Welcome to South Asia Hydromet Forum

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World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland

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This Forum is conceived as the first in a series of such consultations that aims to showcase and push ongoing national-level modernization efforts in hydromet service delivery to the next level through regional-level collaboration. Its focus is on bringing together agencies providing and using weather services. As such, it puts the issue of service delivery and the need for regional collaboration and innovation center stage. Though narrow in scope, the Forum aims to contribute to building and strengthening a constituency around the development of weather and climate services relevant to the productivity of key climate dependent sectors and impact lives of people in the region on an ongoing basis.

Session 1: Importance of Hydromet Services in Resilient Development

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Hydromet or hydro-meteorological hazards are a growing cause of instability and losses globally. In South Asia Region, the number of disasters has quadrupled over the past four decades.

Session 2: Regional Delivery of Early Warnings and Climate Products

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Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Climate Services on regional and national levels could help areas prepare for severe weather. Science and technologies for weather prediction has resulted in greater relevance to regional information as well as to the linking and sharing of early warning systems.

Session 3: Hydromet Modernization Efforts in the Region

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As one of the most climate-change and disaster-prone regions in the world, SAR countries have taken proactive steps to address these challenges. Improved hydromet services will increase weather and climate change adaptation and resilience. It also has social and economic benefits by better managing risk in weather-related disasters and providing information for more efficient operation of weather and climate dependent sectors.

Session 4: Early Warnings and Disaster Risk Management

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Improvements in hydromet systems have helped shift the paradigm for disaster risk management from post- disaster response to a more comprehensive approach encompassing prevention and preparedness measures. With progress in technology and science there have been advancements in better preparedness and forward- looking planning at various levels.

Session 5: Linking Communities to Weather and Climate Service

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Communities and the general population continue to be dependent on improved weather and climate services. Urban meteorology could protect densely-populated vulnerable urban areas such as pre-positioning assets for flood management and plan resilient habitats.

Session 6: Roundtable on Regional Collaboration - Thematic Areas and Working Modalities

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This session is focused on hearing voices from the region, with a view to commit to regional collaboration and agree on follow up actions to be elaborated in the Forum’s statement.

Session 7: Development Partner Support for Regional Cooperation

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Modernizing NMHSs is a relatively new area of technical assistance and investment support. Until the mid-1990s, investments in NMHSs were structured as small-scale activities within water resource management, agricultural or emergency operations. Since the mid-1990’s, however, there has been an overall rising trend in hydromet investments and a gradual shift toward developing more complete systems, upgrades that serve all or many users and implicitly aim at being sustainable. This calls for greater coordination and the building of an ‘alliance’ among development partners, to avoid fragmentation of advisory, technical and financing support that often increase the burden on countries or leave unsustainable systems in place.