ditwah struck Sri Lanka, AWARE allowed government agencies and humanitarian partners to respond earlier and more coherently than would otherwise have been possible.
Within the national Emergency Operations Centre, AWARE supported rapid briefings to senior authorities, integrating rainfall monitoring, flood forecasts, and satellite inundation mapping. Digitizing police incident reports accelerated cross-agency coordination, while drone-based damage assessments and satellite flood mapping supported recovery planning.
In the critical early hours of the emergency, this combination of forecasting, monitoring, and mapping enabled faster information flows between agencies and accelerated situational awareness.
At the same time, district-level preparedness work — developed through earlier anticipatory-action simulations — helped communities act before floodwaters reached their peak.
Save the Children in Sri Lanka wishes to express its sincere appreciation to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) for the invaluable partnership and technical collaboration extended through the CGIAR Climate Action Program
Julian Chellappah, Country Director for Save the Children Sri Lanka
Scaling the science
Today, AWARE has already been piloted or deployed in more than 10 countries, including Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Zambia.
The platform is being embedded within Sri Lanka’s disaster risk governance system and is being used by the Disaster Management Centre and technical agencies including the Department of Meteorology, the National Building Research Institute, and the Irrigation Department. The IWMI team is currently supporting the Disaster Management Centre in preparing a countrywide Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) as part of the “Rebuilding Sri Lanka” initiative, informing short- to long-term resilience strategies to mitigate future climate extremes.
While the platform strengthens national disaster response, its impact extends beyond government systems. Through a collaboration with Save the Children Sri Lanka, AWARE has been integrated into humanitarian programming designed to reach communities most exposed to climate risks.
The partnership currently supports more than 500,000 people with climate advisories, flood and drought alerts, and preparedness guidance.
As climate extremes intensify, the ability to anticipate — rather than merely respond to — disasters is becoming increasingly vital.
AWARE demonstrates how CGIAR science can bridge climate data and frontline action — helping governments, humanitarian organizations, and communities reduce risk before crises escalate.
Contributing external partners: Disaster Management Centre (Sri Lanka); Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources Management (Sri Lanka); Save the Children (Sri Lanka); Department of Meteorology (Sri Lanka); National Building Research Institute (Sri Lanka)