IMPROVED inter-agency communication and the establishment of community disaster management committees have resulted in villages and settlements being better prepared and more vigilant when it comes to natural disasters.
This was the view of Nadi Basin Demonstration project manager of the Integrated Water Resource Management team, Vinesh Kumar.
"We have seen a huge improvement in communications between all agencies concerned with natural disaster monitoring and this is proving to be a big plus especially in the dissemination of information and warnings to flood-prone communities in the Western Division," he said.
"The setting up of 12 community disaster management committees (CDMCs) in Nadi, one of the areas most prone to floods, has seen significant improvement when it comes to natural disaster preparation.
"This has been evident with the last floods and Tropical Cyclone Evan."
Mr Kumar said the river level and rainfall gauges that had been erected in the Nadi and Ba basins worked extremely well in providing real-time data to the IWRM team and to the relevant government agencies. "The Nadi system is networked and we receive a constant stream of data which enables us to do a better analysis when heavy showers occur and river levels rise to critical level."