Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) was contracted by UNDP to support the Government of Malawi in Establishing Community-Based Flood Early Warning System (CBFEWS) in the flood prone districts in Malawi. The project aimed at supporting the government efforts  on Scaling up the Use of Modernized Climate Information and Early Warning systems (M-CLIMES) with support of Green Climate Fund (GCF) through UNDP. The projected targeted the flood prone districts of Karonga, Rumphi, Nkhata-Bay, Nkhotakota, Salima, Dedza, Zomba and Phalombe districts. It aims to support the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) in its mandate and efforts towards disaster risk reduction and building community resilience to climate shocks such as flood and drought. 

Through partnership with International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Sustainable Eco Engineering Pvt. Ltd (SEE) of Nepal and local support from UNDP, DoDMA, Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (DCCMS) and Malawi Red Cross Society (MRCS) of Malawi, RCMRD established and operationalized 21 telemetric CBFEWS systems in the 8 districts providing timely and reliable flood early warning information to most vulnerable communities.

CBFEWS system has been integrated with Earth Observation (EOs) and Satellite technologies (GEOGloWS) hence increasing the warning lead time from hours to 15 days to enhance community preparedness. It automatically generates the flood early warning information that enable the community take action towards that reduces their risk and vulnerability flood disaster hence saving lives and livelihood and enhancing community preparedness. Training and capacity building for stakeholders are on-going with the forthcoming SOP training workshop.